Massine, Léonide [key], 1896–1979, Russian choreographer and ballet dancer, b. Leonid Fyodorovich Miassin. Massine attended the Imperial Ballet School, St. Petersburg, and became principal dancer and choreographer for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1914–20) and for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (1932–42). He was noted especially as a character dancer. His choreographed works include Parade (1917), La Boutique fantasque (1919), The Three-cornered Hat (1919), Gaité parisienne (1938), Commedia umana (1960), and he choreographed for and danced in the films The Red Shoes (1948) and Tales of Hoffman (1951). In the 1940s he worked in the United States with the Ballet Theatre.
See his autobiography (1968); biographies by V. García-Márquez (1995) and L. Norton (2004).
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