THIS WOMEN BIOGRAPHIES

YOUR DAILY DOSE OF INSPIRING WOMEN

[thiswomenbiographies]

EMILIE FLÖGE (1874-1952)

First liberated Viennese woman, Austrian Coco Chanel immortalized in Klimt’s phenomenal Kiss.

(re)ascending the social ladder

Emilie Flöge was born into a Viennese artisan family that had only recently ascended the ladder of social respectability. Her father Hermann was a master turner who had founded a firm that exported Meerschaum pipes, mostly to the British market.

between silk and lace

Always passionate about fashion, Emilie quickly started working as a seamstress, and when her elder sister, Pauline, opened a dressmaking school in Vienna, Emilie willingly agreed to help. Two years later, in 1895, the two of them won a prestigious dressmaking competition.

In 1904 Flöge sisters opened the couture house Schwestern Flöge in Vienna, with interiors designed by Josef Hoffmann. It quickly became a successful enterprise luring wealthy clients committed to modernity in all its forms. At its prime, the company employed nearly 80 workers. 

reforming the dress

In addition to heading the Schwestern Flöge, Emilie also maintained a direct, hands-on role in production, often pinning fabric to a dummy (custom-made to a client’s proportions) before directing fabric-cutters to reassemble it. She traveled to Paris twice a year to source fabric, belts and buttons.

But what really fascinated her, was an idea to rethink women’s dress. Using her familiarity with Wiener Werkstätte projects, folk costumes and Japanese textiles, she soon created her very own Reform Dress.

revolutionizing fashion stores

By the time Chanel opened her first salon in Paris, Flöge had been producing cutting-edge designs in Vienna for several years. Her loose, flowing and bold dresses rejected the tight-laced style of historicist Vienna already carving out new roles for women in the industry. Flöge’s fashion celebrated physical freedom, self-expression, closeness to nature, and the vitality of other ethnicities from within the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself to the Far East.

Unlike other retail stores, the Flöge sisters displayed alluring art objects that were not for sale. The store was decorated with beauticians, tortoise shell combs, marbled paper notebooks, silver chalices and hand-carved wooden dolls. Instead of copying popular design trends of the time, Schwestern Flöge was furnished with sleek, adjustable mirrors; geometric, carved wood chairs; and black-and-white chequered tables.

relationship with Klimt

In 1892 Emilie was introduced to Ernst Klimt, who recently got engaged with her sister - Helene. He was a talented painter gaining recognition for his work alongside his younger brother - Gustav. After Ernst’s death in December 1892, Gustav was made Helene's guardian. At that time Emilie was eighteen years old and Gustav became a frequent guest at the home of her parents, spending the summers with the Flöge family at Lake Attersee.  

By 1897, Emilie Flöge and Gustav Klimt had become inseparable, and most Viennese close to the couple assumed that she had in fact become his mistress. While there can be no doubt that the couple were passionately attached emotionally, and would spend countless hours in each other's company over the next two decades, some scholars have raised the possibility that their relationship always remained platonic.

After 1891, Klimt portrayed her in many of his works. Experts believe that his painting The Kiss (1907–08) shows the artist and Emilie Flöge as lovers. Klimt also drew some garments for the Flöge salon in the rational dress style - a style promoted by the feminist movement - and from 1898, other clothes designed by the Vienna Secession. 

fin de siècle

By the time Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, many of Schwestern Flöge’s clientele, who were Jewish, had fled the country or were deported to concentration camps. Like neighboring businesses — both established and burgeoning — they were forced to close. 

Emilie Flöge never wrote her memoirs, but despite the paucity of sources historians have been able to reconstruct the story of her powerful influence as the muse of one of fin-de-siècle Vienna's greatest artists. Among the last survivors from an utterly vanished world, she died in Vienna on May 26, 1952.

KNOW MORE:

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a12241915/klimt-muse-emilie-floge-forgotten-fashion-designer/

https://www.crfashionbook.com/culture/a22835087/emilie-floge-art-fashion-cr-muse/

https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/floge-emilie-1874-1952

[thiswomenbiographies]

I wish to live to 150 years old, but the day I die, I wish it to be with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other.

