CLOSE TO HOME; Collected Pieces From a Passionate Life - New York Times

FOR several months in 1990, while reporting an article on Rudolf Nureyev, I found myself, memo book in hand, in the daunting presence of the man who kindled my passion for dance and permanently ingrained in me a romantic ideal that would prove entirely unattainable.

Rudolf Nureyev died on Jan. 6, 1993, at the age of 54. After that, I would walk past his apartment at the Dakota and gaze up at his five arching windows overlooking the park: one for the music room, three for the living room, one for the guest room.

At first these windows were shuttered. Then someone opened them, and you could see the Reynolds above the mantelpiece and the Roman marble torso. Later, the torso was pushed to one side; the paintings were removed. Then paint-spattered work ladders stood where the paintings had been. I could not study those five windows without noting that just as grief has its particular stages, so there are distinct and particular stages to the unraveling of a life.

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