Te Kanawa, Dame Kiri, 1944-, New Zealand opera and concert singer. Since the early 1970s she has been one of the most acclaimed and popular lyric sopranos and has appeared with London's Royal Opera, New York's Metropolitan Opera, the Munich Opera, and other major houses worldwide. Her warm voice and stage personality are striking, and she has made many recordings. Te Kanawa is noted for such roles as the Countess in
The Marriage of Figaro and Rosalinde in
Die Fledermaus. She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1983.
See biography by D. Fingleton (1983).
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Sutherland, Dame Joan, 1926-, Australian soprano. Sutherland studied at the Sydney Conservatory, where she made her debut in Eugene Goossen's
Judith in 1951. Beginning in 1952 she was a leading singer at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London. She debuted at both La Scala, Milan and the Metropolitan Opera in 1961. Sutherland was considered unsurpassed in the bel canto repertory among contemporary singers. She was particularly celebrated for her singing of the title role in Donizetti's
Lucia di Lammermoor. She frequently performed with her husband, Richard Bonynge, conducting. She was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1979, and she retired in 1990.
See her autobiography (1998); biographies by R. R. Braddon (1962) and E. Greenfield (1973).
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Spark, Dame Muriel, 1918-2006, Scottish novelist, b. Muriel Sarah Camberg. She lived in Edinburgh, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), London, New York, and Rome, and spent her last years in Tuscany. Spark's typically short, spare, and witty novels expose the pretensions, hypocrisies, and petty foibles of her characters with merciless satire and cool detachment. Her Roman Catholicism (she converted in 1954) informs her acute moral vision and underlies her interest in revealing the dark, terrifying, evil, and unexplainable side of banal human experience. Spark's more than 20 novels include
The Comforters (1957),
Memento Mori (1958),
The Bachelors (1960),
The Girls of Slender Means (1963),
The Mandelbaum Gate (1965),
The Abbess of Crewe (1974),
The Takeover (1976),
Loitering with Intent (1981),
A Far Cry from Kensington (1988),
Reality and Dreams (1997),
Aiding and Abetting (2001), and
The Finishing School (2004). Her short novel
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) became an acclaimed stage, film, and television production. Her poems and short stories are compiled in
Collected Poems I (1967),
Collected Stories I (1968), and
Open to the Public: New and Collected Stories (1997, rev. ed. 2001). She also wrote critical studies of Mary
Shelley (1951) and John
Masefield (1953) and a biography of Emily
Brontë (1953). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993.
See her autobiography, Curriculum Vitae (1993); critical biography by B. Cheyette (2001); studies by D. Stanford (1963), K. Malkoff (1968), P. Stubbs, ed. (1973), R. Whittaker (1982), A. Bold, ed. (1986), D. Walker (1988), R. S. Edgecombe (1990), N. Page (1990), J. L. Randisi (1991), J. Hynes, ed. (1992), J. Sproxton (1992), M. Pearlman (1996), F. E. Apostolou (2001), and M. McQuillan, ed. (2001).
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Smyth, Dame Ethel Mary, 1858-1944, English composer, studied at the Leipzig Conservatory. Besides her many songs and chamber music she wrote operas, including The Wreckers (1906) and The Boatswain's Mate (1916), and a Mass in D (1893). In 1922 she was made Dame of the British Empire. Her autobiographical writings include Impressions That Remain (1919), Streaks of Life (1921), As Time Went On (1935), and What Happened Next (1940).
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Smith, Dame Maggie (Dame Margaret Natalie Cross), 1934-, English actress. Smith first appeared on stage in
Twelfth Night (1952). With her precise, sometimes rapid-fire, articulation and her meticulous stagecraft, she is adept at both comedic and serious roles. Smith worked with the
Old Vic Company and the National Theatre, giving notable performances in
As You Like It, Richard II, The Rehearsal, and
Private Lives. In 1989 she scored a personal triumph in London and New York in
Lettice and Lovage. Among her films are
Othello (1966),
Travels with My Aunt (1973),
A Room with a View (1985), and
A Private Function (1985). She has won two Academy Awards, for
The Prime of Miss Brodie (1969) and, ironically, in the role of a nominated actress on Academy Award night, in
California Suite (1978). More recent performances in plays include
Three Tall Women (1991) and
The Importance of Being Earnest (1992); in films,
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1991) and
The Secret Garden (1993). She was created a dame commander, Order of the British Empire, in 1990.