AVA GARDNER

[em-negatives]

ROMY SCHNEIDER (1938 - 1982)

,,I wish to present myself in front of the camera, each time under the features of a different woman. I would like to live and apprehend the problems, the conflicts, the feelings and the impulses of women radically different from me.”

Czytaj dalej

[thiswomenbiographies]

MARIA SKŁODOWSKA-CURIE (1867-1934)

,,Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less”

Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, on 7 November 1867. 

Although she was ambitious and hard-working student, she was unable to continue her education in Poland because she was a woman.

She earned money to study abroad all by herself, working as a home tutor in Warsaw for several years.

In late 1891, she left Poland to study physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the University of Paris. 

In 1893, she began work in an industrial laboratory of Professor Gabriel Lippmann. 

Working with the mineral pitchblende, Curie discovered a new radioactive element and named it polonium, after her native country of Poland. She also discovered radioactivity, and championed use of portable X-rays. 

She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the first person to claim Nobel honors twice. She became first female professor at Sorbonne. 

She died  from aplastic anemia believed to have been contracted from her long-term exposure to radiation.

[thiswomenbiographies]

AUDREY HEPBURN (1929 - 1993)

“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.”

Audrey Kathleen Ruston was born in Belgium. Her father was a British subject born in Austria-Hungary, and her mother was a Dutch noblewoman. 

As a result of her multinational background, she learned five languages.

After the outbreak of the World War II, Hepburn’s family was profoundly affected by the occupation. 

To raise the money for the Dutch resistance, Hepburn performed silent dance performances. 

During the Dutch famine that followed in the winter of 1944, she developed acute anaemia, respiratory problems and oedema as a result of malnutrition. This led to many health issues in her adult life. 

After the war ended in 1945, Hepburn moved with her mother and siblings to Amsterdam. As the family’s fortune had been lost during the war, Audrey’s mother started to work as a cook and housekeeper in order to afford her daughters dancing lessons. 

One day Hepburn was told that despite her talent, her height and weak constitution would make the status of prima ballerina unattainable. That’s when she decided to concentrate on acting. 

In 1953 she appeared in her first movie, Roman Holiday. 

She was nominated for six Oscars for her movie performances, and won many prestigious awards throughout her career.

For many years she worked with Hubert Givenchy, who helped her to create the iconic “Hepburn look” - definition of timeless elegance and sophistication. 

In 1989, Hepburn was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF. She delivered food to orphanages in Africa, took part in an immunisation campaign and clean water programmes in Sudan and Vietnam. 

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work.

She died of cancer at the age of 63.

[thiswomenbiographies]

ANN LOWE (1898 - 1981)

,,I love my clothes and I'm particular about who wears them.”

She was born in Alabama as a great granddaughter of a slave woman and an Alabama plantation owner. 

Both her mother and grandmother worked as seamstresses for the members of high society. That’s how Lowe's interest in fashion, sewing and designing began. 

When she was 16, her mother died suddenly while working on four ball gowns for the First Lady of Alabama, Elizabeth Kirkman O'Neal. Ann decided to finish the dresses, using the skills she learned. 

At the age of 14, Ann Lowe married Lee Cohen and soon they had a son, Arthur Lee. After the marriage, Ann’s husband wanted her to give up working as a seamstress. She agreed and became a housewife. Few years later, she was offered a job designing wedding dresses for women. That’s when she decided to leave her husband, and moved to NYC with her son. 

In NYC, Lowe enrolled at S.T. Taylor Design School. As the school was segregated, she was required to attend classes in a room alone. After graduating in 1919, she opened her first dress salon, "Annie Cohen". The salon catered to members of high society and quickly became a success. 

In 1953, Lowe was hired to design a wedding dress for future First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier for her September wedding to then-Senator John F. Kennedy. The dress was described in detail in The New York Times's coverage of the wedding. While the Bouvier-Kennedy wedding was a highly publicized event, Lowe did not receive public credit for her work.

