Luba Marks

Luba Marks
Born	Luba Rudenko c.1915 Sofia, Bulgaria
Nationality	French-Russian
Occupation	Fashion designer
Awards	Coty Award, 1968
Labels	Elite Juniors; Luba for Elite.

Luba Marks was a Bulgarian-born French-American fashion designer of Russian descent specialising in sportswear from the 1950s to the 1970s. Prior to this, under the name Lubov Roudenko she was a former soloist for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in the late 1930s and early 1940s, afterwards performing on Broadway throughout the 1940s.

Luba Rudenko was born c.1915 in Sofia, Bulgaria, to Russian parents. Her parents were refugees, the rest of the Rudenko family having been killed in the Russian Revolution. They moved to Paris, where her father ran a Russian restaurant until it was forced to close following the 1932 assassination of President Paul Doumer. Following this, the family relied on Luba's skill as a dancer to help them, with Luba later recollecting "There were times when I had to win first place in a contest so we could eat."

In the 1930s Rudenko was signed up to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where she became their youngest soloist. Her stage name was Lubov Roudenko. She had a can-can sequence in the 1938 ballet Gaîté Parisienne choreographed specially for her by Léonide Massine. She would later reprise this role in the 1941 Oscar-nominated short film The Gay Parisian. Whilst with the Ballet Russes, Rudenko was the subject of several drawings by Henri Matisse in 1939. Four of his portrait sketches of her are now in the Fogg Museum. Matisse also made a drawing of Rudenko in the ballet Rouge et Noir. While on tour with the Ballet Russe, Rudenko performed the role of the Cowgirl in the 1942 ballet Rodeo until the tour reached New York and Agnes de Mille, the original choreographer, reclaimed the role for herself. Disappointed by this, Rudenko quit the Ballet Russes, and took a better-paid job performing in a Broadway production of The Merry Widow. This production launched at the Majestic Theatre on 4 August 1943, with Rudenko and James Starbuck leading the character dances, including a comic polka and a can-can number. After this, Rudenko played Grisette in Nellie Bly, a short-lived 1946 musical based on the life of Nellie Bly, and then became lead dancer for the 1946-49 Broadway production of Annie Get Your Gun, but following a knee injury, decided to pursue a career in fashion design. She continued performing until 1951, appearing in the 1950-51 Olsen and Johnson revue Pardon our French.

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