and screen. After being what his biographer Kathrine Sorley Walker calls "an uninterested and recalcitrant scholar" at Prince Alfred College, Adelaide, Helpmann was taken on as a student apprentice by Anna Pavlova when she was on tour in Australia in 1926. He was trained by Alexis Dolinoff, her leading male dancer. He then joined the theatrical producers J. C. Williamson Ltd, as principal dancer for musicals, revues, and pantomimes, beginning with Franz Lehár's Frasquita in 1927. He later appeared in Katinka, The Merry Widow, The New Moon, Queen High, This Year of Grace and Tip-Toes, appearing with stars such as Gladys Moncrieff, Marie Burke and Maisie Gay. Sorley Walker writes, "His vitality and bravura presentation of dances stopped various shows". Robert Helpmann cites Melbourne eccentric, beautician, radio broadcaster, actor and dancer Stephanie Deste as one of the influences over his dancing and acting career. Vic-Wells Ballet The English actress Margaret Rawlings, who was touring Australia, was impressed by Helpmann. She encouraged him to pursue a career in Britain, and provided him with an introduction to Ninette de Valois, director of the Vic-Wells Ballet (later named the Sadler's Wells Ballet). Helpmann left Australia in 1932, and did not return until 1955. De Valois accepted him into her company. He impressed her – she later wrote "Everything about him proclaims the artist born" – although she noted not only his strengths but also his weaknesses: "talented, enthusiastic, extremely intelligent, great facility, witty, cute as a monkey, quick as a squirrel, a sense of theatre and his own possible achievements therein" but "academically technically weak, lacking in concentration, too fond of a good time and too busy having it". In the mid-1930s, probably at Rawlings's suggestion, he added a second "n" to his surname, to give it a more foreign and exotic air. In April 1934 de Valois created a new ballet, The Haunted Ballroom, with Helpmann and Alicia Markova in the leading roles. The Times commented that of the soloists Helpmann "had the greatest opportunities, and made fine use of them". He co-starred with Markova in Swan Lake, danced in operas, and appeared at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park. In 1935 he was leading dancer in the revue Stop Press, with music by Irving Berlin. At Sadler's Wells he danced the principal role in another new de Valois ballet, The Rake's Progress, and in 1936 Frederick Ashton choreographed a highly romantic