Throughout her career, Lowe was known for being highly selective in choosing her clientele. She later described herself as "an awful snob", adding: "I love my clothes and I'm particular about who wears them. I am not interested in sewing for cafe society or social climbers.”

The wealthy clientele Lowe worked for, often refused to pay her the amount of money her dresses were worth. After paying her staff, Lowe often failed to make a profit on her designs. She later admitted that at the height of her career, she was virtually broke. 

In 1962, she lost her salon in New York City after failing to pay taxes. While she was recuperating after a serious eye surgery, an anonymous friend paid Lowe's debts which enabled her to work again. In 1968, she opened a new store, Ann Lowe Originals, on Madison Avenue. She retired in 1972.

In the last five years of her life, Lowe lived with her adopted daughter Ruth in Queens. On February 25, 1981, after an extended illness, Ann Lowe died at home. Her funeral was held at St. Marks United Methodist Church on March 3. Many of her dresses are now exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, and National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. 

[thiswomenbiographies]

JANE FONDA (1937 - )

“To be a revolutionary you have to be a human being. You have to care about people who have no power.”

Jane Seymour Fonda was born in New York City on December 21, 1937.

She was named for the third wife of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour, to whom she is distantly related on her mother's side. 

Jane’s carefree childhood ended in 1950, when her mother died by suicide while undergoing treatment at psychiatric hospital. 

As a young girl, Fonda became interested in modeling and appeared twice on the cover of Vogue. After graduating from high school, she decided to study art and went to Paris. 

In 1958 she met Lee Strasberg and the meeting changed the course of her life. "I went to the Actors Studio and Lee Strasberg told me I had talent. Real talent. It was the first time that anyone told me I was good. At anything. It was a turning point in my life."

Fonda's film career began in the 1960s. Throughout the decade she averaged almost two movies a year.

Fonda soon engaged in political activism in support of the Civil Rights Movement, and in opposition to the Vietnam War. She supported the Black Panthers in the early 1970s, stating: "Revolution is an act of love; we are the children of revolution, born to be rebels. It runs in our blood."

In 1970s, Jane Fonda announced that she would make only films that focused on important issues. 

She became involved in the feminist movement, and said publicly, that her difficult past led her to become such a passionate activist for women's rights. 

The actress is an active supporter of the V-Day movement, which works to stop violence against women and girls. In 2001, she established the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health, which aims to help prevent teen pregnancy. 

In My Life So Far, Fonda stated that she considers patriarchy to be harmful to men as well as women. She also states that for many years, she feared to call herself a feminist, because she believed that all feminists were "anti-male".

In the 1970s and ’80s Fonda was active on behalf of left-wing political causes. She was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War who journeyed to Hanoi in 1972 to denounce the U.S. bombing campaigns there.

[thiswomenbiographies]

The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.

AUDREY HEPBURN

[thiswomenbiographies]

NINA LEEN (1909 (?) - 1995)

“I know I got some assignments because I’m a woman.”

Nina Leen was born in Russia, probably in 1909. She kept a lot of secrets throughout her life, including her birth year. As a young woman she moved to Berlin to study painting. 

After finishing her degree, she lived in Italy and Switzerland. In 1939 she emigrated to the US, and soon found a job as a photographer for the LIFE magazine. With her first camera, a Rolleiflex, she honed her photography skills, teaching herself how to take pictures — and developing what would become her signature style. Her first photographs to be published in Life in April 1940 were of tortoises at the Bronx Zoo.

She never became a staff photographer at Life, but contributed as a contract photographer until the magazine closed in 1972. Over the years, Leen was behind over 50 magazine covers and contributed countless reports from around the world.

She is remembered above all for her photographs of animals, many published in book form. Leen was a prolific photographer of fashion for Life, and was long married to the fashion photographer Serge Balkin.

In addition to her many animal stories, she is remembered for covering young people in the 1940s and 1950s and the group of artists known as The Irascibles. She also documented European royalty, fashion models, and actresses. 

