Barney, Natalie
(1878–1972) Born in America, Barney spent most of her life in France, where she established a salon in her Paris home that attracted major writers and intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although she was a writer, editor, and translator, and was noted for her many lesbian love affairs, the predominant source of her fame was her salon, to which she gathered such notable figures as Colette, James Joyce, Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Edith Sitwell, Marcel Proust, Djuna Barnes, Rainer Maria Rilke, T. S. Eliot, Mata Hari, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, Greta Garbo, Truman Capote, Thornton Wilder, and William Carlos Williams.
Barrault, Jean-Louis
(1910–1994) French writer, actor, director, producer, and mime. A star of the French stage, Barrault also had a strong career in film. He appeared in twenty-five films, including
Helene
(1936), which costarred Madeline Renaud, who became Barrault’s wife in 1940.
Bassani, Giorgio
(1916–2000) Italian writer and editor. In addition to writing several novels, novellas, short stories, and verse, Bassani was an editor of
Botteghe Oscure
from its founding and an editor for
Paragone
from 1953 to 1971. Eugene mentions that Bassani is credited for “discovering” Lampedusa’s
The Leopard.
Indeed, his April 14, 2000, obituary in the
New York Times
states, “In 1958, while working as an editor at the Feltrinelli publishing house, he discovered the work of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and is widely credited with having championed the author.” In 1962 he published
Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini
(The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
), which was later adapted for film. He was an Aries.
Batterberry, Michael
(b. 1932) British-born food writer and critic who currently resides in New York City. Editor in chief of
International Food and Wine
since 1977, Batterberry has contributed several articles and illustrations to popular newspapers and magazines, including
Travel and Leisure
and
Playbill.
He is also the editor of
Food Arts.
Becker, Ginny,
aka
Virginia Campbell
(dates unknown) Stage and film actress. Campbell played the character Theresa in Ernst Lubitsch’s last film,
That Lady in Ermine
(1948). Lubitsch died during its production.
Berman, Eugene
(1899–1971) Russian-American painter. Berman was part of the surrealist art movement in Paris in the 1930s. In addition to painting, he designed sets and costumes for the Metropolitan Opera.
Bernhardt, Sarah
(1844–1923) French actress. Considered one of the greatest stage actresses of the twentieth century in Europe and in America, “the Divine Sarah” was extremely charismatic on and off the stage. Her contributions to the stage included writing some of the plays she acted in and revising standard texts to great artistic success. She was not restricted in her acting by her gender; male roles included Hamlet and the title role of Napoleon’s son in
L’Aiglon
(The Eaglet
), a part written specifically for her. She was best known in the United States as a result of nine tours she made there from 1880 to 1918.
Biddle, Francis
(1886–1968) American lawyer. Served as attorney general under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1941 until Roosevelt’s death in 1945. During World War II, Biddle oversaw the registration of aliens and the internment of Japanese Americans, responsibilities he later regretted having performed. In 1945 Biddle resigned his post as attorney general and was appointed by President Harry S. Truman as the American member of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.
Biddle, Katherine Garrison Chapin
(1890–1977) An American poet, Chapin married Francis Biddle in 1918. She was the half sister of the Princess Marguerite Caetani, nee Chapin.
Borden, Lizzie
(1860–1927) Although acquitted (after a well-publicized trial) of the crime of murdering her father and stepmother in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts, Borden remained suspect in her New England community and infamous in the public eye. After her acquittal, she and her sister inherited their father’s fairly large estate and moved into a mansion at which Borden threw extravagant parties for theater figures, most especially the Boston actress Nance O’Neil.
Bowles, Paul
(1910–1999) and Jane Bowles (1917–1973) American writers. Paul Bowles, who was also a composer, is best known for his novel
The Sheltering Sky
and Jane Bowles for her novel
Two Serious Ladies
(1943). Apparently both Paul and Jane considered themselves homosexual, though they did have a sexual component to their relationship for a time. In 1947 they moved to Tangiers, where they became an important part of the expatriate scene during the 1940s and 1950s. They were visited there by many other writers, among them Alfred Chester.
Bricktop
(1894–1984) American entertainer, nightclub owner. Born Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louisa Virginia Smith in Alderson, West Virginia, Bricktop opened Bricktop’s in Rome in 1951, having worked as an entertainer in various nightclubs in the United States and in Paris from the time she was sixteen. It was at the age of sixteen that she was given her nickname, because of her flaming red hair, by a Harlem nightclub owner. In 1924 she went to Paris to work, meeting Langston Hughes, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, Josephine Baker, and Cole Porter and his wife, Linda. The Porters befriended Bricktop and asked her to teach the Charleston at their Charleston parties, where she was introduced to the elite of Paris. She died in Manhattan, and more than three hundred people came to her funeral.
Broughton, James
(1913–1999) American filmmaker. Broughton’s films have been independent rather than mainstream. He won several international film awards for his work.
Brown, Roscoe Lee
(b. 1925) African American film and television actor. While Brown’s early work was on the stage, the bulk of his work has been as a character actor in film and television. He has made numerous guest appearances on television shows, including
Barney Miller, Soap, Magnum PI.,
and
The Cosby Show.
His films include
Superfly
(1973) and
Logans Run
(1976).
