Agnes de Mille

Agnes de Mille was born in Manhattan into a theatrical family. Her father, William Churchill de Mille, worked as a playwright before following his brother, Cecil B. DeMille, to Hollywood, where they both became successful movie directors. Her mother, Anna George de Mille, was a noted feminist and a public advocate for Georgism, the economic philosophy inspired by her father, Henry George. The family moved to California when Agnes de Mille’s father got his big break in Hollywood and she was educated there until she was nineteen years old. Her parents divorced at this time and she moved back to New York City with her mother and younger sister, Margaret.

In 1943, de Mille married Walter Foy Prude, an Army officer stationed in New Mexico. Her husband was sent abroad for the first two years of their marriage, serving in Germany during the conclusion of the Second World War. Their son, Jonathan, was born in 1946. De Mille suffered a stroke in 1975 just as she was about to go on stage to deliver a lecture entitled “Conversations About Dance.” The stroke left her partially paralyzed but she recovered and continued to work until shortly before her death from a second stroke in 1993.

Key Dates & Events

• 1933 - de Mille moves to London to study under Dame Marie Rambert.
• 1939 - de Mille becomes one of the founding members of the Ballet Theatre (now known as the American Ballet Theatre).
• 1943 - de Mille marries army officer Walter Foy Prude.
• 1943 - de Mille has her breakthrough into musical theatre, when she is asked to choreograph the musical Oklahoma!.
• 1947 - de Mille wins the Tony Award for Best Choreography for Lerner and Loewe’s Brigadoon.
• 1951 - de Mille publishes her memoir Dance to the Piper. It is republished in 2015.
• 1962 de Mille wins the Tony Award for Best Choreography for Kwamina.
• 1973 - de Mille is inducted into the American Hall of Fame.
• 1975 - de Mille suffers from a stroke that leaves her partially paralyzed.
• 1980 - de Mille is awarded the Kennedy Center Honors.
• 1986 - de Mille receives the National Medal of Arts.