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Saunders, Dame Cicely (Cicely Mary Strode Saunders), 1918-2005, British physician, a pioneer in the modern
hospice movement. She left Oxford during World War II to become a nurse (1944) and, after working as a medical social worker with cancer patients, a doctor (1957). As a physician she worked to improve the care of terminally ill patients and wrote
Care of the Dying (1960), the first of several books. In 1967 she opened St. Christopher's Hospice, London, the first modern hospice, which became a model for hospice care internationally and a training facility for hospice workers. She served as its medical director until 1985. A Dame Commander of the British Empire from 1980, she was awarded Britain's Order of Merit in 1989. When she died, more than 8,000 hospices had been established throughout the world.
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Rambert, Dame Marie, 1888-1982, a founder of the English ballet, b. Warsaw as Miriam Rambam. Trained by Jacques Dalcroze in eurythmics, Rambert joined the Diaghilev Ballet Russe as an instructor in 1913. She danced with the company after studying ballet with Enrico Cecchetti. In 1920 she opened her own school in London; her Ballet Rambert became the first permanent school and company in England when, in 1930, she founded the Ballet Club at the Mercury Theatre. Rambert discovered and fostered the talents of many great dancers and major choreographers, including Frederick Ashton and Antony Tudor.
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Notre-Dame de Paris [Fr.,=Our Lady of Paris], cathedral church of Paris, a noble achievement of early Gothic architecture in France. It stands upon the Île de la Cité, a small island in the Seine. The cornerstone was laid in 1163 by Pope Alexander III. The high altar was consecrated 20 years later, and the nave was completed except for the roofing in 1196. However, in 1230 the nave was reconstructed and the present flying buttresses were added. Soon after, chapels were installed between the buttresses, which radically altered not only the plan but the entire aesthetic of the building. The towers were finished c.1245, but the building was not completed until the beginning of the 14th cent. Among the master builders are the names Jehan de Chelles, Pierre de Montreuil, Pierre de Chelles, and Jehan Rave. The plan consists of a wide central nave rising 110 ft (34 m) high and flanked by double aisles, with a transept of slight projection from the main body. The aisles continue around the east end, which, with the projecting chapels, forms a chevet. Three sculptured portals are deeply recessed in the majestic west front. Above them a row of sculptures in niches extends across the facade, and over this, in the center, is the huge traceried rose window. In the French Revolution rioters converted the cathedral into a "Temple of Reason" and destroyed the sculptures of the west facade. Skillful restorations were begun in 1845 by Viollet-le-Duc.
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Notre Dame, University of, at Notre Dame, Ind., near South Bend; Roman Catholic; coeducational; est. and opened 1842, chartered 1844. It has a noted law school and computing center as well as laboratories for research in botany, radiation, geology, metallurgy, and engineering. It also operates important research institutes in the humanities; notable is the Jacques Maritain Philosophical Center. The university maintains an outstanding library system.
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Notre Dame Mountains, section of the Appalachian system, extending c.500 mi (800 km) from the Green Mts. of Vermont into the Gaspé Peninsula, Canada. Worn low by erosion, the ancient mountains have an average elevation of c.2,000 ft (610 m).
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Notre Dame Bay, arm of the Atlantic Ocean, c.40 mi (60 km) long and 50 mi (80 km) wide, NE Newfoundland, N.L., Canada. The Exploits River empties into it. The bay has an irregular shoreline and contains many islands; Fogo Island is east of the bay. There are numerous fishing settlements along the coast, many of which have fish-processing plants; Botwood is the chief town and port.
