You could tell that this is a real, true ballerina.” SHE WAS BORN Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief in Fairfax, Okla., where the Tall Chiefs were a prominent Osage family. Her great-grandfather Chief ...

but the first American prima ballerina," Paschen points out. "Her birth name was Elizabeth Marie Tallchief. When she was young, [the ballet company] asked my mother to change her name to Maria ...