Dame Marie Rambert, Mrs Dukes DBE (20 February 188812 June 1982) was a Polish-born English dancer and pedagogue who exerted great influence on British ballet, both as a dancer and teacher. Early years and background Born to a liberal Lithuanian Jewish family in Warsaw, Congress Poland, she was originally named Cyvia (Cesia) Rambam. Her father and two of his brothers later changed their last names to make them seem only children in order to escape military service in the Imperial Russian Army; and so, while one brother retained the name Rambam, her father changed his to Ramberg, another of his brothers went to Rambert, and the last changed his name to Warszawski. She changed her name to Myriam Ramberg, and finally left it in the French form Marie Rambert. In later years she was known to friends and dancers as Mim. Her father, Yakov Ramberg (1855–1928), born in Vištytis, a small town in Suwałki Governorate (nowadays in Lithuania), was a learned merchant and Hebrew publisher and lexicographer, and a Zionist. Her mother, Eiga Ramberg (née Lap), born in the town of Suchowola (nowadays in north-east Poland), daughter of Rabbi Elhanan Tzvi Lap, was a community worker. Rambert was the fourth of seven children. The eldest child, Rakhel, was the wife of Hebrew writer Micha Josef Berdyczewski. The second, Ewa Ramberg-Figulla, was a Slavist, the wife of German Hittitologist Hugo Heinrich Figulla and mother of physicist Johannes Figulla (father-in-law of German writer Christoph Hein and grandfather of German writer Jakob Hein). Rambert met her husband Ashley Dukes, a soldier on leave, at a dinner party in 1917. In Rambert's autobiography she says "after four days of personal meetings, and seven months of correspondence we were married on 3 March 1918." This was done partly as a joke so that Dukes could get four weeks of extended leave instead of two days. Their marriage lasted 41 years, until he died in 1959; the couple had two daughters, Angela (1920–2006) and Helena. The poet, Aidan Andrew Dun, is her grandson. Training Rambert began her dance training in her schooling early on. Subjects like foreign languages and history seemed to come easy; however she was a restless child and ended up getting bad marks because of her endless movements during class. At one point in her early training her dance instructor stated that 'In her, was the true spirit of dance.' She was unimpressed