After LIFE folded in 1972, Nina Leen's career hardly slowed. Throughout the 1970s she produced an average of two books a year, and published 15 in her lifetime — including a groundbreaking work on her beloved bats. Nina Leen died on January 1, 1995, at her home in New York City. A spokesperson for LIFE said that she was in her late 70s or early 80s — but no one really knows for sure.

KNOW MORE:

read about curator and galleriest Daniel Cooney’s struggle to find out more about Nina Leen: https://slate.com/culture/2015/03/nina-leen-a-mysterious-person-and-a-prolific-photographer-of-animals-and-the-eccentric-photos.html

read Nina Leen’s biography by LIFE magazine: https://time.com/3506134/photographer-spotlight-nina-leen/

fascinating article about 6 female photographers working for LIFE magazine: https://www.thelily.com/how-six-female-photojournalists-saw-the-world-according-to-their-photographs-for-life-magazine/

[thiswomenbiographies]

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929 - 1994)

“I am a woman above everything else.”

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was born on July 28, 1929, in Southampton, New York. Her father, John Bouvier, was a wealthy New York stockbroker, and her mother, Janet, was an accomplished socialite. 

From an early age, Jackie idolized her father, who likewise favored her over her sister, calling his elder child "the most beautiful daughter a man ever had".

Jackie was a bright and curious child. She enjoyed a privileged childhood of ballet lessons at the Metropolitan Opera House and French lessons beginning at age of 12. Like her mother, Onassis started horse riding as soon as she learned to walk. At the age of 11, she scored a double victory in the national junior horsemanship competition.

Throughout her life, Jackie attended the most prestigious schools with rigorous academics, emphasis on proper manners and the art of conversation. She excelled as a student, writing frequent essays and poems for the school newspaper, and winning many awards. Despise her acknowledged beauty, Onassis had greater ambitions than being recognized for her own charm. She wrote in the yearbook that her life ambition was "not to be a housewife".

In the fall of 1947, Onassis enrolled at Vassar College in New York to study history, literature, art and French. She spent her junior year studying abroad in Paris. She later wrote: "I learned not to be ashamed of a real hunger for knowledge, something that I had always tried to hide, and I came home glad to start in here again but with a love for Europe that I am afraid will never leave me."

After graduating from college in 1951, Onassis started working for the Washington Times-Herald newspaper. Her job was to photograph and interview various Washington residents, and then weave their pictures and responses together in her column. Among her most notable stories were an interview with Richard Nixon, coverage of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's inauguration and a report on the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. 

In May 1952, at Charles L. Bartlett’s dinner party, Jackie was introduced to a dashing young congressman and senator-elect from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy. Onassis remembered later: "at some point during the dinner, he leaned across the asparagus and asked me for a date." 

They were married a year later, on September 12, 1953. The wedding was considered the social event of the season with an estimated 700 guests at the ceremony and 1,200 at the reception that followed at Hammersmith Farm.

In 1957, after a series of tragic miscarriages, Onassis gave birth to her first child, Caroline Kennedy. That same year, she encouraged Kennedy to write and, subsequently, helped him edit Profiles in Courage, his famous book about U.S. senators who had risked their careers to stand for causes they believed in.

In January 1960, John F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency. Although Onassis was pregnant at the time and thus unable to join him on the campaign trail, she campaigned tirelessly from home. She answered letters, gave interviews, taped commercials and wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column called "Campaign Wife."

On November 8, 1960, Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon to become the 35th president of the United States. Onassis's first mission as first lady was to transform the White House into a museum of American history and culture. "Every boy who comes here should see things that develop his sense of history," she once said. Onassis did everything she could to procure art and furniture owned by past presidents, as well as pieces she considered representative of various periods of American culture. 

As first lady, Jacqueline was also a great patron of the arts. She invited to the White House not only the officials, diplomats and statesman but also the nation's leading writers, artists, musicians and scientists. 

