Plimpton, George
(b. 1927) American writer and founding editor of the
Paris Review.
Plimpton has been with the
Paris Review
as an editor since its inception and has been instrumental in shaping it as a literary journal that focuses on contemporary creative writing rather than on criticism. One of the journal’s most popular features is its interviews with writers, which poet Donald Hall has described as “literary history as gossip.” Many writers published first in the
PR,
such as Philip Roth, Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller, and John Updike. Plimpton is also popularly known as a writer of sports anecdotes culled from his experiences as an amateur in different professional sports.
Paper Lion
(1966) is a collection of his football anecdotes.
Poe, Edgar Allan
(1809–1849) American writer. In his story “The Gold-Bug,” a cipher containing instructions for finding a buried treasure must be decoded.
Porter, Katherine Anne
(1894–1980) American writer, originally from Texas. Porter was most noted for her short fiction, and she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1966 for
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter,
which included the stories “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” (1930), “Flowering Judas” (1930), and “The Grave” (1944). She published one novel,
Ship of Fools
(1962), but most critics consider her earlier short fiction to be her best work. She was married and divorced four times, which may corroborate Eugene’s assessment of her temperament.
Price, Leontyne
(b. 1927) African American operatic soprano. Price, who has won thirteen Grammies, attended the Juilliard School of Music from 1948 to 1952, so Eugene must have seen her during this time, perhaps when she toured Europe performing in
Porgy and Bess.
Price was the first black prima donna soprano and the first black singer to become an international star of opera. She was most acclaimed for her performances of Verdi’s work. Beginning in 1958, she had an exclusive contract with RCA for twenty years, during which time she made an impressive number of recordings. She retired from performing in 1985.
Randall, Julia
(b. 1923) American poet. Randall’s earliest collection of poems, published in 1952, was
The Solstice Tree,
and her most recent collection from 1987 was
Moving in Memory: Poems.
She has contributed poetry to
Botteghe Oscure, Poetry
(Chicago),
Kenyon Review,
and
Sewanee Review.
Risi, Dino
(b. 1917) Italian film director. Risi has directed dozens of documentaries and commercial films since the 1940s. In 1976 he was nominated for an Oscar for best writing, for his screen adaptation of
Profumo di donna
(1974).
The Normal Young Man
(1969), the film Eugene mentions, was the only one Risi directed in which the actor Lino Capolicchio appeared.
Robinson, Edward G.
(1893–1971) Romanian-born American actor. Appearing in literally dozens of movies, including
Little Caesar
(1931),
Double Indemnity
(1944), and
Soylent Green
(1973), Robinson often portrayed a tough guy or a gangster. He won a special Academy Award posthumously.
Ronsard, Pierre de
(1524–1585) French poet. The poem to which Eugene refers is “A sa maîtresse,” published in
Les Amours de Cassandre
(1553), a collection of Petrarchan sonnets. The poem was written for the twenty-two-year-old Cassandre Salviati.
Rorem, Ned
(b. 1923) American composer and diarist. In 1976 Rorem won the Pulitzer Prize for an orchestral piece called
Air Music
(1974), which he wrote for the Cincinnati Symphony. He studied privately with Aaron Copland for some time. In addition to composing, Rorem has published five diaries spanning almost twenty years and recording his life in Paris, New York City, and Nantucket.
Rota, Nino
(1911–1979) Italian composer. Although Rota composed for other film directors, such as Franco Zeffirelli and Francis Ford Coppola, most of his composing was done in service of Federico Fellini’s films. From 1951 to 1979, Rota either wrote or selected the music for most of Fellini’s films. Fellini and Rota’s collaboration was often spontaneous and symbiotic. Fellini would give Rota an image or a feeling, and Rota often could spontaneously compose a piece that elaborated Fellini’s nascent concept. In 1972 Rota’s work on Francis Ford Coppola’s
The Godfather
won him an Academy Award nomination, but it also brought an accusation of plagiarism that, although eventually disproved, nevertheless blighted his nomination. He did eventually win an Oscar, in 1974, for
The Godfather, Part II.
Rubenstein, Helena
(1870–1965) Polish-born cosmetics tycoon. Rubenstein built a financial empire on cosmetics for women and in doing so had to overcome the prejudice against ladies wearing makeup, which was thought to belong onstage only. Her beauty products brought her not only fortune, but also the social patronage of society people, artists, and actors.
Rutherford, Margaret
(1892–1972) English stage and film actress. Rutherford was known and acclaimed most as a lovable comedian. She played the role of Miss Prism in the 1952 film version of Oscar Wilde’s
The Importance of Being Earnest,
a role she had first performed in 1939 on a London stage. She won an Oscar for best supporting actress in 1963 for
The VIPs.
Many know her from her film portrayals of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple.
St. Denis, Ruth
(1877–1968) American choreographer and dancer. It has been said that St. Denis has “influenced almost every phase of American dance in the twentieth century.” With her then husband, Ted Shawn, she established the Denishawn School of Dancing in Los Angeles, the school where Martha Graham studied at the beginning of her career. St. Denis toured with the Denishawn Dance Company extensively until the school closed in 1934. She continued to perform on her own and remained an active performer into advanced age.
Sellers, Peter
(1925–1980) English actor. Sellers, who began his career as a radio actor, found transatlantic popularity thanks in large part to his work in the role of Inspector Clouseau in five
Pink Panther
movies, one of which was released posthumously. His work in American films like Woody Allen’s
What’s New, Pussycat?
