Daphne Dale

Daphne Dale (18 July 1932 – 9 July 1982), sometimes seen as Daphné Dayle, was a British ballet dancer born in Kenya. She was a member of the London Festival Ballet, the Harkness Ballet, and the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, and appeared in the Gene Kelly film Invitation to Dance. She also starred in French films in the 1960s.

Early life Dale was born on 18 July 1932 in Nairobi, Kenya, the daughter of British parents Joseph Dale and Enid Button Dale. Initially trained as a dancer in Kenya, she moved to London at age 14, to study under Grace Cone and Olive Ripman.

Career Dale and a number of other dancers from the Cone-Ripman school joined the newly formed Festival Ballet, founded by Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin, in 1949. She later joined the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. She was a member of the Harkness Ballet in the 1960s, and later a teacher at the Geneva Opera Ballet. She had a role in the "Ring around the Rosy" segment of the Gene Kelly film Invitation to the Dance (1956). She toured with the London Festival Ballet in the United States in 1954, dancing in Les Sylphides and Prince Igor.

In the early 1970s, Dayle starred in Mon Paris Amour, a "titillating" burlesque revue in Miami. She was a horse trainer in her last eight years.

Films As Daphné Dayle, she appeared in several French-language films in the 1960s. She married again in 1971, in Florida, to William "Beau" Edmonds, and petitioned for United States citizenship in 1975.