Alexander Bennett

Linguist turned ballet dancer

Despite a late start, Alexander Bennett became a leading dancer, first with Ballet Rambert, then Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, sister company to the Royal Ballet. He was one of the rare Royal Ballet recruits not to have gone through the Royal Ballet School system. That he succeeded so well may have owed something to the shortage of male dancers during the 1950s; but even more to his own very real qualities. Tallish, blond and handsome, he was an alluring performer. His abilities, however, existed not just in his body, but in his brain. He was a talented linguist and he had an engaging personality that was friendly, persuasive and resourceful.

Born in Leith, Edinburgh, in 1929, he came from a working-class family (his father was a tram driver) which nevertheless valued education and put him and his elder brother William through the fee-paying Trinity Academy. There Alex Bennett took his Highers in French, German and Latin and was a champion of the school's athletics team. He learnt tap dance and classical piano, performing for organisations such as the Boys' Brigade.

It was watching the films of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly that got Bennett hooked on dance – on one occasion he saw an Astaire film three times on the trot, entering the cinema at 3pm then being found at 9pm by his parents, still wearing his school cap. The deciding factor came with his first sight of the Sadler's Wells Ballet (later renamed the Royal Ballet) in 1946. He began ballet with the Edinburgh teacher Marjory Middleton, who offered him a bursary. To accept this, he successfully fought to get a nine-month deferment of his military call-up. (He had by now left school and was working as a laboratory assistant.)

As a conscript, he found himself in the Intelligence Corps, where he was sent to London to learn Russian. There, he crammed in as many visits to the ballet as possible. Posted to Germany to work for the Secret Service in 1949, he saw Ballet Rambert on tour. He was demobilised in 1950 and returned to Scotland, where he agreed with his parents that a dance career would be too risky, took a job in insurance – and lasted just six months. His linguistic knowledge got him into the Foreign Office. So he was back in London, where he took ballet classes with the famous teacher Vera Volkova.

Bennett approached Marie Rambert, who advised him against a dance career because of the gaps in his training. But two weeks later, in need of a tall man for her company, she offered him a place as a junior member for £6 a week, provided he also helped in wardrobe. Given his secure and attractive job in the Foreign Office, it was a tough choice, but he joined Rambert. His made rapid progress and after only two years he was Albrecht in Giselle during the company's 1953 Sadler's Wells season, a performance which won him critical praise.

He managed to secure an interview with the Royal Ballet's founder Ninette de Valois and she accepted him into the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet in 1956. He rose through the ranks to become principal dancer. He had the elegance to dance the classical leads: Siegfried in Swan Lake, Florimund in The Sleeping Beauty, Franz in Coppélia. He also had the expressiveness for central roles in contemporary works, such as the Poet in Frederick Ashton's Apparitions and the Husband in Kenneth MacMillan's The Invitation.

When he retired in 1965, he took up ballet-master posts with companies in Brazil and South Africa. For a time he also held the same position with Western Theatre Ballet (later Scottish Ballet). He then settled in the United States, where he directed ensembles such as the Twin Cities Ballet in Illinois and the Scottish-American Ballet in Chattanooga. He brought this last company to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on several occasions between 1985 and 1995.

He returned to Scotland in 2001, buying a small house outside Edinburgh and working with Ballet West in Argyll. He staged their recent Nutcracker and was preparing their Swan Lake at their headquarters in Taynuilt, where he died. He was also writing two books: a monograph on the Bournonville ballet La Sylphide and a biography of Marie Rambert. As multi-linguists, he and Rambert had felt a great affinity and liking. But then it was easy to like Alexander Bennett for many reasons, as his dancers could attest, not least his kindness and selfless concern for others.

Nadine Meisner

Alexander Bennett, dancer, and ballet master and director: born Edinburgh 27 July 1929; died Taynuilt, Argyll 15 February 2003.