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Gillian Lynne was born Gillian Barbara Pyrke in Bromley, Kent in 1926. Growing up, she was restless at school, finding it difficult to keep still. It was a doctor who pointed out Lynne’s natural aptitude for movement and dance during a medical check up and encouraged her mother to take her to dance school. Lynne then tragically lost her mother at the age of 13 as a result of a car crash. Lynne has been married twice, firstly to the barrister Patrick Back. She met her second husband, actor and singer Peter Land, when he starred as Freddy in a production of My Fair Lady at London’s Adelphi Theatre, which she co-directed in 1978. They were married from 1980 until Lynne’s death in 2018 at the age of 92.

Key Dates & Events

• 1946 - Lynne becomes a principal ballet at the Royal Ballet.
• 1951 - Lynne leaves the Royal Ballet to join the London Palladium.
• 1953 - Lynne appears opposite Errol Flynn in the film The Master of Ballantrae.
• 1961 - Lynne makes her debut as a choreographer on The Owl and the Pussycat with the Western Theatre Ballet.
• 1963 - Lynne works with Dudley Moore on Collages at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
• 1965 - Lynne is invited to Broadway to choreograph The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd.
• 1981 - Lynne choreographs the hit musical Cats, winning the first ever Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Musical.
• 1986 - Lynne choreographs the megamusical The Phantom of the Opera.
• 1987 - Lynne wins the Bafta Award for her direction and choreography of A Simple Man.
• 2002 - Lynne returns to both the West End and Broadway with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
• 2011 - Lynne publishes her autobiography, A Dancer in Wartime.
• 2013 - Lynne is honored with the Special Olivier Award in recognition of her achievements in British theatre.
• 2014 - Lynne is made a DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the New Year Honours List.
• 2018 - The New London Theatre is renamed the Gillian Lynne Theatre.