Guky Doane

Auguste Holzinger Hager, better known by her nickname “Guky,” was born in Vienna, Austria, on December 18, 1914, to parents Karl and Auguste Hager. She started dancing at a young age and began touring with The Vienna Opera Ballet at age 14, traveling to Morocco, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Hungary, and France, during which time she learned to speak five languages: German, French, Italian, Hungarian, and English. For several years after the ballet, she did modern solo dancing. In approximately 1941, Guky brought her younger sister Gretl, also a dancer with the Vienna Opera Ballet, into the act. Although Gretl was twelve years her junior, they looked strikingly similar and this look-alike appearance was beneficial to their performances in theater, films, variety shows, and nightclubs. While performing in a nightclub in Vienna, Guky and Gretl met American military police officers stationed there, and a two-year romance ensued. After their beaus proposed, they decided to leave war-torn Vienna for married life and the new opportunities that America offered.

Guky and Gretl Hager arrived by airplane in New York City on June 5, 1947. After spending a few weeks on the East Coast, they moved to Seattle, Washington, and on August 6, 1947, the sisters were married in a double wedding ceremony at Central Lutheran Church in Tacoma, Washington. Some time in 1950, Guky and her husband, John “Jack” Doane, followed Gretl and her husband to Anchorage, Alaska, a young but growing town which promised job security for Jack, who worked in construction.

Guky and Gretl left Vienna, but they did not leave dancing behind: In the spring of 1951, they started Rhythm School of Dancing, the first dance studio in Anchorage. Rhythm School of Dancing first operated from the Legion Log Cabin on 5th and G Streets, then spent many years in a studio near the intersection of Fireweed Lane and Spenard Road. They taught ballroom dancing lessons for adults and teenagers, and offered young children tap and acrobatics taught by Guky, and ballet taught by Gretl. One of their students in the late 1950s to mid-1960s was Alice Bassler Sullivan who later became the Artistic Director of Alaska Dance Theatre. Guky and her husband (along with Gretl and her husband) lived in Spenard, Government Hill, and eventually moved to the “Turnagain by the Sea” neighborhood around 1954. Guky retired in 1965, likely due to health issues, and she and her husband moved to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1967.

She battled breast cancer for a number of years and eventually moved to Oregon so her middle sister, Maria (Hager) Friedemann, could care for her in her final days. She died on May 4, 1972, at the age of 57 and is buried at Rest Haven Memorial Park in Eugene, Oregon.