Sono Osato
Sono Osato (born August 29, 1919 in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American dancer and actress of Japanese and European descent.Osato began her career at the age of fourteen with the Ballets Russes; she later went on to dance with American Ballet Theatre (then Ballet Theatre). While at ABT, she danced roles in such ballets as Kenneth MacMillan's Sleeping Beauty, Antony Tudor's Pillar of Fire, and Bronislava Nijinska's The Beloved. As a musical theater performer, her Broadway credits included principal dancer in One Touch of Venus (Donaldson Award) and Ivy Smith in the original On the Town. In the late 1940s and 1950s, Osato briefly pursued a career as an actress, appearing on Broadway in Peer Gynt, in the film The Kissing Bandit, and in occasional guest appearances on TV series like The Adventures of Ellery Queen (1950). She founded the Sono Osato Scholarship Program in Graduate Studies at Career Transition For Dancers to help former dancers finance graduate work in both the professions and the liberal arts.