Jackie traveled abroad regularly, both with the president and alone. She spoke fluent Italian, French and Spanish, and used it as a tool to gain public support during her husband’s presidential campaign. She was so adoringly received in France that President Kennedy introduced himself as "the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris." 

Kennedy’s tragic death in 1963 left Jacqueline widow at the age of 34. Grief-stricken in the aftermath of her husband’s death, she provided a metaphor that has remained enduring symbol of his presidency: "There'll be great presidents again, but there'll never be another Camelot."

In 1968, Onassis married a Greek shipping magnate named Aristotle Onassis. However, he died only seven years later, in 1975, leaving Onassis a widow for the second time. Jacqueline returned to the promising career that had been put on hold when she married Kennedy. She went to work as an editor at the Viking Press in New York City and then moved to Doubleday, where she served as senior editor.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis died on May 19, 1994, at the age of 64. She is buried beside President John F. Kennedy's gravesite at the Arlington National Cemetery, which is marked by the eternal flame.

[thiswomenbiographies]

NINA SIMONE (1933 - 2003)

“I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.”

Her real name was Eunice Kathleen Waymon. She was born on February 21, 1933, in Tryon, North Carolina. The sixth of eight children in a poor family, she began playing piano at the age of three or four. Demonstrating a talent with the instrument, she performed at her local church.

Her concert debut was given when she was 12. Simone later said that during this performance, her parents were forced to move to the back of the hall to make way in the front row for white people. She said that she refused to play until her parents were moved back to the front, and that the incident contributed to her later involvement in the civil rights movement.

Because of Simone’s family low income, her music teacher helped establish a special fund to pay for her education. Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist her continued education. With the help of this scholarship money, she was able to attend high school. 

After the graduation, Simone applied for Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her application, however, was denied. For the rest of her life, she suspected it happened because of racial prejudice. Discouraged, she took private piano lessons, worked as a photographer's assistant, and sometimes taught piano from her home in Philadelphia.

Soon, in order to fund her private lessons, Simone had to start performing at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City. Knowing her mother would not approve of playing the "Devil's Music", she adopted the stage name to remain undetected. Simone's mixture of jazz, blues, and classical music in her performances at the bar earned her a small but loyal fan base.

In 1958 Nina Simone released her debut album Little Girl Blue. After its success, Simone signed a contract with Colpix Records and recorded a multitude of studio and live albums. By this time, Simone performed pop music only to make money to continue her classical music studies.  

In 1960s and 1970s, Simone performed and spoke at numerous civil rights meetings. She also released many protest songs, such as her controversial "Mississippi Goddam”.  She supported black nationalism and advocated violent revolution rather than Martin Luther King's non-violent approach. 

"Mississippi Goddam" harmed Simone’s career. She claimed that the music industry punished her by boycotting her records. In 1970 she decided to leave US, and flew to Barbados. During the last decade of her life, Simone had sold more than one million records, making her a global catalog best-seller.

In 1993, she settled near Provence in Southern France. On April 21, 2003, she died in her sleep after many years of suffering from breast cancer. Her ashes were scattered in several African countries.

[thiswomenbiographies]

BIANCA JAGGER (1945 - )

“Those who suffer are not those at the top, but are the less privileged members of society.”

She was born in Managua, Nicaragua. Her father was a successful import-export merchant and her mother was a housewife. When Bianca was 10 her parents divorced, and she decided to live with her mother.

Bianca was always a hardworking student, which led her to receiving a scholarship to study political science in France at the Paris Institute of Political Studies. Since her teenage years, she was deeply fascinated with eastern philosophy. She travelled extensively in India.

In September 1970 she met Mick Jagger at a party after a Rolling Stones concert in France. Next year they married in a small church in Saint-Tropez, when Bianca was already 4 months pregnant with their daughter.

In May 1978, Bianca filed for divorce on the grounds of Jagger’s adultery with model Jerry Hall. She later said that her marriage ended on her wedding day.

In the 1970s and early 1980s Bianca Jagger had a public reputation as a jet-setter and party-goer. That’s when she became known as a friend of pop artist Andy Warhol.

