James Agee Photograph by Walker Evans, 1937. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-103100).
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Agee, James Rufus (1909-1955)
In
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Agee, James Rufus (1909-1955), writer
William Stott
Agee, James Rufus (27 November 1909–16 May 1955), writer, was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, the son of Hugh James Agee, a construction company employee, and Laura Whitman Tyler. The father’s family were poorly educated mountain farmers, while the mother’s were solidly middle class. Agee was profoundly affected by his father’s death in a car accident in 1916. He idealized his absent father and struggled against his mother and her genteel and (he felt) cold values. “Agee’s mother wanted him to be clean, chaste, and sober,” the photographer ...
Article
Aldrich, Richard (1902-1986), theatrical producer, manager, and author
William Stephenson
Aldrich, Richard (17 August 1902–31 March 1986), theatrical producer, manager, and author, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Edward Irving Aldrich, a rubber company executive, and Mary Pickering Joy. Both parents were members of wealthy, prominent New England families. Aldrich in childhood formed a lifelong love of the theater, which he fostered in school productions and summer student performances. He did further stage work while he attended Harvard College, both with a touring student group called the Jitney Players during summers and with the Harvard Dramatic Club, which he served as president. Though tall and well-featured, Aldrich consistently preferred to work behind the scenes as producer and business manager rather than to perform on stage. He completed his education at Harvard in 1925....
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Allen, Steve (1921-2000)
In
Steve Allen Used with the permission of Bill Allen, Meadowlane Enterprises, Inc.
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Allen, Steve (1921-2000), comedian, author, songwriter
Bruce L. Janoff
Allen, Steve (26 December 1921–30 October 2000), comedian, author, songwriter, was born Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen in New York City, the son of vaudeville comedians Carroll William Allen and Isabelle Donohue, who performed under the stage names Billy Allen and Belle Montrose. Literally born into show business, Allen toured the vaudeville circuit with his parents from infancy until his father died suddenly when Allen was only eighteen months old. Because his mother chose to continue her career, she left her young son in the care of her eccentric family in Chicago. In his first autobiography, ...
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Angelou, Maya (4 April 1928–28 May 2014)
Maker: Brigitte Lacombe
Portrait of Maya Angelou, 1987, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, © Brigitte Lacombe
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, © Brigitte Lacombe
Article
Angelou, Maya (4 Apr. 1928–28 May 2014), writer, performer, and activist
Jacqueline S. Thursby
Angelou, Maya (4 Apr. 1928–28 May 2014), writer, performer, and activist, was born Marguerite Ann Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri, the second child of Bailey Johnson, Sr., a doorman and Navy dietitian, and Vivian Baxter, a registered nurse, cocktail hostess, and Merchant Marine. Her brother, Bailey, Jr., nicknamed her Maya, and the name stuck. After their parents’ divorce, the two young children were sent alone on a train from San Francisco to Stamps, Arkansas, to be met and raised by their paternal grandmother, Annie Henderson, and their father’s brother, Uncle Willie, who was disabled. Grandmother Henderson had managed to build and own a general store with living quarters in the back, and it was also a safe black community gathering place in the segregated town. Uncle Willie provided a steady stream of good reading and high scholastic expectations, and their grandmother, “Momma,” taught them no-nonsense life skills, took them to church, and loved them....
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Bourdain, Anthony (25 June 1956–8 June 2018)
Pete Souza
In
President Barack Obama with Anthony Bourdain at Bún cha Huong Lien Restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam, 2016, by Pete Souza
President (2009–2017 : Obama). Office of Management and Administration. Office of White House Personnel. Photography Office. (ca. 2010 – 1/20/2017)
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Bourdain, Anthony (25 June 1956–8 June 2018), chef, author, and television personality
Alan Deutschman
Bourdain, Anthony (25 June 1956–8 June 2018), chef, author, and television personality, was born in New York City, the eldest of two sons of Pierre Bourdain, whose father had immigrated from France, and Gladys Bourdain (née Sacksman), who grew up in a middle-class Jewish American family in the Bronx. Pierre managed a record store before working as an executive for the London and Columbia classical music labels. Gladys was a copyeditor at the ...
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Dahl, Arlene Carol (11 Aug. 1925–29 Nov. 2021), actress, author, and cosmetics executive
Bruce J. Evensen
Dahl, Arlene Carol (11 Aug. 1925–29 Nov. 2021), actress, author, and cosmetics executive, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Norwegian parents, Idelle Ingeborg (Swann) Dahl and Rudolph Sylvester Dahl, a Ford car dealer.
Dahl was an only child who took singing and dancing lessons at her mother’s urging. During the Great Depression, Arlene made a little money working in clubs on weekends. Before graduating from Washburn High School in June of ...
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Emerson, Edward Waldo (1844-1930), editor and writer
Carl L. Anderson
Emerson, Edward Waldo (10 July 1844–27 January 1930), editor and writer, was born in Concord, Massachusetts, the son of the essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson and his second wife, Lidian “Lydia” Jackson. Concord was to remain Emerson’s lifelong place of residence. He was of a slight build and subject throughout life to various illnesses, at times debilitating. His ambition as a young man was to enlist as a cavalryman in one of the many regiments then forming in Massachusetts, but his health was precarious and he had been discouraged moreover by his mother’s decree that one should not consider enlisting so long as the cause was to preserve the Union rather than to emancipate the slaves. Emerson’s alternative was to enter Harvard as an undergraduate in August 1861 only to find after six weeks that “he had no strength for College,” as a sister reported, “and is at home again trying to get well … doing nothing but ride on horseback when he is able, and amuse himself with society and painting or lying down when he isn’t, and his papa is brokenhearted that College is lost” (...
