Maria Tallchief

The 'Maria Tallchief' Barbie pays homage to the Native American who rose to international fame as the prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet. The doll wears the outfit Tallchief wore in the iconic 1949 New York Ballet production of The Firebird.

Maria Tallchief was born in 1925 on the Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma, to a Native American father and Scotch-Irish mother. As a child, she studied with celebrated ballerina Bronslava Nijinska, and…