ABSTRACT
It is May 7th, 1959, in Toronto, Canada. Ricki Starr, the ballet dancing wrestler, a man with dark hair and movie-star features, enters the squared circle of the wrestling ring at the Maple Leaf Gardens with a nimble leap. Clad in scant white briefs and ballet slippers, he slithers under the ropes and prances to the turnbuckle where he carefully places himself into ballet’s first position. He begins a pre-match warm up with traditional elements of the classical ballet barre. Through the smoke-filled arena, the crowd begins to laugh with audible surprise.1 His effeminate delicacy and graceful agility flabbergast and fascinate the crowd, and they wait with bated breath to see what will happen next. When his opponent enters the ring, the crowd is further impressed by Starr’s bravery and lightheartedness in the face of difficulty. Lawrence Meade wrote:
I stood on my chair at ringside to watch Ricki Starr come tripping down the aisle like a Nijinsky-with-biceps. I was amazed . . . at the small size. In a business where his opponents rarely weigh less than 220 and tower well over 6 feet, it doesn’t seem possible that Starr could hold up under so terrific a disadvantage night after night.2
