Valery Panov, a star of the renowned Kirov Ballet, who was fired when he sought to leave the Soviet Union in 1972 and whose two-year harassment by Soviet officials made him an international cause célèbre before he and his wife, a ballerina, finally won exit visas to Israel, died on June 3. He was 87.

His death was confirmed by the Israel Ballet, with whom he sometimes worked. It did not say where he died.

The struggle of Mr. Panov, who was half Jewish, to leave the Soviet Union was taken up by Western political leaders and arts celebrities, and it served to dramatize the plight of Soviet Jews and dissidents who sought free emigration in a period of Cold War tensions.

Mr. Panov’s high profile as an internationally known dancer made him a prime target of the Communist authorities. Using world tours of Russia’s famous ballet companies for propaganda purposes, they diligently policed the troupes against defectors whose preference for the West or Israel might humiliate the Soviet Union.

Denounced by fellow Kirov dancers for seeking to emigrate, Mr. Panov was trailed by the K.G.B. and at one point jailed for 10 days on a charge of hooliganism, for supposedly spitting on a man who had accosted him. He also engaged in a hunger strike.

Mr. Panov’s desire for artistic and personal freedom — and perhaps a more lucrative career in the West — was championed by Prime Minister Harold Wilson of Britain, Senator Henry M. Jackson of Washington and a raft of American celebrities, including Carol Channing, Harold Prince and Tony Perkins, who held a rally for him in Manhattan in March 1974.