She was the very last ballerina that George Balanchine picked for the New York City Ballet while he was alive.
Remarked she retired after she was dancing on-stage with girls younger than her daughter and was worried about "needing a plastic hip pretty soon".
As a little girl, she and her older brothers would partake in wrestling, football, water-skiing, basketball and horseback-riding.
She was the youngest to be picked to join the New York City Ballet, at age sixteen.
Won the Capezio Dance Award in 1991 and the Dance Magazine Award in 1992.
She was inspired to take up ballet at age after seeing a performance of Rudolph Nureyev and Dame Margot Fonteyn dance "Sleeping Beauty".
Her father Jack, is a doctor. Her mother Alicia, a Realtor and French teacher.
At the age of 12 she began studying with Irina Kosmouska in Los Angeles, and that same year she attended a Summer Course at the School of American Ballet. Two years later, she received a full scholarship to the School of American Ballet.
Her daughter Talicia (with fellow NYCB member Peter Martins) has no interest in ballet or dance at all and aspires to be an actress.