Mikhail Baryshnikov

Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov is yet another most famous male ballet dancer. He is a dancer, choreographer, and actor, but he is most renowned as one of the finest ballerinos in ballet history. His energetic technique changed the male dancer's role in ballet, allowing dancers to be recognized as athletes as much as artists.

He began his career with the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, but he defected and sought political asylum in Canada in 1974. He continued to dance with Canadian and American ballet groups. By 1980, Mikhail Baryshnikov had starred in a major motion picture, The Turning Point (1977), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, had performed with some of the top dance companies in the United States, and had become artistic director of the American Ballet Theater. He was the most famous ballet dancer in the world at the time, and his lack of ego continued to endear him to the American public.

Mikhail Baryshnikov was known for his acting abilities and sex appeal, but he also had success on the big screen. Helen Mirren and Isabella Rossellini played his accomplices in crime in the 1985 musical White Nights. His acting abilities were also on display in The Turning Point (1977), which starred Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft. Baryshnikov's role as Carrie Bradshaw's boyfriend Aleksandr Petrovsky in the hit series Sex and the City (2004) was widely regarded as a triumph.

Born: 1948
Nationality: Latvian