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Murdoch, Dame Iris (Dame Jean Iris Murdoch), 1919-99, British novelist and philosopher, b. Dublin, Ireland. In 1948 she was named lecturer in philosophy at Oxford, and in 1963 she was made an honorary fellow of St. Anne's College, Oxford. Murdoch's novels, subtle, witty, convoluted, puzzling, and often wildly comic, have elicited widely differing critical interpretations. Murdoch views human beings as "accidental" creatures, purportedly free but actually constricted by the boundaries of self, society, and the natural world. Although the plots of her novels are complex, involving innumerable characters in seemingly endless configurations and punctuated by extraordinary incidents, they often focus on one individual's recognition that free will and self-knowledge are illusory.
Among Murdoch's 26 novels are The Flight from the Enchanter (1956), The Bell (1958), A Severed Head (1961), An Accidental Man (1972), The Sea, the Sea (1978; Booker Prize), Message to the Planet (1989), The Green Knight (1994), and Jackson's Dilemma (1995). Murdoch worked on dramatizations of two of her novels, A Severed Head (1963, with J. B. Priestley), and The Italian Girl (1967, with James Sanders), and she wrote several plays, including Art and Eros (1980). She also published Sartre, Romantic Rationalist (1953), The Sovereignty of Good (1971), The Fire and the Sun (1977), and Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992). In 1956 she married John Oliver Bayley, the novelist and critic who wrote movingly of her in Elegy for Iris (1998). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1987.
Bibliography
See biography by P. J. Conradi (2001); studies by A. S. Byatt (1965), P. Wolfe (1966), R. Rabinovitz (1968), D. Gerstenberger (1975), R. Todd (1979, 1988), E. Dipple (1982), A. Hague (1984), P. J. Conradi (1986), C. B. Bove (1986, 1993), D. Johnson (1987), R. C. Kane (1988), D. D. Mettler (1991), P. P. Punja (1993), D. J. Gordon (1995), B. S. Heusel (1995), and H. D. Spear (1995).
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Melba, Dame Nellie, 1861-1931, Australian soprano, whose name originally was Helen Porter Mitchell. After study with Mathilde Marchesi in Paris, she made her operatic debut in Brussels in 1887. Famous for her lyric and coloratura roles, she sang regularly at Covent Garden in London from 1888 until 1926 and intermittently with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York City from 1893 to 1910; in 1907 she performed at the Manhattan Opera House and also made appearances in Australia and many other parts of the world. She was made Dame of the British Empire in 1918.
See her autobiography, Melodies and Memories (1925).
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Marsh, Dame Ngaio, 1899-1982, New Zealand detective story writer. She was an art student, actress, and theatrical producer before her first novel,
A Man Lay Dead, was published in 1934. Her many mystery novels, acute in characterization and literate in style, reflect her knowledge of the art studio and the theater. They include
Artists in Crime (1938),
Died in the Wool (1945),
False Scent (1959),
Killer Dolphin (1966),
Last Ditch (1978),
Photo Finish (1980), and her last book,
Light Thickens, published posthumously (1982). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1966.
See her autobiography, Black Beech and Honeydew (1965).
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Markova, Dame Alicia, 1910-2004, English ballerina. Her original name was Lilian Alicia Marks. Markova joined
Diaghilev's Ballet Russe in 1924 and, in 1931, the Vic-Wells Ballet (now the
Royal Ballet), becoming its first prima ballerina in 1933. In 1935 she formed a company with Anton
Dolin. After appearing (1938-41) with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo she danced with Ballet Theatre (1941-44) and other American ballet companies. She worked again with Dolin from 1949 to 1952 in their Festival Ballet company. She was named Dame of the British Empire in 1963, the year she retired from dancing. Markova was noted for her purity of line, precise style, and ethereal grace. She excelled in all the classic roles, and her interpretations of
Giselle (her signature role),
Pas de Quatre, Petrouchka, Swan Lake, and
Romeo and Juliet were exceptionally celebrated. She wrote
Giselle and I (1960). After her retirement, she directed the Metropolitan Opera Ballet for six years, taught, and coached, particularly at the Royal Ballet.
