NEW YORK - Carolyn George d'Amboise, a photographer and former ballet and Broadway dancer married to New York City Ballet star Jacques d'Amboise, has died. She was 81.

D'Amboise died Tuesday at the couple's Manhattan home after a long struggle with primary lateral sclerosis, a rare neuromuscular disease, her husband said.

A native of Dallas, she started her career in Broadway musicals in the 1940s as Carolyn George. She joined the San Francisco Ballet in the late 1940s, and the New York City Ballet in 1952. She met Jacques d'Amboise in the New York ballet company, and the two were married on New Year's Day 1956.

After retiring from dance, Carolyn d'Amboise worked as a photographer, specializing in dance, and traveled the world "from Katmandu to Chile, photographing people and villages and everything," her husband said. Her work was published in various books and magazines. She also shot photos for the New York City Ballet for a time.

In 1976, the two formed the National Dance Institute, a group that introduces schoolchildren to the arts, using dance as a catalyst.