In early 1979, Jagger visited Nicaragua with an International Red Cross delegation and was shocked by the brutality and oppression that the Somoza regime carried out there. This persuaded her to commit herself to the issues of justice and human rights.

Since then she has opposed the death penalty and defended the rights of women and of indigenous people in Latin America. She spoke up for victims of the conflicts in Bosnia and Serbia. Her writings were published in several newspapers. From the late 1970s, she collaborated with many humanitarian organisations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

In March 2002, Jagger travelled to Afghanistan with a delegation of fourteen women, organised by Global Exchange to support Afghan women’s projects. On 16 December 2003, she was nominated Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador.

In June 2012, Jagger launched an online campaign called Plant a Pledge initiative, which aims to restore 150 million hectares of forest around the world by 2020.

For her international work on behalf of humanitarian causes, Jagger has earned numerous awards. She still remains active and willing to make a good change.

[thiswomenbiographies]

IRIS VAN HERPEN (1984 - )

“For me fashion is an expression of art that is very closely related both to me and to my body. I see it as an expression of identity combined with desire, moods and a cultural setting.”

She was born in Wamel, the Netherlands. She got a love for fashion from her grandmother, who collected stage clothes as a pastime activity. As a little child, Iris attended ballet classes, but soon she realized she was more fascinated with handcraft. 

During high school years, she became particularly interested in designing clothes, and decided to study fashion. She went to ArtEZ, and Claudy Jongstra in Amsterdam. In the meantime she interned at Alexander McQueen in London.

As a fashion student, she was strongly against using technology in designing process. She did all her fashion drawings by hand, never using computer. A turning point came when she was introduced to 3D printing and understood how easier would it make designing complex geometrical shapes. 

Van Herpen graduated in 2006, and in 2007 she started her own label focusing on women's wear collections. Since her first show in 2007 she has been continuously preoccupied with inventing new forms and methods of expression by combining the most traditional and the most radical materials and garment construction methods into her unique aesthetic vision. 

Van Herpen is considered as a pioneer in using 3D printing as a garment construction technique, and as an innovator who is comfortable with using technology as one of the guiding principles in her work. 

Because of van Herpen’s interest in multidisciplinary approach to creation that goes beyond fashion, she has often collaborated with various artists such as Jolan van der Wiel and Neri Oxman and architects such as Philip Beesley and Benthem and Crouwel Architects. 

The designer’s interest in science and technology has led to ongoing conversations with CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research) and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Today, van Herpen continues to work within her Amsterdam studio, where new ideas are born, and where Haute Couture orders are meticulously crafted for her global clientele, each creation passing through the designer’s own hands.

KNOW MORE:

Iris Van Herpen for Vogue Greece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUthbow4ptk

interview with Iris Van Herpen for CNN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTCmFL-v66M

interview with Iris Van Herpen by SHOWstudio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjp8uxXEZHI

how an Iris Van Herper gown is made:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNnUiEwfwXM&t=29s

[thiswomenbiographies]

OLIVIA HUSSEY (1951 - )

“Performers are the neediest people in the world. Unless you’ve been in that goldfish bowl - nobody can judge unless they’ve worn those shoes.”

Hussey was born Olivia Osuna in Argentina. Her parents divorced when she was 2 years old. At age of seven, Hussey moved with her mother and younger brother to London where she spent the remainder of her early life.

In London, she attended drama school for five years. At the age of 13, she began acting professionally in theaters. In 1968 she appeared on the London stage as Jenny in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. During the run of this play, Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli first spotted her because of her beauty and theatrical skill.

At 15, she was chosen out of 500 actresses to star as Juliet in Zeffirelli's film version of Romeo and Juliet, opposite Leonard Whiting’s Romeo. Today this movie is known to be the most financially successful film adaptation of a Shakespeare play of all time.

It was popular not only among movie critics, but also among teenagers partly because it was the first film to use actors who were close to the age of the characters from the original play.