Burke, Billie
(1886–1970) American stage and screen actress. Burke’s career began in vaudeville, and she had over sixty films to her credit. She is perhaps most popularly known for her role as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the film
The Wizard of Oz
(1939).
Bussy, Dorothy Strachey
(d. 1960) British writer and translator. Although she wrote only one novel,
Olivia, by Olivia
(1949), it was critically praised, as were her fine English translations of the work of her friend the French writer Andre Gide. She was the sister of Lytton Strachey and the wife of impressionist painter Simon de Bussy.
Caetani, Princess Marguerite, nee Marguerite Chapin
(1880–1963) Founder and editor of the literary journal
Botteghe Oscure.
Born in New London, Connecticut, Caetani studied singing in Paris until her marriage in 1911 to Italian nobleman and amateur composer Roffredo Caetani, prince of Bassiano. She edited the literary review
Commerce
from 1924 to 1932. Eventually she moved to Rome and established, in 1948,
Botteghe Oscure,
a literary review to which most of the leading writers of Europe and America contributed works in their own languages.
Calder, Alexander
(1898–1976) American painter and sculptor. Calder was one of the few American surrealist artists given international critical acceptance. A lifelong friend of Joan Miró.
Capote, Truman
(1924–1984) American writer. Born Truman Persons in New Orleans, Louisiana, he was sent at the age of four by his mother to live with older relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. His parents divorced, and both essentially abandoned him. His mother eventually committed suicide. He was a childhood friend of Harper Lee, who is also from Monroeville. Capote’s first published novel,
Other Voices
,
Other Rooms
(1948), brought him the fame and fortune he had craved as a young writer. After Capote published
Breakfast at Tiffany’s: A Short Novel and Three Stories
in 1958, he found himself even more famous and wealthy. In 1966 he published
In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences,
which he called a nonfiction novel, a work that married “the art of the novelist together with the technique of journalism.” Capote’s abuse of drugs and alcohol, which began during the six years it took him to write
In Cold Blood,
finally caught up with him, and he died of liver disease and multiple drug intoxication. Eugene’s interview of Truman Capote was ultimately published not in the
Paris Review,
but in
Intro Bulletin,
December 1957.
Cardinale, Claudia
(b. 1939) Italian actress. Her beauty was frequently compared with that of her French contemporary Brigitte Bardot. Her work as leading lady in many films by important Italian directors, such as
8½
by Federico Fellini, made her a star in Italy and internationally. In 1964 she appeared in
The Pink Panther,
directed by Blake Edwards.
Carpenter, Thelma
(1920–1997) American singer. Carpenter was a big-band singer who worked with many jazz greats, including Coleman Hawkins and Count Basie. In 1968 she was Pearl Bailey’s understudy in the Broadway production of
Hello, Dolly!
She appeared in the film
The Wiz
(1978).
Cavani, Liliana
(b. 1936) Italian film director and screenwriter. Her first feature film was
I Cannibali (The Cannibals,
1969). Her best-known film in the United States is
Il Portiere di Notte
(The Night Porter,
1974)
.
Char, René
(1907–1988) French poet. Albert Camus stated in 1952, “I consider René Char to be our greatest living poet.” One of his best-known works of poetry is
Feuillets d’Hypnos
(1946), written while Char was fighting the Nazi occupation in a resistance group in Vaucluse in southeastern France. Char lived for most of his life in Vaucluse, away from the literary and cultural center of Paris.
Chester, Alfred
(1928–1971) American writer. Edward Field, who edited Chester’s
Head of a Sad Angel: Stories 1953–1966,
called Chester “a neglected but difficult genius.” Chester was a reviewer and critic for a time in Paris. He worked as a book review editor for the short-lived literary journal
Merlin
and submitted essays to other literary journals as well, including
Paris Review
and
Botteghe Oscure.
A collection of his reviews was published in
Looking for Genet
(1993). Eventually he felt that his talents as a writer were being wasted in this work, and he dedicated himself to writing his own fiction. He went to Morocco as part of the literary colony that surrounded the Bowleses so that he might concentrate on his own writing. Unfortunately, he quarreled with them and with others in the group, including his boyfriend. Finally he moved to New York, where he wrote the novel
The Exquisite Corpse,
which was published posthumously. Chester, who suffered from increasingly debilitating emotional instability, ultimately committed suicide.
Colette
(1873–1954) French novelist. Considered one of France’s great novelists, Colette wrote over fifty novels. Her 1954 novel,
Gigi,
was adapted for the Academy Award-winning film in 1959.
Connell, Evan
(b. 1924) Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Connell is best known for his novels
Mrs. Bridge
(1958) and
Mr. Bridge
(1969). He has also published many other novels, short stories, and some poetry.
Copland, Aaron
(1900–1990) American composer and conductor. Copland is credited with popularizing classical music in the twentieth century in the United States. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for the score for the ballet
Appalachian Spring
and an Academy Award in 1950 for the musical score of the film
The Heiress.
Costa-Gavras, Constantin
(b. 1933) Film director and screenwriter. Born in Athens; nationalized French citizen. He has won many international film awards. In the United States he is best known for the 1982 film
Missing
costarring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, which earned him an Academy Award for best screenplay.
Cox, Wally
(1924–1973) American film and television actor and comedian. Cox is best known for his starring role as a quiet and introverted science teacher in the TV show
Mr. Peepers
(1952–1953).