Content area
Full Text
SCRATCH THAT RUMOR. The gossipy New York dance scene is pirouettingwith rumors prima ballerina (and "On Your Toes" Tony-winner) NataliaMakarova is hanging up her toe shoes. "Natasha" planned to dance the opening-night performance of Ronald Hynd's "Rosalinda" with the Ballet de Santiago at City Center Jan. 21. Before that, she was to appear in Palm Springs, Fla. But Florida ticket sales were disastrous, so she decided to retire: She didn't sign a new contract with the American Ballet Theatre (where she always fills the Met), canceled the City Center date and, rumors have it, went into seclusion in Paris.
Rest easy, ballet fans. Makarova's husband, millionaire industrialist Edward Karkar, says she's hardly in seclusion - she's in London filming a BBC series on ballet. Reached in San Francisco, fresh from visiting his wife, he said: "She's a very active girl. She's been working with the London Festival Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada, and doing the BBC series . . . Florida was a flop because the management of the theater screwed it up . . . There's nothing to dance at ABT; she's done that stuff before. She has no need to dance just for a fee." BARBRA, FRANK, QUINCY. A few music-industry insiders called about our item yesterday relating publicist Lee Solter's "clarification" of news stories on tomorrow's Barbra Streisand HBO special. They charge her show is an "imitation" of a Frank Sinatra videotape. Says one: "When they started recording `LA Is My Lady' two years ago, producer Quincy Jones thought of taping the making of a Sinatra album. Like the new Streisand video, Quincy taped interviews with songwriters whose work Frank was singing, with Lionel Hampton, who plays on the album, and even Quincy himself....