From the Archives: Dancer Dies From Fall; Isadora Duncan Meets Fate

Isadora Duncan, the American dancer, was killed in an automobile accident at 9:40 o’clock tonight. Feared Accident In a conversation with a correspondent of the Associated Press yesterday, Miss Duncan said: “For the first time I am writing for money; now I am frightened that some quick accident might happen.” The premonition of her doom was only too true. Two Black Eyes At a party in New York on the eve of her sailing in 1923, a quarrel arose between her and Vessinin, which resulted in Miss Duncan receiving two black eyes. Her first New York appearance was in Daly’s Theater in 1895, as a fairy in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” After studying in Europe she appeared in London with a Shakespearean company in 1900, so inspiring Ellen Terry, herself a famous dancer, that she jumped to her feet as the dance ended and delivered an enthusiastic tribute to the younger dancer’s art. Miss Duncan’s expressed ambition was “to rediscover the beautiful, rhythmical motions of the human body; to call back to life that ideal movement which should be in harmony with the highest physical type; to awaken once more an art which has slept for 2000 year.” Returning to America after her 1900 London appearance, she was unimpressively received.