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Macaulay, Dame Rose, 1889?-1958, English author. Remembered primarily for her novels satirizing middle-class life, she first achieved fame with
Potterism (1920). Her subsequent novels include
Told by an Idiot (1923),
Staying with Relations (1930),
The World My Wilderness (1950), and
The Towers of Trebizond (1956). She also wrote two volumes of verse, several books on travel, and studies of Milton (1934) and E. M. Forster (1938). She was named a Dame of the British Empire in 1958.
See biography by A. R. Benson (1970).
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Hess, Dame Myra, 1890-1965, English pianist, studied at the Royal Academy of Music. She made her London debut in 1907 and first appeared in the United States in 1922. Her playing was acclaimed for both virtuosity and poetic sensitivity. In 1939, and during World War II, Hess organized a series of lunch-time concerts in the National Gallery, London. In 1941 she was made Dame of the British Empire.
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Hepworth, Dame Barbara, 1903-75, English sculptor. Hepworth's smooth, usually nonfigurative sculptures recall those of Jean Arp. Working in Cornwall, she consistently sought perfection of form and surface texture. She worked primarily in stone, in bronze. Her sculpture is represented in the Tate Gallery, London. From 1933 to 1951; Hepworth was married to the painter Ben
Nicholson.
See studies by A. M. Hammacher (tr. 1968) and A. Bowness, ed. (1971).
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Fonteyn, Dame Margot, 1919-91, English ballerina. Fonteyn was for many years
prima ballerina assoluta of the
Royal Ballet. Her original name was Margaret Hookham. In 1934 she joined the Sadler's Wells Ballet School, and in the same year she made her debut as a soloist. She became prima ballerina of the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1935. Fonteyn gained a reputation for expressive acting and versatility, creating such roles as Aurora in
The Sleeping Beauty and Agathe in
Les Demoiselles de la Nuit. Her performances in
Cinderella, Giselle, Sylvia, and
The Firebird were also outstanding. Sir Frederick
Ashton created a number of major ballets especially for Fonteyn, among them
Symphonic Variations (1946) and
Ondine (1958). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1956. Fonteyn's international reputation reached an unprecedented height after 1962, when she began her partnership with the Russian dancer Rudolf
Nureyev.
See her autobiography (1976); biographies by K. Money (1974) and M. Daneman (2004).
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Evans, Dame Edith, 1888-1976, English actress. After her stage debut in 1912, Evans toured with Ellen Terry. Known for her resonant voice, she worked with the Old Vic (1925-26) and had a distinguished career on the stage and in films. She was celebrated for her performances in Elizabethan, Restoration, and 18th-century drama, as well as in modern works. Evans was made Dame of the British Empire in 1946. Her notable films include
The Importance of Being Earnest (1953),
Tom Jones (1963),
The Whisperers (1967), and
A Doll's House (1973).
See study by J. C. Trewin (1954).
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Dench, Dame Judi, 1934-, British actress, b. York, England, as Judith Olivia Dench. She studied at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, London, and made her debut (1957) as Ophelia in the Old Vic's production of
Hamlet. In addition to her many Shakespearean parts, she has exhibited her great versatility in dramas by Chekhov, Brecht, Noel Coward, Shaw, Pirandello, and many others, as well as in such musicals as
Cabaret (1968) and
A Little Night Music (1996). She won plaudits in David Hare's
Amy's Way, both in the West End (1998) and on Broadway (1999). Primarily a stage actress, she has also appeared in films—
84 Charing Cross Road (1987); the critically acclaimed
Mrs. Brown (1997), in which she played Queen Victoria;
Shakespeare in Love (1998), for which she won an Academy Award for her role as Queen Elizabeth I;
Tea with Mussolini (1999); and
Iris (2001), a portrayal of the late years of the novelist Iris
Murdoch. She has also appeared frequently on British television. Dench began directing plays in 1988.
