Dimitri Tiomkin and Albertina Rasch.

Albertina Rasch, the wife of Dimitri Tiomkin from 1926 until her death in 1967, had an enviable career in dance, as a ballerina, choreographer, and teacher. The teenage premiere danseuse wowed Viennese concert hall audiences with her Classical ballet performances; however, fame came in the United States where she embraced vaudeville before moving into Broadway and motion pictures as a celebrated dance director. As a leading practitioner and advocate of American ballet, her influence on the art of dancing on Broadway and in early sound film musicals came largely through her own ballet troupe, the Albertina Rasch dancers. The “Czarina of Broadway,” as she became known was acknowledged in Film Choreographers and Dance Directors (McFarland, 1997) as the first Broadway dance director to use Classical ballet in precision line work. Mme. Rasch was one of the most important and influential dance directors for a period of about fifteen years beginning in the mid-1920s. Learn more about Rasch and her personal and professional connection to Tiomkin. The Albertina Rasch story and photographs are coming soon to these pages.