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The Grass Harp
''The Grass Harp'' is a novel by Truman Capote published on October 1, 1951Clarke, Gerald. ''Capote: A Biography'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), page 224. It tells the story of an orphaned boy and two elderly ladies who observe life from a tree. They eventually leave their temporary retreat to make amends with each other and other members of society. Conception Not wanting to take up his incomplete first novel, ''Summer Crossing'', Capote began writing ''The Grass Harp'' in June 1950 and completed it on May 27, 1951. The novel was inspired by memories of his childhood in Monroeville, Alabama, particularly of a treehouse constructed in the 1930s in a large walnut tree in his cousin Jenny's backyard. This large tree house, accessible by an antique spiral staircase, featured cypress wood construction and a tin roof, and was furnished with a rattan sofa. Capote spent time in this tree house with his cousin Sook or other childhood friends such as Harper Lee. The novel wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Truman Capote
Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, including the novella '' Breakfast at Tiffany's'' (1958) and the true crime novel ''In Cold Blood'' (1966), which he labeled a "non-fiction novel." His works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television dramas. Capote rose above a childhood troubled by divorce, a long absence from his mother, and multiple migrations. He had discovered his calling as a writer by the time he was eight years old, and he honed his writing ability throughout his childhood. He began his professional career writing short stories. The critical success of " Miriam" (1945) attracted the attention of Random House publisher Bennett Cerf and resulted in a contract to write the novel '' Other Voices, Other Rooms'' (1948). Capote earned the most fame with '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Lewis (actor)
Robert Lewis (March 16, 1909 – November 23, 1997) was an American actor, director, teacher, author and founder of the influential Actors Studio in New York in 1947. In addition to his accomplishments on Broadway and in Hollywood, Lewis' greatest and longest lasting contribution to American theater may be the role he played as one of the foremost acting and directing teachers of his day. He was an early proponent of the Stanislavski System of acting technique and a founding member of New York's revolutionary Group Theatre in the 1930s. In the 1970s, he was the Head of the Yale School of Drama Acting and Directing Departments. Early years Robert (Bobby) Lewis was born in Brooklyn in 1909 to a middle-class working family. Encouraged in the arts by his mother, a former contralto, Lewis acquired an early and lifelong interest in music, particularly opera. He studied cello and piano as a child but these eventually gave way to his love of acting. In 1929, he joined Eva Le Gallienne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cecil Beaton
Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, as well as an Oscar–winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre. Early life and education Beaton was born on 14 January 1904 in Hampstead, north London, the son of Ernest Walter Hardy Beaton (1867–1936), a prosperous timber merchant, and his wife, Esther "Etty" Sisson (1872–1962). His grandfather, Walter Hardy Beaton (1841–1904), had founded the family business of "Beaton Brothers Timber Merchants and Agents", and his father followed into the business. Ernest Beaton was an amateur actor and met his wife, Cecil's mother Esther ("Etty"), when playing the lead in a play. She was the daughter of a Cumbrian blacksmith named Joseph Sisson and had come to London to visit her married sister. Ernest and Etty Beaton had four children – Cecil; two daughters, Nancy Elizabeth Louise Hardy Beaton (190 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassicist, and a composer of "an Olympian blend of humanity and detachment" whose "expressive voice was always carefully muted" until his late opera ''Lord Byron'' which, in contrast to all his previous work, exhibited an emotional content that rises to "moments of real passion". Biography Early years Thomson was born in Kansas City, Missouri. As a child he befriended Alice Smith, great-granddaughter of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter-day Saint movement. During his youth he often played the organ in Grace Church, (now Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral), as his piano teacher was the church's organist. After World War I, he entered Harvard University thanks to a loan from Dr. Fred M. Smith, the president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Chr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alice Pearce
Alice Pearce (October 16, 1917 – March 3, 1966) was an American actress. She was brought to Hollywood by Gene Kelly to reprise her Broadway performance in the film version of '' On the Town'' (1949). Pearce played comedic supporting roles in several films, before being cast as nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz in the television sitcom ''Bewitched'' in 1964. She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series posthumously after the second season of the series. She died from ovarian cancer in 1966. Early life and career Pearce was born in New York City, the only child of Margaret Clark and Robert E. Pearce. Her father was a foreign banking specialist, and her family moved to Europe when she was 18 months old. They lived in Brussels, Antwerp, Rome, and Paris. At age nine, she fell off a swing after losing her grip and landed on her chin. This left her with an undeveloped chin. She returned to the United States as a teenager, and boarded at the Master ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lenka Peterson
Lenka Peterson (born Betty Ann Isacson; October 16, 1925 – September 24, 2021) was an American theater, film, and television actress. Early years Peterson was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the daughter of Lenke (née Leinweber), a lab technician, and Sven Edward Isacson, a physician. Her father was Swedish, and her mother was Hungarian. She majored in drama at the University of Iowa. Career Peterson had the role of Corliss Archer in a USO-sponsored troupe that performed on military bases in Japan, the Philippines, and other places in the Pacific. In the mid-1940s, she acted with the Berkshire Playhouse stock theater in New Hampshire. She later acted on stage in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Boston, Massachusetts; and Providence, Rhode Island. One of the first members admitted to New York City's Actors Studio, Peterson's Broadway portrayals included Ella in '' Sundown Beach'' (1948), Maude in ''The Grass Harp'' (1952), Kitty in ''The Time of Your Life'' (1955), Sally and Mary in '' Al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jane Lawrence