See biography by G. Jacobs (1985).
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Compton-Burnett, Dame Ivy, 1892-1969, English novelist. Educated at the Univ. of London, she lived quietly in London for most of her life. She was named a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1967. Ivy Compton-Burnett's unconventional novels of the Edwardian gentry reveal beneath their irony, satire, and wit an embittered, frightful world of hypocrisy and cruelty. Her writings are noted for their lack of plot, their absence of description and characterization, and their almost complete reliance on articulate, highly stylized conversations. Among her most notable works are
Brother and Sister (1929),
A House and Its Head (1935),
Manservant and Maidservant (1947),
Mother and Son (1955),
The Mighty and Their Fall (1961), and
The Last and the First (1971).
See biographies by E. Sprigge (1973) and H. Spurling (1985); studies by C. Burkhart (1965) and R. Liddell (1975).
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Christie, Dame Agatha, 1890-1976, English detective story writer, b. Torquay, Devon, as Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller. Christie's second husband was the archaeologist Sir Max
Mallowan, and she gained much material for her later novels during his excavations in the Middle East. An extraordinarily popular author, Christie wrote over 80 books, most of them featuring one of her two famous detectives; Hercule Poirot, an egotistical Belgian, and Miss Jane Marple, an elderly spinster. Her novels, noted for their skillful plots, include
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920),
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926),
Murder on the Orient Express (1934),
Death on the Nile (1937),
And Then There Were None (1940),
Death Comes as the End (1945),
Funerals Are Fatal (1953),
The Pale Horse (1962),
Passenger to Frankfurt (1970),
Elephants Can Remember (1973), and
Curtain (1975); her plays include
The Mousetrap (1952), one of the longest-running plays in theatrical history, and
Witness for the Prosecution (1954). Christie also published novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. She was named Dame Commander, Order of the British Empire, in 1971.
See her memoir, Come, Tell Me How You Live (1944, repr. 2001).
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Cadbury, Dame Elizabeth, 1858-1951, English social worker and philanthropist, b. Elizabeth Mary Taylor, studied in France and Germany; wife of George
Cadbury. She became interested in social service and was active in many organizations working for improvement in education, housing, and peace. She was a member of the Birmingham Education Committee after 1911 and of the International Council of Women and was city councilor of Birmingham (1919-25), president (1925) of the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, and a justice of the peace (1926). In 1934 she was made Dame Commander of the British Empire.
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Baker, Dame Janet, 1933-, English mezzo-soprano. She made her singing debut in 1956 with the Glyndebourne Chorus. In 1966 she made her American debut at Town Hall in New York City, winning critical acclaim for the sensitivity, style, and intelligence of her singing. Baker was for many years regarded as primarily an oratorio and lieder singer. However, in 1962 she took the lead role in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and then began a long association with the operas of Benjamin Britten. In 1969 she made a triumphal appearance as Dido in the Scottish Opera's production of Berlioz's The Trojans, repeating her performance at Covent Garden in London. Later she took leading roles in operas by Monteverdi and Cavalli. She retired in 1982. In 1991 she became chancellor of the Univ. of York, England.
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Anderson, Dame Judith, 1898-1992, British actress, b. Adelaide, S. Australia, originally named Frances Margaret Anderson. She made her debut in Sydney in 1915 and by 1924 had become celebrated for her portrayals of classical and modern roles. In 1937 she made her London debut in Macbeth with Laurence Olivier. The title role in Medea by Robinson Jeffers, which she played in 1947 and 1982, was a personal triumph. Anderson's notable films were Rebecca (1940), Laura (1944), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). Her later films include A Man Called Horse (1970) and Star Trek III (1984). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1960.
