When the Bleakleys settled in Dallas in 1978, Jean quickly made friends in her Highland Park neighborhood and became an “adopted” grandmother to several of her younger friends’ children. After leaving Tulsa to support her husband Bruce in his position as a petroleum industry executive, she stayed active in ballet, taking classes in Houston and London, England, before coming to Dallas, where Bruce was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Dallas-based Petroleum Engineer International magazine. She choreographed productions for the Tulsa Little Theater and was a co-founder of Dance Showcase, a regional ballet company that toured three states. Jean also danced and choreographed for the Kansas City Starlight Theatre, the Tulsa Opera, the Oklahoma City Symphony, the Miss Oklahoma pageant and Miss America pageants. The performances attracted many audience members who did not have children at the studio. Her annual dance “recitals” were more like major stage productions, featuring current themes, colorful and elaborate costumes, and live music. Her students benefitted greatly from her association with several well-known dance artists who gave Master Classes at her studio, including Igor Youskevitch, Dolores and Larry Long, Raoul Appel, Marjorie Tallchief, Robert Bell, and others. Her meeting with Powell inspired her to seek out the star’s tap teacher, Willie Covan, during a vacation trip to Los Angeles, where she took two exhaustive one-hour lessons from the aging master.
Jean’s childhood hero was Hollywood dancer and actress Eleanor Powell, whom she met backstage in the 1960s while Miss Powell was making a late-career series of live performances. Many of her students also went on to establish their own dance studios. She was particularly gratified in the later years by the enrollment of several second-generation pupils, the offspring of some of her earliest students. She created a unique studio environment where everyone knew they were valued and loved as individuals, regardless of their level of talent. The studio’s quality was validated by the several families who enrolled two, three, four, and even five of their children. After the war, she started her own dance school in Alvin, Texas, in 1948.įrom 1950 to 1974, “Miss Jean” operated the most successful dance studio in Tulsa.
During that time, Jean served as a civilian driver for the Army, expertly operating a Packard One-Eighty command staff car for Ordnance Department VIPs. After Bruce’s graduation in 1943, she accompanied him during his World War II service stateside as an aircraft maintenance officer. They both attended the University of Tulsa and were married on October 3, 1942. She met her future husband, Bruce, during their senior year at Central High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She began her lifelong love of dance relatively late, with her first ballet lesson at age 12, but was teaching dance by age 16.
She was born at home on West Broadway in Enid, Oklahoma on Jto Oscar and Matilda Vinall, the middle of five siblings. Jean Bleakley passed away peacefully on the evening of March 21, 2016.