After a huge success of Romeo and Juliet, Hussey moved to Los Angeles. There, she met and married Dean Paul Martin, son of Dean Martin. They had a son, Alexander Martin, who is now an actor. Hussey and Martin eventually divorced.

In 1985 Olivia signed on to star with Burt Lancaster and Ben Cross in The Jeweler’s Shop, a screen adaptation of a story written by Pope John Paul II. Following the filming, Olivia was invited to view the film at the Vatican as a guest of His Holiness.

In 1987, Hussey appeared in a clip for the Michael Jackson video Liberian Girl, among others, who also included Steven Spielberg, John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, and Whoopi Goldberg. In 1990, Hussey appeared in two horror projects: a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and in the miniseries It, an adaptation of the Stephen King novel.

In 2015 Hussey and Leonard Whiting reunited as on-screen partners in Social Suicide, the only film that they both appeared in since Romeo and Juliet. In 2018 Olivia Hussey released her autobiography The Girl on the Balcony: Olivia Hussey Finds Life After Romeo and Juliet.

[thiswomenbiographies]

MARGARET KEANE (1927 - )

“Stand up for your rights and be brave, and don’t be intimidated. And never tell a lie, ever.”

IN THE 1960s WALTER KEANE WAS FETED FOR HIS SENTIMENTAL PORTRAITS THAT SOLD BY THE MILLION. BUT IN FACT, HIS WIFE MARGARET WAS THE ARTIST, WORKING IN VIRTUAL SLAVERY TO MAINTAIN HIS SUCCESS. THIS IS HER STORY.

Keane was born in Nashville, Tennessee. When she was two, her eardrum was permanently damaged during a mastoid operation. Unable to hear properly she learned to watch the eyes of the person talking to her to understand them.

Keane started drawing as a child, and at age 10 she took her first painting classes. She soon painted her first oil painting of two little girls, one crying and one laughing. At her local church she was well known for her sketches of angels with big eyes and floppy wings. 

At 18 she attended the Traphagen School Of Design in New York City for a year. She began her first work painting clothing and baby cribs in the 1950s. After a few years she finally began a career painting portraits.  She worked in both acrylic- and oil-based paints, but her work was limited to women, children and familiar animals. 

Some time in the mid-1950s, Margaret, married with a child, met Walter Keane. He claimed later that he saw her sitting alone at a "well known bistro and he was attracted by her large eyes”. At the time Walter was also married, worked as a real estate salesman and painted on the side. Margaret found him "suave, gregarious and charming." The two married in 1955 in Honolulu. 

Margaret has said that he began selling her characteristic "big eyes" paintings immediately, but unknown to her, claimed it was his own work. When she discovered his deception, she remained silent. She later explained her behavior: "I was afraid of him because he [threatened] to have me done in if I said anything." She rationalized the situation on the ground that at least her paintings were being shown.

In the 1960s, Walter Keane became one of the most popular and commercially successful artists of the time. At the height of his popularity, Margaret was painting the artworks he claimed to be his own non-stop for 16 hours a day. 

In 1970 Margaret found the strength to reveal the truth. She announced on a radio broadcast she was the real creator of the paintings that had been attributed to her ex-husband Walter Keane. In 1986, she sued Walter in federal court for claiming he was the real artist. At the trial, the judge famously ordered both Margaret and Walter to each create a big-eyed painting in the courtroom, to determine who was telling the truth. Walter declined, citing a sore shoulder, whereas Margaret completed her painting in 53 minutes. 

After a three-week trial, the jury awarded her $4 million in damages. After the verdict Keane said "I really feel that justice has triumphed. It's been worth it, even if I don't see any of that four million dollars." Keane says she doesn't care about the money and just wanted to establish the truth. 

[thiswomenbiographies]

JOAN BAEZ (1941- )

“You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.”

SINGER, SONGWRITER, MUSICIAN AND ACTIVIST, WHO USED POPULARITY AS A VEHICLE FOR SOCIAL PROTEST. SHE STILL IS ONE OF THE MOST RECOGNIZABLE FACES OF AMERICAN FOLK.

