He adored telling this story of near disaster and how he had triumphed, just as he relished the report of how he went on stage every night on tour in his The Cosmic Dance of Shiva, requiring all manner of spinal flexibilities and related actions, while his sacroiliac was painfully out of place.

A career in dance, however, was by no means even contemplated at this time.

Diphtheria struck suddenly, almost fatally.

At the outset the matter of Ted's taste arose.

Near the end of his life he went into a tirade about people who had been "disloyal" to him, triggered by the most recent defection.

There were bickerings, outright fights, screaming tantrums, but Ted's vision of the Greater Denishawn had come true.

But that closing night at Carnegie was without a hint of decline.