She had a reputation for being a very private person, often temperamental, always a perfectionist. She would not be an easy subject, warned her friends. But when Gelsey Kirkland agreed to be interviewed by TIME Correspondent Barry Hillenbrand for this week's cover story, she approached the task with the same dedicated professionalism that has made her at 25 the nation's youngest star ballerina.

She met Hillenbrand over dinner at Chicago's Bismarck Hotel. In blue jeans and a baggy smock, without her stage makeup and wigs, she bore little resemblance to the ethereal Giselle or the wide-eyed Clara of The Nutcracker. Hillenbrand had watched her perform on a recent evening.

Her casual appearance was deceptive. For three hours Kirkland kept Hillenbrand at the table, speaking with remarkable perception and good humor about her commitment to the fantastical and fiercely competitive world of dance. There, and in a second session at Washington's Watergate Hotel, she answered all questions about her on-and offstage rivalry with Sister Johnna, a dancer herself; her maturing relationship with Choreographer George Balanchine; her feelings about music; the physical breakdown that lost her a starring movie role in The Turning Point; and her new-found artistic maturity. When she discovered that her interviewer was a fellow New Yorker, she also celebrated the Upper West Side. Hillenbrand had feared she would have trouble expressing in words the nuances that her body projects onstage, but he was pleasantly surprised: "After relating to her every muscle in practice for years, Gelsey has that same intimate self-awareness that Zen Buddhists have."

Associate Editor Paul Gray, who wrote the cover story from Hillenbrand's reports and those of Reporter-Researcher Rosemarie Tauris Zadikov, was also impressed by Kirkland's candor and forthright approach when they met for an interview in her teacher's studio. A recent convert to the world of dance, Gray confessed he had indulged in a few Walter Mitty fantasies of joining her onstage. With that, she reached down and pulled off his left shoe. "Good extension," she judged as she tugged at Gray's foot while the nonplused writer tried to stretch it. Did the young ballerina have any hope for the 38-year-old aspiring dancer? Proclaimed a Gelsey as graceful offstage as she is on: "It's never too late."

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