Alexander Godunov, Ballet Dancer

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - Alexander Godunov, the flaxen-haired ballet dancer whose headline-making defection from the Soviet Union helped catapult him into a successful acting career, was found dead yesterday. He was 45.

Paramedics called to his home found Mr. Godunov dead shortly before noon, sheriff's Sgt. Bob Minutello said.

Mr. Godunov had been seeing a physician who will list the death as a result of natural causes, Minutello said. Mr. Godunov was discovered by a nurse who had not heard from Mr. Godunov since May 8, Minutello said.

Mr. Godunov came to the United States in 1979 after spending 13 years with the Bolshoi Ballet. He joined the American Ballet Theatre in New York, dancing there for the next three years until he had a falling out with the ABT's artistic director, Mikhail Baryshnikov, also a Soviet defector.

The two had studied together at the Bolshoi, but an angry Mr. Godunov said his old friend "threw me away like a potato peel."

The tall, lean dancer with long, straight hair appeared on his own TV show, "Godunov: The World to Dance In," in 1983-84 before starting his acting career as an Amish farmer in the Harrison Ford thriller "Witness" in 1985. His other movie roles included a supercilious conductor in "The Money Pit" with Tom Hanks, and a psychotic killer opposite Bruce Willis in "Die Hard."

Mr. Godunov was touring the United States with the Bolshoi in August 1979 when he made worldwide news by requesting political asylum, saying he felt artistically restrained in his homeland.

A day later, he pleaded with authorities to let him speak with his wife, Lyudmilla Vlasova, who had boarded a plane for home. U.S. officials grounded the plane for 73 hours, but Vlasova - a Bolshoi soloist - opted to return to the Soviet Union.

It was his only marriage, and they had no children. They were divorced in 1982, and Mr. Godunov was later linked with actress Jacqueline Bisset.

He became an American citizen in 1987.

Mr. Godunov was born on Sakhalin Island in the former Soviet Union on Nov. 28, 1949.

He debuted with the Bolshoi in 1971 in a production of "Swan Lake."