RFK 50 th anniversary 5 june 1968
Robert F. Kennedy Assassination at Ambassador Hotel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZupttkO7Xg
Robert F. Kennedy Dying - ABC News Clip (June 5, 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzqoS3W4sjU
Robert F. Kennedy death announcement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujPidSx7Vus
First Person Harry Benson RFK Photographer / BBC World News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UICDj10UblY
Robert and Ethel Kennedy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gkji5hisg3M
Robert Kennedy Funeral (1968) | British Pathe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_3U4J3YrS4
Maya Plisetskaya
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Plisetskaya
Friendship with Robert F. Kennedy
U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the younger brother to president John F. Kennedy, befriended Plisetskaya, with whom he shared the birth date of 20 November 1925. She was invited to gatherings with Kennedy and his family at their estate on Cape Cod in 1962. They later named their sailboat Maya, in her honor.
As the Cuban Missile Crisis had ended a few weeks earlier, at the end of October, 1962, U.S. and Soviet relations were at a low point. Diplomats of both countries considered her friendship with Kennedy to be a great benefit to warmer relations, after weeks of worrisome military confrontation. Years later, when they met in 1968, he was then campaigning for the presidency, and diplomats again suggested that their friendship would continue to help relations between the two countries. Plisetskaya summarizes Soviet thoughts on the matter:
Maya Plisetskaya should bring the candidate presents worthy of the great moment. Stun the future president with Russian generosity to continue and deepen contacts and friendship.:
Of their friendship, Plisetskaya wrote in her autobiography:
With me Robert Kennedy was romantic, elevated, noble, and completely pure. No seductions, no passes.:265
Robert Kennedy was assassinated just days before he was to see Plisetskaya again in New York. Gershunoff, Plisetskaya's manager at the time, recalls that on the day of the funeral, most of the theaters and concert halls in New York City went "dark", closed in mourning and respect. The Bolshoi likewise planned to cancel their performance, but they decided instead to do a different ballet than planned, one dedicated to Kennedy. Gershunoff describes that evening:
The most appropriate way to open such an evening would be for the great Plisetskaya to perform The Dying Swan, which normally would close an evening’s program to thunderous applause with stamping feet, and clamors for an encore.... This assignment created an emotional burden for Maya. She really did not want to dance that work that night ... I thought it was best for me to remain backstage in the wings. That turned out to be one of the most poignant moments I have ever experienced. Replacing the usual thunderous audience applause at the conclusion, there was complete silence betokening the feelings of a mourning nation in the packed, cavernous Metropolitan Opera House. Maya came off the stage in tears, looked at me, raised her beautiful arms and looked upward. Then disappeared into her dressing room.
Maya Plisetskaya - Dying Swan 1959
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-AMH_Woywg&start_radio=1&list=RDY-AMH_Woywg&t=0
The Dying Swan" Maya Plisetskaya Age 62 - Boston
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIKoc4X0Cko&list=RDY-AMH_Woywg&index=2
THE DYING SWAN Plisetskaya, 1975
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZnNnGidYVs&list=RDY-AMH_Woywg&index=5