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Fisher, Carrie (21 Oct. 1956–27 Dec. 2016), actress and writer
Ann T. Keene
Fisher, Carrie (21 Oct. 1956–27 Dec. 2016), actress and writer, was born Carrie Frances Fisher in Beverly Hills, California, to Eddie Fisher, a popular singer and the grandson of Russian-Jewish immigrants, and Debbie Reynolds, a Hollywood actress whose forebears were Anglo-Saxon Protestants of modest means. At the time of Carrie’s birth, Fisher and Reynolds, who had married to great fanfare a year earlier, were a celebrated young couple, labeled “America’s sweethearts” by the media. The public doted on newspaper and magazine coverage as well as film footage of the seemingly perfect couple and their adorable little daughter. The arrival little more than a year later of a son, Todd, only enhanced their image....
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Goodwin, Ruby Berkley (1903-1961), actress and author
John E. Hallwas
Goodwin, Ruby Berkley (17 October 1903–31 May 1961), actress and author, was born in Du Quoin, Illinois, the daughter of Braxton Berkley, a coal miner and union organizer, and Sophia Jane Holmes, who had nine other children. She graduated from high school there and, in 1920, moved with her parents to Imperial Valley in California. She attended San Diego State Teachers’ College for one year and later taught in El Centro, where, in 1924, she married Lee Goodwin, an auto mechanic. They had five children and adopted another. In 1931 the Goodwin family moved to Fullerton, where she attended Fullerton Junior College, held various jobs, and was extensively involved in civic organizations. From 1936 to 1952 she worked as personal secretary to actress ...
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Green, Ely (11 September 1893–27 April 1968), author, Black activist, and clairvoyant
Arthur Ben Chitty
Green, Ely (11 September 1893–27 April 1968), author, Black activist, and clairvoyant, was born near Sewanee, Tennessee, the son of a college student, Edward H. Wicks, later a Texas attorney, and Lena Green, a fourteen-year-old kitchen servant and daughter of a privy cleaner who had been enslaved. In Green’s own words, he “was a half-white bastard.” His mother died when he was eight. He was reared by Mattie Davis, a sympathetic neighbor who worked as a domestic. He did not finish the second grade but was largely self-taught. His phenomenal vocabulary came about because, so he said, “I studied from every man who would talk to me.”...
Article
Johnson, Osa (1894-1953), author, lecturer, and film producer
Dennis Wepman
Johnson, Osa (14 March 1894–07 January 1953), author, lecturer, and film producer, was born Osa Helen Leighty in Chanute, Kansas, the daughter of William Sherman Leighty, a railroad engineer, and Ruby Isabel Holman. In 1910 she left high school to marry Martin Johnson, whom she had met eleven years earlier when he visited Chanute as an eighteen-year-old itinerant photographer. In the meantime he had visited Europe alone and traveled with ...
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Kronenberger, Louis (1904-1980)
Maker: Carl Van Vechten
In
Louis Kronenberger Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1955. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LOT 12735, no. 640 P&P).
Article
Kronenberger, Louis (1904-1980), writer and critic
Judith E. Funston
Kronenberger, Louis (09 December 1904–30 April 1980), writer and critic, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Louis Kronenberger, Sr., a merchant, and Mabel Newwitter. From 1921 to 1924 he attended the University of Cincinnati, but he left without completing a degree; instead, he moved to New York City to become a writer. He took a clerical job at the ...
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Lee, Gypsy Rose (1914-1970)
In
Gypsy Rose Lee Photograph by Fred Palumbo, 1956. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-112035).
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Lee, Gypsy Rose (1914-1970), striptease artist, burlesque entertainer, and writer
Stephen M. Archer
Lee, Gypsy Rose (09 January 1914–26 April 1970), striptease artist, burlesque entertainer, and writer, was born Rose Louise Hovick in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of John Olaf Hovick, a newspaper reporter, and Rose Thompson. Lee’s parents divorced when she was about four years old. She and her sister June (who later became screen actress June Havoc) lived with their mother’s father in Seattle, where Rose Hovick, a prototypical stage mother, drove the girls into a show business career. They began by performing at several lodges to which their grandfather belonged. Lee described herself as a child as being “big for my age and more than just chubby” with the nickname of “Plug.” Lee once described her childhood to a reporter: “At that time I wanted to die—just for the vacation.”...
Article
Linkletter, Art (17 July 1912–26 May 2010), radio talk-show host, television personality, and author
Dennis Wepman
Linkletter, Art (17 July 1912–26 May 2010), radio talk-show host, television personality, and author, was born Arthur Gordon (or Gordon Arthur; sources differ) Kelly in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, and left by his unwed parents on the doorsteps of a local church when he was a few weeks old. He was adopted by Fulton John Linkletter, a one-legged cobbler and itinerant evangelical preacher, and his wife Mary Metzler. In ...
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