Bettis, Valerie (1919—)

American dancer and choreographer. Born Valerie Elizabeth Bettis in Houston, Texas, on December 20, 1919; one of two children of Royal Holt and Valerie Elizabeth (McCarthy) Bettis; attended the University of Texas; studied dance with Rowena Smith and Tina Flade in Houston, and with Hanya Holm in New York; married Bernardo Segall (a Brazilian concert pianist and composer), in 1943 (divorced); married Arthur A. Schmidt.

Born in Houston, Texas, in 1919, Valerie Bettis began her dancing lessons at age ten, three years before the death of her father. After a year of college, she left for New York to study under Hanya Holm in whose Trend she made her professional debut in 1937. The following year, Bettis joined the Hanya Holm company, where she remained for two years. Her first major solo was in The Desperate Heart in 1943. In 1944, Bettis founded her own group, presenting, among others, As I Lay Dying and Domino Furioso. Three years later, she choreographed Virginia Sampler for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and in 1948 she enjoyed a huge success on Broadway as Tiger Lily in the musical Inside U.S.A. Bettis choreographed for television in the 1940s before turning to film; in Hollywood, she worked on two Rita Hayworth vehicles for Columbia Pictures in 1951: Affair in Trinidad and Salomé. Bettis also choreographed and appeared in the off-Broadway and London productions of Ulysses in Nighttown in 1958. She founded her own dance studio in New York in 1963 and also taught at the Perry-Mansfield School at Connecticut College.