We all know how the quickly child stars burn out. I’ve worked on books about Mackenzie Phillips, Todd Bridges and Jodie Sweetin and their struggles with drug addiction. It goes to show that growing up is difficult enough without being haunted by the public’s expectations and the ghost of your childhood self.
Children immortalized as literary characters have carried this burden as well. Alice Pleasance Liddell was identified as Alice in Wonderland into her eighties. Christopher Milne came to despise the Pooh books and his inability to both get away from being little Christopher Robin or receive any monetary compensation, as the elder Milne kept the royalties for himself, wanting his son to succeed by his own merits (never mind that Christopher’s games with his stuffed animals provided the literary fodder). Peter Llewelyn Davies referred to the book and character J. M. Barrie named after him, Peter Pan, as “that terrible masterpiece” and committed suicide at the age of 63.
In the 1970s photographer Jill Krementz wrote a series of photoessays known as the “A Very Young…” series. The first, A Very Young Dancer, follows several months in the life of a ten-year-old girl who studies ballet at George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet and wins the role of Marie in the New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker. Many a child who sees the Nutcracker at Lincoln Center dreams of being in the ballet and living the life of a talented ballet student, so it was no wonder that this book made an impact on a great deal of young readers.
Over the years, discussion boards across the Internet have received many a query as to what became of Stephanie. Finally, today’s New York Times reports in “Storybook Ballerina’s True-Life Adventure” that Stephanie’s adult life wasn’t nearly as storybook perfect. Shortly after publication, she was asked to leave the school, something that became a source of shame for the “Very Young Dancer.”
It’s too bad that Stephanie felt this way, as being asked to leave a school that acts as a training ground is more the norm than continuing on to a professional career. It’s gratifying that Stephanie has overcome her demons and is now happy with her life in Wyoming.
I’d read two other books in the series, and these “heroines” fared better. Katherine Healy, subject of A Very Young Skater, performed in John Curry’s Ice Dancing, also danced Marie for City Ballet, and went on to act in the Hollywood film Six Weeks. At age fifteen she became a senior principal dancer with the London Festival Ballet, left dance to graduate from Princeton, then returned to ballet. After becoming disillusioned with the dance world, she returned to skating and now coaches with her husband, Peter Burrows.
For Torrance York, A Very Young Gymrnast, being the subject of a book was a more positive experience: it pointed the way to a life away from gymnastics to a future career as a photographer.
