Pepita de Oliva

Despite her official marriage with her dance teacher Juan Antonio Gabriel de la Oliva in 1851, the following year she established a partnership with the British diplomat Lionel Sackville-West with whom she had five children.

Her daughter Victoria gave birth to the English writer Vita Sackville-West, who in 1937 published a biography of her grandmother titled Pepita.

[1] Her mother was a gypsy washerwoman and dealer in old clothes who had earlier performed in a circus, while Pedro Durán, a barber, died in a street brawl when she was six.

Her mother took her to Madrid and convinced the director of the Teatro del Principe to send her to dancing lessons as a means of joining the theatre's corps de ballet.

After equal acclaim in German cities, including Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Berlin, in May 1852 she appeared at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, dancing the "Madrileña", the "Aragoneza", and the "Jaleo de Jerez".

[1] Her influence there was so great that the Viennese actress Marie Geistinger copied her style, appearing in Die falsche Pepita at the Theater in der Josefstadt in 1852.