TONY AND I purchased a miniature gray poodle puppy, and we called her Shy. She was a sweetly feminine little dog. Once she was housebroken, she went with us everywhere.

She would listen to me vocalizing at my piano and would throw her pretty head up, her mouth slightly pursed, and howl to the skies. I discovered to my surprise that I could almost make her sing scales. It was all very cute, but also somewhat annoying because I could not get on with my practice once Shy began to vocalize, so I would place her in the corridor while I did my scales. I’d hear her scratching at the door, then I’d see her little black nose appear beneath it and hear a lot of breathy huffs and puffs. I would say, “Shy,” in a warning voice and she would try her best to contain herself, uttering muffled scales in a tiny voice until she could stand it no longer—at which point she would let go again with a full-throated howl.

She was a honey of a dog.

WHILE TONY AND I had been in New York, we had stayed in touch with the lovely ballerina Svetlana Beriosova. Once we returned to London, we received an invitation from her to attend her wedding reception.

We were happy to go, and were immediately greeted by the groom, Mohammed Masud Raza Khan, whom we had never met. He welcomed us and ebulliently enfolded me in his arms.

He was the son of a wealthy Pakistani land-owner. He was tall and strikingly handsome, with dark flashing eyes, a mustache, and a head of long thick hair. He had a full, slightly drooping lower lip, which was seductively pouty—a subtle indication perhaps of his addiction to cigarettes.

Masud (or Sudi, as we later called him) could not have been more friendly or attentive. I had the uncharitable suspicion that his effusive overture was because he thought I was someone important in the theater since My Fair Lady was the hottest ticket in town.

Sudi and Svetlana quickly became our close friends, and we saw them often. Sudi was a complicated man, a psychoanalyst of some brilliance and renown. He became a very important influence in my life, inspiring and encouraging me many years later to enter into analysis. He was gentle and kind to me, and as our friendship developed, I seemed to be the only woman in his life that he didn’t wish to tear to shreds. I suppose I wasn’t a threat. He could be quite abusive to Tony and to Svetlana, but they knew him well and took it all with good grace. Sudi was just being Sudi.

We spent many evenings at their apartment in Knightsbridge. They lived in Hans Crescent, almost next to Harrods department store. The flat was a little dark, but had large rooms and very high ceilings. It was sparsely furnished. There were good lithographs on the walls and a few photos and a huge collection of books, which were Sudi’s passion. He would make trips to Paris and bring back his latest acquisitions with glee, spending a great deal of money on beautifully bound editions, which were proudly displayed in glass cases.

Sometimes he and Svetlana would get into an almighty row, and Tony and I would wait patiently until they got themselves out of it. Svetlana would argue passionately, though she adored Sudi. I grew to realize that though brilliantly cerebral, Sudi was not always emotionally healthy. His personality seemed split right down the middle, as if he was totally trapped between the cultures of east and west; one half being the imperious son of a land-owner, the other a well-trained London-based analyst, a disciple of D. W. Winnicott, the great psychoanalyst whose papers he eventually helped to edit.

In the years since his death, there has been considerable scandal surrounding his methods of work with his patients. His academic writings, however, are lauded throughout the psychoanalytic world, and I’m fairly certain that he was a better theorist than he was a practical psychoanalyst.

Sudi did not believe in bathing. He felt it robbed the skin of its essential oils, so every day he cleansed himself by using oil on his body. He was always immaculately dressed, often wearing a velvet smoking jacket with slippers to match. A cigarette would droop from his soft, half-opened lips, and ash would spill all over his elegant clothes. As life went on, it seemed that he moved further and further out toward madness, but when we knew him, he was still powerful and relatively in control of himself.

He told us initially that he was a prince—the love-child of his father’s thirteenth wife. Many years later, we discovered this to be untrue. He said that, as a child, if he didn’t win a card game he had the power to have his fellow players’ hands cut off. Tony and I were struck by this bizarre statement, and wondered if he invented his outrageous stories—and if so, why?

Svetlana was loving and dear, her laughter nearly always present. She would supervise the simple fare at the table—mostly steak, vegetables, baked potatoes—cooked and served by their houseboy. She was everything that I yearned to be: dedicated, disciplined, with a pure, clear work ethic. She seemed to want for very little in life, and kept her needs to the barest minimum. She attended ballet classes every day; she never complained, never put on airs; and with her Russian, triangular face, she was exquisitely beautiful. A core of integrity was evident in everything she did.

Whenever we could, we attended her performances. Several ballets were created for her by the great Kenneth MacMillan, then a young, up-and-coming choreographer. We saw her dance Giselle and Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. She was always superb, a little more imposing than some dancers because of her height—and she was a good actress, as well.

We had dinners with John Cranko, another brilliant choreographer, who created Prince of the Pagodas for Svetlana and later became Artistic Director of the Stuttgart Ballet.

It was a heady time for us all. We were part of the young artistic scene in London, and we were drawn to each other for many reasons. I could think of no more wonderful evening than to attend a performance of the ballet at the Royal Opera House, then go to a restaurant or back to Svetlana’s and Sudi’s apartment for supper. Often other dancers from the Royal Ballet joined us, as well as writers, analysts, actors, and directors, and we would talk until all hours on all subjects.

One day Sudi said to me, “When you next come to the ballet, you’re going to be sitting beside a great friend of ours. You will love her.”

With some distrust I slid into my seat on the appointed evening and found myself next to an attractive dark-haired woman named Zoë Dominic. She was a photographer—for many years the exclusive photographer of theater, ballet, and opera for the London Sunday Times. Her work was brilliant. By the end of that first meeting we had, indeed, bonded. Zoë, Svetlana, Sudi, Tony, and I became inseparable.

Sudi was shopping in Harrods one day. The store was crowded, and at the counter, a woman pushed in front of him. Sudi drew himself up to his full height and addressed her courteously.

“Madame,” he said. “The good lord has given you an advantage over me. He has made you a woman. But if this salesperson serves you before he serves me, I shall personally tweak his nose.” It was classic Sudi.

Svetlana and I were in Harrods one afternoon, when she asked if I would like to come back to her flat for some tea.

It was tempting. “Oh that’s lovely of you, Svetlana,” I replied, “but I should probably just go home and have a rest and prepare myself for the show.”

“How stupid of me, Julie,” she gasped. “I forgot you had a show tonight…and of course you must go home and rest. You must.”

The implication in her words was that art must always be given the first priority.

Maybe it was because the words were hers, or maybe they were simply spoken at the exact moment I was ready to hear them, but I suddenly became aware of a newer, deeper purpose to my craft and to what I was doing. I always appreciated that my singing voice was a special gift, to be acknowledged with gratitude, but now I felt that my whole being could be used to give something back—to share my appreciation for the gift more fully.

Most of my early life, during those vaudeville years, my work was—well, work. It was what I did. And in my youthfulness, it never occurred to me that when I appeared onstage, I could perhaps make a small difference. I now began to develop a sense of fulfillment in the doing—in the attempt to convey joy and to bring pleasure to people; to help them transcend their everyday worries and problems for the few hours that they are a part of the theater experience. I was finding reasons, motivations, a deeper core—and an answer as to why I was given the gift in the first place. Whatever the inspiration, the small exchange with Svetlana that day was life-altering.