Margaret Graham Hills obituary

Other lives: Ballet dancer who spent 73 years teaching after hopes of a stage career were cut short by injury

My mother, Margaret Graham Hills, who has died aged 97, spent an astonishing 73 of those years teaching ballet, initially at the Royal Ballet School in London, and later at various studios in Los Angeles. She was fearless, funny and kind, and she had a phenomenal memory – after seeing a ballet just a few times she could teach the choreography.

Born in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, Margaret was the daughter of Ida (nee Cockshott), an amateur painter, and Ellis Hampson, an executive for the Co-op. Her beloved brother, John Graham, was nine years younger and Margaret later appropriated his middle name as her stage surname.

She always had a passion for ballet, starting dance classes at three. After leaving the Priory school, Shrewsbury, at 15, she was offered a place at Sadler’s Wells Ballet and moved to London on her own. During the second world war she danced for the forces at nearby bases.

A catastrophic knee injury when she was 17 put an end to her dream of continuing to dance as a ballerina. Instead, the Royal Ballet School’s founder, Ninette de Valois, hired Margaret as her assistant and a teacher. She proved to be extraordinary. Among her young students were Antoinette Sibley, Anthony Dowell and Georgina Parkinson.

In 1950, De Valois chose Margaret to go to Ankara for a year, to help found Turkey’s national ballet company. She thrived there, and learned Turkish in order to teach the aspiring dancers.

In the late 1940s, a friend had invited Margaret to watch a ballet on her new television. There she met her friend’s stepson, Brian Hills, an industrial designer. Margaret told her mother that same day that she had met her future husband. On her return to the UK in 1951, Margaret married Brian; they lived in London and later moved to Kent. She helped to write the syllabus for the Royal Academy of Dance examination board, became expert in ballet pantomime, and was appointed senior ballet mistress of the RBS at just 27 years of age.

Margaret and Brian had three children; the family moved to the US in 1971, when Brian got a job at Mattel Toys. They intended to stay for just a year, but never left. Margaret taught professional and advanced dancers in Los Angeles at Stanley Holden’s Dance Center (1972-97); at UCLA, where she was a visiting professor and taught all ballet classes (1984-93); and Westside Ballet, where she taught part-time (2000-18). At 90, she reluctantly retired. She became an honorary fellow of the RAD in 2024.

Brian died in 2020. Margaret is survived by her children, Sarah, Julian and me, her grandchildren, Emily, Nicholas, Grey, Simone, Fiona and Sebastian, and her great-grandchildren, Vivian, Zoe and James.