WonderWmn212 OP t1_jaavvhl wrote on February 28, 2023 at 2:38 AM

Reply to comment by SmolderingSauna in TIL American ballet dancer Tanaquil Le Clercq contracted polio at age 27 in 1956 and was confined to a wheelchair. Le Clercq began studying with George Balanchine at age 12 and married him at age 23. When she was 15, Balanchine choreographed a dance for a polio benefit which presaged her illness. by WonderWmn212

According to The Master's Muse by Varley O'Connor (albeit a novelization of Le Clercq's life), "[t]here wasn't enough vaccine in 1956. Only the youngest dancers in the company" were innoculated before they went abroad on their 10-week European tour beginning in August 1956. After Le Clerq contracted polio and was confined to an iron lung in a hospital in Copenhagen on November 1, 1956 (which made international news), the American Embassy arranged to fly in enough of the vaccine for 50 dancers and they all returned healthy to New York at the end of the tour on November 12, 1956.