Christensen, Wililam F. (William Farr)

Willam Farr Christensen was born on August 27, 1902, to Christian Bjorregard and Elizabeth Farr Christensen. In his hometown of Brigham City, Utah, he studied music with his father and dancing with his uncles Moses and L. Peter Christensen. Willam graduated from Box Elder High School and continued his ballet training with Stefano Mascagno, Luigi Albertieri, and Michel Fokine, among other teachers, in New York City and Chicago. He taught ballet in his uncle Peter's dancing schools in Brigham City and Ogden. In 1926 two of the Christensen brothers, Willam and Lew (the other brothers were Harold and Frederick) and two Utah ballet students, Mignon Lee of Ogden and Wiora Stoney of Salt Lake City, organized a ballet act and toured small theatres between the West Coast and Chicago. The act, billed as The LeCrist Brothers, was conducted by the boys' father. A year later they broke into vaudeville by joining an act called The Berkoffs, a singing and dancing review. By 1925 the Christensen brothers and their partners were touring the Orpheum Circuit billed as The Mascagno Four, managed by their teacher Stefano Mascagno. Willam married Mignon Lee on December 3, 1928. The Christensen Brothers was the group's title from 1930 to 1932.

In 1932, due to his wife's ill health, Christensen abandoned the vaudeville stage to take over his deceased uncle Moses Christensen's ballet school in Portland, Oregon. While in Portland, 1932 to 1937, he established the Willam F. Christensen Ballet. Among his students were Janet Reed, one of America's first ballerinas, and Mattlyn Gevurtz (Gavers), who joined the Department of Ballet at the University of Utah in 1968 and later became its director.

...