Jane Lawrence Smith (February 3, 1915 – August 5, 2005), born Jane Brotherton, was an American actress and opera singer who was part of the New York art scene beginning in the 1950s. Life and work Jane Brotherton was born in Bozeman, Montana, and grew up in Mt. Vernon, Washington. Her father was Lawrence Langham Brotherton, a founder of the Bozeman Canning Company. In 1943 she, created the small role of Gertie in ''Oklahoma!'' on Broadway. The same year, she married Tony Smith, an architect who later achieved fame as a minimalist sculptor. Her close friend Tennessee Williams was best man at her wedding. The Smiths became the parents of three daughters, Kiki Smith, Seton Smith and Beatrice (Bebe) Smith Robinson (herself married to the painter and art critic Walter Robinson, before she died from AIDS). In 1950 she traveled to Europe and began an opera career in Germany. The next year she sang the part of Elettra in the 1951 Salzburg Festival presentation of ''Idomeneo' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Val Dufour
Albert Valéry Dufour (February 5, 1927 – July 27, 2000), known as Val Dufour, was an American actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li .... Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Dufour's parents were of Parisian French descent. Dufour first appeared on Serial (radio and television), episodic television in 1952, and amassed appearances on over a dozen series. He was best known for his role as John Wyatt on the soap opera ''Search for Tomorrow'', which he played from 1972 to 1979. Dufour won a Daytime Emmy Award for his performance in 1977. Before his debut on ''Search for Tomorrow'', Dufour was also noted for his role as Walter Curtin on ''Another World (TV series), Another World'' from 1967 to 1972 and for his role of Andre Lazar on ''The Edge of Night''. Dufour died ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gertrude Flynn
Gertrude Flynn (January 14, 1909 – October 16, 1996) was an American stage, film and television actress. She was married to Asa Bordages, a feature writer for the ''New York World-Telegram'' and playwright known for the 1941 play ''Brooklyn USA''. Career Flynn's film and television career began in 1954 in ''The Barefoot Contessa'' as "Lulu McGee". She played "Maggie Blake" in the ''Sherlock Holmes'' episode, "The Case of the Belligerent Ghost". She made four guest appearances on ''Perry Mason'' in the early 1960s, including as "Agatha Culpepper" in "The Case of the Floating Stones", as Mrs. Nichols in "The Case of the Irate Inventor" in 1960, and as Sylvia Lambert in the 1963 episode "The Case of the Bluffing Blast". Her final appearance was in 1966 in the "Case of the Golfer's Gambit" as Rolasie Hedrick. During the 1965–66 season of the soap opera ''Days of Our Lives'' she made five appearances as Anna Sawyer. She made her final television appearances in 1987 in '' Outlaw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sterling Holloway
Sterling Price Holloway Jr. (January 4, 1905 – November 22, 1992) was an American actor and voice actor who appeared in over 100 films and 40 television shows. He did voice acting for The Walt Disney Company, playing Mr. Stork in ''Dumbo'', Adult Flower in ''Bambi'', the Cheshire Cat in '' Alice in Wonderland'', Kaa in ''The Jungle Book'', Roquefort the Mouse in ''The Aristocats'', and the title character in ''Winnie the Pooh'', among many others. Early life Born in Cedartown, Georgia, Holloway was named after his father, Sterling Price Holloway (1864–1930), who, in turn, was named after a prominent Confederate general, Sterling "Pap" Price. His mother was Rebecca DeHaven Boothby (1879–1963). He had a younger brother named Boothby (1909–1978). The family owned a grocery store in Cedartown, where his father served as mayor in 1912. After graduating from Georgia Military Academy in 1920 at the age of fifteen, he left Georgia for New York City, where he attended the Amer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Harris
Jonathan Harris (born Jonathan Daniel Charasuchin, November 6, 1914 – November 3, 2002) was an American character actor whose career included more than 500 television and film appearances, as well as voiceovers. Two of his best-known roles were as the timid accountant Bradford Webster in the television version of ''The Third Man'' and the fussy villain Dr. Zachary Smith of the 1960s science-fiction series ''Lost in Space''. Near the end of his career, he provided voices for the animated features ''A Bug's Life'' and ''Toy Story 2''. Early life The second of three children, Harris was born on November 6, 1914, in the Bronx, New York City, to Sam and Jennie Charasuchin, poor Russian-Jewish immigrants. His father worked in Manhattan's Garment District. The family lived in a six-story tenement, and his mother often took in boarders to make ends meet, giving them Jonathan's room and bed and relegating him to sleep on the dining room chairs. By age 12 he was working in a pharmacy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Nelson (actress)
Ruth Gloria Nelson (August 2, 1905 – September 12, 1992) was an American stage and film actress. She is known for her roles in films such as '' Wilson'', '' A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'', ''Humoresque'', '' 3 Women'', ''The Late Show'' and ''Awakenings''. She was the wife of John Cromwell, with whom she acted on multiple occasions. Early life Born in Saginaw, Michigan, Nelson was the daughter of Sanford Leroy Nelson and vaudeville actress Eva Mudge. She attended Immaculate Heart Convent School in Los Angeles, studying first with Daniel Frohman and then with Richard Boleslawski at the American Laboratory Theatre in New York City during the early 1920s. Career Nelson made her stage debut in New York on April 4, 1928 at the Laboratory Theatre under Boleslawski's direction, portraying the title character in Jean-Jacques Bernard's ''Martine''. Over the next two seasons, Nelson made two more appearances—in Checkhov's ''The Seagull'' and Vladimir Kirshon's ''Red Rust''—prior to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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