Victor Silvester

British dancer

Victor Marlborough Silvester OBE (25 February 1900 – 14 August 1978) was a English dancer, author, musician and dance band leader whose records sold 75 million copies from the 1930s through to the 1980s. He was a significant figure in the development of ballroom dance during the first half of the 20th century.[1][2] Victor married Dorothy Newton in 1922, a few days after winning the World Ballroom Dancing Championship.[3]

Silvester was born in Wembley, Middlesex. He died in France.

After World War II, his orchestra and his weekly television programme, Victor Silvester's Dancing Club, kept him in the public eye. His 1927 textbook, Modern Ballroom Dancing, was an immediate bestseller and has remained in print through many editions, the last issued in 2005. He wrote ten other books, including his autobiography.

References change

  1. Scott, Derek B. 2004. Silvester, Victor Marlborough (1900–1978), in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press.
  2. Silvester, Victor Marlborough (1900-1978) in Who Was Who, A&C Black, London, 2007.
  3. Victor Silvester 1958. Dancing is my life: the autobiography of Victor Silvester. Heinemann, London.