Photograph courtesy of Elizabeth Heinz Neuman

Nana Ruth Gollner gave this glamour shot to her friend in Los Gatos.

Picture from the Past

Los Gatan Nana Ruth Gollner danced to a life of ballet fame

By John S. Baggerly

Last week we left Nana Ruth Gollner dancing in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Hollywood Bowl and about to embark on an international career. It was at "The Bowl" that she danced with and became lifelong friends with fellow dancer Elizabeth Heinz Neuman, long of Saratoga, who provided today's photograph and last week's Life magazine cover photo.

As today's photograph shows, the petite dancer had movie-star beauty besides a ready-made movie voice and diction. But she disdained the movies. Instead, she aimed for and obtained the goal of all young ballerinas--she joined de Basil's Ballet Russe in London and appeared in Covent Garden. During these early days, Gollner shortened her first name from Nana Ruth to Nana.

Neuman used her own ballet career to join the Civic Light Opera series in Los Angeles for a number of years. She also met her future husband, Paul Petroff, while in this company. Los Gatos and Saratoga residents were quick to subscribe to these shows when they were booked in San Francisco. While in Hollywood, Gollner also took some time off for flying lessons.

At first Gollner provoked animosity among other dancers in the Ballet Russe. Whoever heard of an American who could dance? Still just 19, Gollner, who was born in Texas in the 1910s and overcame polio in her ankles, danced throughout Europe and South America. She shared honors with Alexandra Danilova and was learning a great deal; however, she also began to rebel against the rigid formality of Russian ballet.

When the company insisted upon giving her a Russian name and billed her as Golovia, Gollner threw in the towel and joined Renee Blum's Monte Carlo Ballet, taking the place of the renowned Vera Nemchinova. Gollner was the only American in the entire company.

Gollner is how this writer's lifelong friend and fellow Los Gatos High School grad Ted Fletcher knew her at University Avenue School--now Old Town shopping center. Speaking from his home in Sacramento, he told about a romance on the school grounds.

A sure way to attract a girl's attention was to ink her initials on the back of one's hand. It was via this advertising that Fletcher and Gollner became an item and agreed to a Dutch-treat "date" at the town swimming pool.

For whatever reason--perhaps Fletcher wishing to see Gollner in a bathing suit--they agreed to a Saturday visit to the pool in the former Memorial Park. When they met at the designated spot, Gollner canceled the date. "I got mad and punched her on the shoulder," Fletcher recalls.

Up through the 1960s, Gollner came to this area from wherever she was living or working to visit Neuman in Saratoga and dance teacher Paul Curtis in Los Gatos. When one of Curtis' classes put on a show at the San Jose Civic Auditorium, Gollner danced with the company, local dance teacher Betty McClendon recalled. In the 1970s, Gollner and Petroff taught in Orange County before moving to Antwerp, Belgium, where they opened another dance studio. She died there in 1980 of complications from cancer.

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