(1965) and Stanley Kubrick’s
Dr. Strangelove
(1964) brought him critical acclaim. He received an Oscar nomination in 1979 for his performance in
Being There.
Sert y Badia, José
(1874–1945) Spanish painter. The mural Sert painted in the cathedral of Vich is considered to be his most important work. He also painted murals in Buenos Aires, Geneva (Assembly of the League of Nations), London, New York (RCA Building in Rockefeller Center), and San Sebastian.
Shadow, The
. Popular radio show of suspense which always opened with the famous line “Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men?”; on the air from 1930 to 1954. Several actors played the part of the Shadow, including Jack La Curto, Frank Readrick Jr., Orson Welles, Brett Morrison, Bill Johnstone, John Archer, and Steve Courtleigh. It is likely that the Shadow Eugene met was Brett Morrison (1912–1978), who played the part for the longest time and is best known in the role. Morrison moved to New York from Hollywood when a career in films failed to pan out. He did well in radio, playing roles in several other programs such as
The Guiding Light.
Sitwell, Dame Edith
(1887–1964) English poet. Aristocratic by birth, Sitwell was either ignored or blasted by critics for her poetry. In her seventies, however, she finally received not only attention, but praise and honors as well. Dylan Thomas was considered to be a disciple of Sitwell’s. In 1947 she published
The Shadow of Cain
in response to the ushering in of the atomic age with the bombing of Hiroshima by the United States. In 1948 she came to the United States on a lecture tour, which is possibly when Eugene saw her on a New York bus.
Smith, William Gardner
(1926–1974) African American writer and journalist. After World War II, Smith was a reporter for a couple of U.S. newspapers, including
Afro-American.
In 1952 he immigrated to France, where he lived for the rest of his life. From 1954 to 1974, he was the news editor of the English Language Services for Agence France Presse. He published several novels, including
Last of the Conquerers
(1948) and
Anger at Innocence
(1950).
Sordi, Alberto
(b. 1919) Italian actor. Sordi’s acting career, which spans the years 1938 to 1990, has been dedicated mostly to comic roles. In the later part of his career, Sordi also became active in cowriting and directing.
Spark, Muriel
(b. 1918) Scottish writer. Although she began her career as a poet and a literary critic, Spark has found the greatest success with her fiction. Spark has published over twenty novels and several collections of short fiction. Her best-known work is
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
Her 1990 novel,
Symposium,
was a bestseller. The critical work on John Masefield to which Eugene refers is entitled, simply,
John Masefield
(1953).
Spencer, Elizabeth
(b. 1921) American writer. Although Spencer lived in Italy from 1953 to 1958, and then moved to Quebec province, Canada, her roots as a writer remain in her native Mississippi. She once commented on an epiphany she had regarding her Southern identity, saying that she realized that “there wasn’t any need in sitting at home in the cotton field just to be Southern, that you could be Southern elsewhere, in Florence or Paris, or anywhere you found yourself.” She published the novel
The Light in the Piazza
in 1960 and
The Salt Line
in 1980. She is currently working on another novel.
Stanley, Marie
(1885–1936) American writer. Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, Stanley early in her life observed the race divide of the early-twentieth-century South. Her novel,
Gulf Stream,
created some controversy in her hometown because of its frank discussion of race relations, but it was well received critically.
Stapleton, Maureen
(b. 1925) American actress. Stapleton made her Broadway debut in 1946 as Sarah Tansey in
The Playboy of the Western World.
She has also appeared in several movies, including
Bye, Bye, Birdie
(1963) and
Cocoon
(1985). She has made several television appearances. She played the role of Big Mama in the television film
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(1976).
Steele, Barbara
(b. 1938) English actress. Although Steele is English, she has appeared in several Italian films, including Fellini’s
8½.
She appeared in
I Never
Promised You a Rose Garden
(1977) and
Pretty Baby
(1977). Steele made quite a few “B” horror flicks, such as
The Castle of Terror
(1964),
They Came from Within
(1975), and
Piranha
(1978). Most recently she appeared in
The Prophet
(1999).
Steele, Max
(b. 1922) American writer, from South Carolina. Steele has served as an advisory editor for
Paris Review
since 1952. His only novel,
Debbie
(1960), won the Harper Prize. He has submitted short fiction to
Atlantic, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Collier’s, Esquire,
and
Quarterly Review of Literature,
as well as other literary journals. Steele’s academic career at Chapel Hill, where he is currently a professor of English, began in 1956.
Stein, Gertrude
(1874–1946) American-born writer and cultural critic. In 1903 Stein moved to Paris, where she lived for the rest of her life. She shared a home and salon with her companion and secretary, Alice B. Toklas. For the early half of the twentieth century their salon was a center for the Paris art and literature scene and was instrumental in defining the course of modern art, literature, and thought. Picasso and Matisse were among the painters Stein encouraged. She named the young American writers immigrating to Paris between the world wars, among them Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, “the lost generation.” She advised that modern art, literature, and thought required a structural revolt from the aesthetics and assumptions of the nineteenth century. In her own writing she explored such a revolt through her use of language and narrative. Once she remarked that her move away from narration toward pure description was an attempt to realize in writing a “continuous present” that was at the heart of human existence. The story told to Eugene by Alice B. Toklas is interesting to consider in light of this concept.
Strachey, Lytton
(1880-1932) British biographer, essayist, and critic. Best known for his book of biographical portraits entitled
Eminent Victorians,
Strachey was a member of the Bloomsbury group, a circle of important British intellectual and literary figures in London in the 1920s and 1930s whose members included John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, and Virginia Woolf.