Aaliyah (16 January 1979–25 August 2001), singer, actress, and model, was born Aaliyah Dana Haughton to Michael Haughton, a warehouse worker, and Diane Haughton in Brooklyn, New York. For this second child, the Haughtons chose an Arabic first name that meant “the highest, most exalted one, the best.”...
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Aaliyah (16 January 1979–25 August 2001), singer, actress, and model
Margena A. Christian
Article
Alexander, John White (1856-1915), artist
Martin R. Kalfatovic
Alexander, John White (07 October 1856–31 May 1915), artist, was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, the son of John Alexander and Fanny Smith. Alexander’s father died soon after his birth, and his mother died when he was five years old. Sent to live with his maternal grandparents, Alexander left school at the age of twelve to work as a messenger for the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh. Colonel Edward Jay Allen, an official of the firm, was impressed by a sketch done by Alexander. Allen eventually adopted Alexander....
Article
Arnold, Eve (21 April 1912–04 January 2012)
Karen Patricia Heath
Arnold, Eve (21 April 1912–04 January 2012), photojournalist, was born Eve Cohen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the seventh of nine children of the Ukrainian Jewish immigrants Vevel (William) Sklarski, a rabbi, and Bosya (Bessie) Laschiner. Although Eve’s parents were poor she received a good basic education. Eve first considered a career as a writer or a dancer, then settled on medicine, but she gave this up to move to New York City. During World War II she got a job at America’s first automated photographic film processing plant in Hoboken, New Jersey, although she knew little about photography then. It was only in 1946 when her then boyfriend gave her a forty-dollar Rolleicord camera that she took up photography as a hobby. The boyfriend did not last long, but her love of photography grew into a highly successful and fulfilling career....
Article
Aronson, Boris (1900-1980), scene and costume designer
Cary Clasz
Aronson, Boris ( October 1900–16 November 1980), scene and costume designer, was born in Kiev, Russia, the son of Solomon Aronson, the chief rabbi of Kiev, and Deborah Turfsky. By the age of eight he was exhibiting astonishing artistic talent and went on to study art in Kiev, Moscow, and Paris....
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Barnum, P. T. (1810-1891), showman
James Ross Moore
Barnum, P. T. (05 July 1810–07 April 1891), showman, was born Phineas Taylor Barnum in Bethel, Connecticut, the son of Philo F. Barnum, a farmer and storekeeper, and Irena Taylor. While attending public school in Bethel, Barnum peddled candy and gingerbread. He later wrote that he had always been interested in arithmetic and money....
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Barrymore, Lionel (1878-1954), actor, composer, and artist
William Stephenson
Barrymore, Lionel (28 April 1878–15 November 1954), actor, composer, and artist, was born Lionel Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Herbert Blythe, an actor who adopted the stage name Maurice Barrymore, and Georgiana Drew (Georgie Drew Barrymore), an actress. His mother’s family had been in the theater for generations. Lionel was raised chiefly in the Philadelphia home of his maternal grandmother, actress-manager ...
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Bel Geddes, Barbara (1922-2005)
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Barbara Bel Geddes Associated Press
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Bel Geddes, Barbara (1922-2005), actress, children's book author-illustrator, and painter
Andrea Weever
Bel Geddes, Barbara (31 October 1922–08 August 2005), actress, children's book author-illustrator, and painter, was born in New York City, the daughter of Norman Bel Geddes, a noted architect and stage designer, and Helen Belle Sneider, an English teacher. Educated at a series of private schools in and around New England, she also spent time in the company of her illustrious father, who was involved in hundreds of theater productions in many capacities. Once after a school play, the drama teacher at the Putney School in Vermont regretfully informed her father that Barbara had “no talent” (...
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Bernstein, Aline Frankau (1880-1955), set and costume designer and author
Kathleen M. Robbins
Bernstein, Aline Frankau (22 December 1880–07 September 1955), set and costume designer and author, was born in New York City, the daughter of Joseph Frankau, an actor, and Rebecca Goldsmith. Joseph Frankau, who was of German-Jewish ancestry, first named his daughter Hazel, but her mother changed it to Aline. Educated in the New York public schools and raised in the theater, as a child Aline wanted to be an actress, but her father encouraged her talent for drawing instead. After the early deaths of her parents (both had died by 1897), Aline became the ward of her aunt, Rachel, a drug addict. She attended Hunter College as a student of fine art. Tom Watson, a family friend and a member of the board of directors of the New York School of Applied Design, arranged for her to study drawing on scholarship at the school. She later studied portrait painting with ...
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de Wolfe, Elsie (1865-1950), actress and interior decorator
Pauline C. Metcalf
de Wolfe, Elsie (20 December 1865–12 July 1950), actress and interior decorator, was born in New York City, the daughter of Stephen de Wolfe, a physician, and Georgina Copeland. She was baptized Ella Anderson de Wolfe. Her father had been raised in Nova Scotia and educated at the University of Pennsylvania; her mother, also reared in Canada, was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. Elsie attended private schools in New York until the age of fourteen and was then sent to Scotland to finish her education under the tutelage of her mother’s cousin, Dr. Archibald Charteris. Owing to Charteris’s connection to royal circles, she was presented to Queen Victoria and London society at age seventeen, an unusual honor then for an American girl. This experience focused her vision of life on elegance, refinement, fashion, and good taste....
