Felicia Montealegre Bernstein (6 February 1922 – 16 June 1978) was a Chilean-American stage and television actress born in San Jose, Costa Rica. From 1951 until her death, she was married to the American composer and conductor
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...
.
Life and career
Montealegre was born on February 6, 1922 in
San José, Costa Rica
San José (; meaning "Saint Joseph") is the capital and largest city of Costa Rica, and the capital of the province of the same name. It is in the center of the country, in the mid-west of the Central Valley, within San José Canton. San ...
to Clemencia Montealegre Carazo (San Jose, 1898-1963), and Roy Elwood Cohn, a US mining executive then stationed in Costa Rica. She had two sisters, Nancy Alessandri and Madeline Lecaros. Educated in Chile, she was raised Catholic, and later
converted
Conversion or convert may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman''
* "Conversion" (''Stargate Atlantis''), an episode of the television series
* "The Conversion" ...
to Judaism, when marrying Leonard Bernstein (her own paternal grandfather had been Jewish). She established herself in New York, where she took piano lessons from her Chilean compatriot
Claudio Arrau.
Montealegre's voice can be heard on two works conducted by Bernstein: his own ''
Kaddish Symphony'' as well as a version of
Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...
's ''
Le martyre de Saint Sébastien'', partially performed in English.
Montealegre also appeared in several television dramas, including a 1950 dramatization of
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...
's ''
A Doll's House'' on ''
Kraft Television Theatre
''Kraft Television Theatre'' is an American anthology drama television series running from 1947 to 1958. It began May 7, 1947 on NBC, airing at 7:30pm on Wednesday evenings until December of that year. It first promoted MacLaren's Imperial Chees ...
'', in which she played Nora. Another appearance on television includes the 1949 CBS teleplay (part of the "Studio One" series) based on
Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
's novel ''
Of Human Bondage'', in which Montealegre played Mildred opposite
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923April 5, 2008) was an American actor and political activist.
As a Hollywood star, he appeared in almost 100 films over the course of 60 years. He played Moses in the epic film ''The Ten C ...
as Philip Carey. She made no feature films, but starred in the 1976 Broadway play ''Poor Murderer''.
In popular culture
Montealegre features prominently in
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018)Some sources say 1931; ''The New York Times'' and Reuters both initially reported 1931 in their obituaries before changing to 1930. See and was an American author and journalist widely ...
's essay "Radical Chic."
Personal life
Montealegre met composer-conductor
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...
in 1946 at a party given by Arrau.
Their first engagement was broken off, and she subsequently had a several-year relationship with Broadway and Hollywood actor
Richard Hart. After Hart's death she married Bernstein, in 1951, with whom she had three children, Jamie, Alexander and Nina.
Montealegre helped found an anti-war organization educating women against the war in Vietnam "Another Mother for Peace" in 1967, and became controversial when she and Bernstein hosted an evening for the Black Panther Party in 1970. She was a primary focus in Tom Wolfe's New York essay recounting the events of that night entitled "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's". Two years later, she was also one of the 100 individuals arrested in an antiwar protest in Washington, D.C.
Death
Montealegre died of
lung cancer
Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...
in
East Hampton, New York
The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York. At the time of the 2020 United States census, it had a total ...
, in 1978, aged 56.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Montealegre, Felicia
1922 births
1978 deaths
American stage actresses
American television actresses
American people of Costa Rican-Jewish descent
Chilean people of Costa Rican-Jewish descent
Naturalized citizens of Chile
Converts to Judaism from Roman Catholicism
Costa Rican Jews
Jewish American actresses
People from East Hampton (town), New York
20th-century American actresses
Chilean emigrants to the United States
Chilean Jews
Leonard Bernstein
Deaths from lung cancer in New York (state)
Costa Rican emigrants
Immigrants to Chile