NAGY, IVAN

born April 28, 1943, Debrecen, Hung. Hungarian ballet dancer who lived in the United States from 1965. Nagy trained as a youth with his mother and first performed with the Budapest State Opera Ballet. Frederic Franklin, then the director of the National Ballet of Washington, D.C., saw Nagy when he won a silver medal at the International Ballet Competition at Varna in 1965. Impressed, Franklin arranged for Nagy to appear as a guest artist with his company, which Nagy subsequently joined. Nagy later performed with the New York City Ballet and became a principal dancer in the American Ballet Theatre in 1968. Nagy was adept in roles as diverse as Iago in The Moor's Pavanne and James in La Sylphide and was internationally acclaimed. He retired from the stage in 1978.