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Eames, Charles (17 June 1907–21 August 1978), architect, furniture designer, and filmmaker
Stephen Leet
Eames, Charles (17 June 1907–21 August 1978), architect, furniture designer, and filmmaker, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Charles Ormond Eames, a Pinkerton security officer, and Marie Celine Adele Pauline Lambert. In 1921 Eames’s discovery of photographic equipment belonging to his father, who had died that year, initiated his lifelong interest in photography. He began his formal architectural education at Washington University in St. Louis on a scholarship in 1925. Prior to his enrollment, Eames had worked as a laborer with the LaClede Steel Company and as a designer of electrical lighting fixtures with the Edwin F. Guth Fixture Company, and while attending the university he worked summers as a draftsman in a St. Louis architectural office, Trueblood and Graf. He left school in 1928, his sophomore year. Despite his lack of a formal degree in architecture, other jobs and contacts in St. Louis substantially contributed to his education and to the development of his interests and skills in all aspects of design....
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Eames, Charles (17 June 1907–21 August 1978)
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Charles Eames. [left to right]Ray Eames and Charles Eames. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-103825).
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Eames, Ray (15 December 1912–21 August 1988), designer and filmmaker
Stephen Leet
Eames, Ray (15 December 1912–21 August 1988), designer and filmmaker, was born Ray Kaiser in Sacramento, California, the daughter of Alexander Kaiser, an insurance salesman, and Edna Mary Burr. In 1933, after graduating from the May Bennett School in Millbrook, New York, she began studying painting with Hans Hoffmann in New York City. She was a founding member of American Abstract Artists, which first exhibited as a group in 1937 in New York City....
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Eames, Ray (15 December 1912–21 August 1988)
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Ray Eames. [left to right]Ray Eames and Charles Eames. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-103825).
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Enters, Angna (1897-1989), dance-mime, painter, and writer
Jacqueline Maskey
Enters, Angna (28 April 1897–25 February 1989), dance-mime, painter, and writer, was born Anita Irene Enters in New York City, the daughter of Edward Enters, a businessman, and Henriette Gasseur-Styleau. Angna grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (which she called “New Berlin” because of its large German population), where after graduating with the class of 1915 from North Division High School, she enrolled as an art student at Milwaukee Normal School (now part of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee)....
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Fawcett, Farrah (2 February 1947–26 June 2009), model and actress
Bruce J. Evensen
Fawcett, Farrah (2 February 1947–26 June 2009), model and actress, was born Mary Ferrah Leni Fawcett, the second daughter of oil industry pipefitter James William Fawcett and Pauline Alice Evans Fawcett in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Fawcett attended Christ the King, the parish school of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Corpus Christi. She had a French, English, and Choctaw Native American ancestry, and when she graduated W. B. Ray High School in ...
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Flanagan, Hallie Mae Ferguson (1890-1969), theater educator, administrator, and director
Melissa Vickery-Bareford
Flanagan, Hallie Mae Ferguson (27 August 1890–23 July 1969), theater educator, administrator, and director, was born in Redfield, South Dakota, the daughter of Frederic Miller Ferguson, a businessman, and Louisa Fischer. Throughout her childhood, Hallie’s father encouraged her to believe in her uniqueness and individual potential, while her mother instilled in her a selflessness of putting others before herself. These conflicting ideas would haunt Hallie throughout her life as she tried to balance a career and a family. She sometimes believed she had failed as a wife and mother because she had devoted too much of herself to her career....
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Geddes, Norman Bel (1893-1958), scene and lighting designer, industrial designer, and producer
James Fisher
Geddes, Norman Bel (21 April 1893–08 May 1958), scene and lighting designer, industrial designer, and producer, was born Norman Melancton Geddes in Adrian, Michigan, the son of Clifton Terry Geddes and Gloria Lulu Yingling. He was educated in public schools in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois before attending the Cleveland School of Art and the prestigious Chicago Art Institute by the time he was sixteen years old. When he was in his early twenties, Geddes had his earliest successes as a magazine and poster artist in Detroit, Michigan. He designed his first theatrical production, ...
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Geddes, Norman Bel (1893-1958)
Maker: Arnold Genthe
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Norman Bel Geddes Photograph by Arnold Genthe, 1925. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-G401-T-4759-003).
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Gernreich, Rudi (8 Aug. 1922–21 Apr. 1985), fashion designer, dancer, and theater costumer
Daniel Delis Hill
Gernreich, Rudi (8 Aug. 1922–21 Apr. 1985), fashion designer, dancer, and theater costumer was born in Vienna, Austria. His father, Siegmund Gernreich, was a manager in a hosiery manufacturing company, and his mother, Elisabeth (Lisl) Müller, was an intellectual and cofounder of the Vienna Ethics Society. In ...
