David Paltenghi

David Paltenghi (1919 – 4 February 1961) was a British ballet dancer, choreographer, director and film director.

David Paltenghi was born in 1919 in Christchurch, Hampshire (now Dorset), the son of a Swiss-Italian father and English mother.

He was a dancer with Ballet Rambert, until joining Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1941. Paltenghi created leading roles in Robert Helpmann's Miracle in the Gorbals in 1944 and Adam Zero in 1946, both for Sadler's Wells Ballet.

In 1950, he rejoined Ballet Rambert as a guest artist, and as a choreographer, created five ballets from 1950-51. The last was Canterbury Prologue, based on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales with music by Peter Racine Fricker and designs by the artist Edward Burra, who he had met when they both worked on Miracle in the Gorbals.

Paltenghi later became a film director, and his 1955 The Love Match starring Arthur Askey was praised, "gets the utmost out of every laugh without belaboring the point".[self-published source? ]

He died on 4 February 1961 in Windsor, Berkshire.

His son Jake Celeste Paltenghi is a painter and sculptor.