Eva Evdokimova was a world-renowned ballerina and favorite partner of the legendary Rudolf Nureyev during the latter stages of his career.
When the 60-year-old succumbed to cancer in 2009, her husband-manager Michael Gregori took out a paid death notice gushing that “a celebration of the life and work” of “one of the greatest ballerinas” was being organized “with all the major ballet companies worldwide.”
The notice said a private service would be followed by burial at the historic Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, the final resting place of author Herman Melville and music titans Irving Berlin, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington.
But a few things were missing. No specific dates were mentioned. Eva’s side of the family, including the two half-brothers she grew up with, were not named. No funeral home was cited.
In fact, Eva’s half-brother now claims, there never was a service and her family has no idea where her remains are located.
“It’s bull sh-t. The whole idea of a big funeral was a big hoax,” fumed Boris Santini. “I don’t know anybody who went to the service.”
There is no record of the ballerina being buried at Woodlawn, the cemetery office confirmed to The Post last week.
Santini, 78, who lives in San Juan, P.R., reached out to The Post after recently seeing a 2018 riches-to-rags profile on Gregori, a former Julliard-trained maestro who went from living the high life to a homeless shelter. Santini said the two “have been incommunicado for many years” and claims the “Svengali-like” Gregori turned his “extraordinarily malleable” sister against her family and friends.
Just three years ago, Gregori, a stocky man with a walrus mustache and a penchant for braggadocio, was living in style in an East 56th Street tower apartment owned by his mother, Katherine Gregori, who died in 2012. Gregori claimed a family feud forced him out of his late mom’s pad and into an East Village shelter. He’s no longer living there, a shelter supervisor said last week. Gregori, who has a cell phone, did not return multiple messages seeking comment.
Santini wonders why there was no outrage in the art and ballet world when his sister — who Nureyev reportedly made a star attraction at the London Festival Ballet in the 1970s — passed with nary a mention.
“Why has there not been a hue and cry about the non-funeral of Eva Evdokimova?,” he said.
“Rudolf Nureyev, Eva’s partner so often, was carried by a coterie of principal dancers, from the Paris Opera Ballet, to the small Russian cemetery just outside Paris. He was laid to rest in a tomb covered in small stones from Carrara, Italy. Today, thousands visit his tomb every year. In the winter, his adherents will drink vodka before his grave, in the snow, and leave a bottle or two for the Immortal One in the Russian tradition.
“For Eva, there was nothing!”
Santini said he simply wants his sister — who was the first American ballerina invited to dance at the famed Kirov — to get “legitimate recognition” and have a place where he can “put a flower” or “pay my respects.”
When the family realized her body was not buried at Woodlawn, it theorized that Gregori cremated her remains and possesses, or has stored, her ashes.
“It could be in an urn or a storage vault,” Santini said “He could have scattered the ashes off the Staten Island Ferry.”
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November 17, 2019 at 06:48AM
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The search for Rudolf Nureyev's favorite dance partner's final resting place - New York Post
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