She was born in New York, on January 9, 1941. Her father, Albert Baez, was born in Mexico and grew up in Brooklyn, and her mother was born in Scotland. 

When Joan was a little child, a friend of her father gave her a ukulele. She learned four chords, which enabled her to play rhythm and blues, the music she was listening to at the time. 

When Baez was 13, her aunt took her to a concert by folk musician Pete Seeger, and Baez found herself strongly moved by his music. She soon began practicing the songs of his repertoire and performing them publicly. 

In 1958 Baez family moved to Massachusetts. Joan began performing in clubs near her home, and even attended Boston University for about six weeks.

A few months later, Baez and two other folk enthusiasts recorded an album in the cellar of a friend's house. It was released on Veritas Records that same year as Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square. 

In 1959 Baez met Bob Gibson, who invited her to perform with him at Newport Folk Festival. This appearance led to Baez signing with Vanguard Records the following year. That’s when her true professional career began. 

In the following year, she recorded her first solo album for Vanguard, Joan Baez. Other successful albums followed, gaining her huge fame and recognition. 

In 1960s Baez emerged at the forefront of the American folk music. Thats when she introduced her audiences to the then-unknown Bob Dylan. She often used her music to express her social and political views. She sang "We Shall Overcome" at the March on Washington in 1963 that featured the iconic words and leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Baez participated in the antiwar movement, calling for an end to the conflict in Vietnam. Beginning in 1964, she would refuse to pay part of her taxes to protest U.S. military spending for a decade. Baez was also arrested twice in 1967 in California, for blocking an armed forces induction center.

In 1970s Baez helped establish the west coast branch of Amnesty International, and released numerous albums branching out beyond folk. 

In 2007 Baez was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. She remains professionally active up to this day. 

[thiswomenbiographies]

Vivian Maier (1926-2009)

“She was a Socialist, a Feminist, a movie critic. She learned English by going to theaters, which she loved. She was constantly taking pictures, which she didn't show anyone.”

TODAY SHE IS KNOWN AS ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING AMERICAN STREET PHOTOGRAPHERS. BUT HER TALENT WASN’T DISCOVERED UNTIL SHE DIED. 

Many details of Maier's life remain unknown. She was born in New York City in 1926, the daughter of a French mother and an Austrian father. As a little child she moved several times between the U.S. and France. 

In 1951, at the age of 25, Maier moved from France to New York, where she worked in a sweatshop. In 1951 she moved to the Chicago area's North Shore, where she worked as a nanny for two families. The families that employed her described her as very private and reported that she spent her days off walking the streets of Chicago and taking photographs, usually with a Rolleiflex camera.

In 1959 and 1960, Maier took a trip around the world on her own, photographing Los Angeles, Manila, Bangkok, Shanghai, Beijing, India, Syria, Egypt, and Italy. The trip was probably financed by the sale of a family farm in Saint-Julien-en-Champsaur. 

Throughout her adult life, she kept almost all her belongings at her employers' houses. She had boxes full of photographs, negatives, and newspapers. She sometimes recorded audiotapes of conversations she had with people she photographed.

In November 2008, Maier fell on the ice and hit her head. She was taken to a hospital but failed to recover. In January 2009, she was transported to a nursing home in the Chicago suburbs, where she died on April 21, 2009.

In 2007, two years before she died, Maier failed to keep up payments on storage space she had rented on Chicago's North Side. As a result, her negatives, prints, audio recordings, and 8 mm film were auctioned. 

The largest part of her works was bought by photo collector John Maloof. He was looking for photos of Chicago neighbourhood for his book about Portage Park. Maloof bought Maier’s photos accidentally, not knowing who the person behind camera was. One day he discovered Maier's name in the boxes, and a Google search led him to Maier's death notice in the Chicago Tribune. In October 2009, Maloof linked his blog to a selection of Maier's photographs on Flickr; they became a viral phenomenon, with thousands of people expressing interest.