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Cicily Isabel Fairfield(born Dec. 21, 1892, London, Eng.—died March 15, 1983, London) British journalist, novelist, and critic. Trained as an actress, from 1911 West contributed to the left-wing press and made a name as a fighter for woman suffrage. She had a 10-year love affair (1913–23) with the novelist H.G. Wells. Her novels, including The Judge (1922), The Thinking Reed (1936), and The Birds Fall Down (1966), attracted less attention than her social and cultural writings. Her admired reports on the Nürnberg trials were collected in A Train of Powder (1955). Her history of Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1942), is regarded as one of the century's finest nonfiction works. In 1946 she reported on the trial for treason of William Joyce, articles that were later published as The Meaning of Treason (1949).
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(born Oct. 24, 1882, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, Eng.—died June 9, 1976, London) British actress. As a member of the Old Vic company in London (1914–18), she became a leading tragic actress. Noted for her versatility in modern and classic plays, she originated the h1 role in George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (1924). She managed several London theatres, and she often costarred with her husband, the actor-director Lewis Casson, in her more than five decades in the theatre.
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(born March 6, 1944, Gisborne, North Island, N.Z.) New Zealand-born (half-Maori) soprano. After winning various singing competitions at home, she went to London for further study in 1966 and made her Covent Garden debut in 1970. Soon moving into leading roles, she became especially admired as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro. In 1974 she made a triumphal debut at the Metropolitan Opera, substituting at the last moment in Giuseppe Verdi's Otello. A glamorous and regally imperturbable presence with a rich voice, she was chosen to sing at the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles, and she has made many recordings.
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(born Feb. 27, 1932, London, Eng.) U.S. film actress. She left London for Los Angeles with her American parents at the outset of World War II. Noted for her exceptional beauty from childhood, she was discovered by a talent scout in Beverly Hills. She made her screen debut in 1942, appeared in Lassie Come Home in 1943, and became a star with National Velvet in 1944. She was a glamorous adult star in A Place in the Sun (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Butterfield 8 (1960, Academy Award). In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966, Academy Award) and other films, she starred opposite her husband, Richard Burton. After the mid-1970s, she appeared only intermittently in films, Broadway plays, and television films. Taylor's personal life (she was married eight times) was exceptionally well publicized and often tended to overshadow her acting career.
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(born Nov. 7, 1926, Sydney, Austl.) Australian soprano. After debuting in Sydney in 1947, she moved to London. Having sung minor roles at Covent Garden from 1952, she established her status as one of the leading coloraturas of the 20th century in a 1959 performance of Lucia di Lammermoor. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1961, and she became a favourite there and worldwide in bel canto roles until her retirement in 1991.
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Muriel Sarah Camberg(born Feb. 1, 1918, Edinburgh, Scot.—died April 13, 2006, Florence, Italy) British writer. She spent several years in Central Africa, returning to Britain during World War II. Until 1957 she published only poetry and criticism, including studies of Mary Shelley and the Brontë sisters. Her fiction uses satire and wit to present serious themes, often questions about good and evil. Memento Mori (1959) is her most widely praised novel; the best-known is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961; film, 1969). Her later novels, often more sinister in tone, include The Abbess of Crewe (1974), A Far Cry from Kensington (1988), and Reality and Dreams (1996).
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Margaret Natalie Smith(born Dec. 28, 1934, Ilford, Essex, Eng.) British actress. She first gained recognition on Broadway in New Faces of 1956, and, after winning praise for her roles in The Rehearsal (1961) and Mary, Mary (1963), she joined Britain's National Theatre Company, where she starred opposite Laurence Olivier in Othello (1964; film, 1965). Her later films include The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969, Academy Award), Travels with My Aunt (1972), California Suite (1978, Academy Award), and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987). Known for her nervous intensity, acid wit, and flawless timing, she has many great stage performances to her credit, notably in The Way of the World (1985) and Lettice and Lovage (1990, Tony Award).
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Cyvia Rambam(born Feb. 20, 1888, Warsaw, Pol., Russian Empire—died June 12, 1982, London, Eng.) Polish-born English ballet producer and director. She studied with the musician Émile Jaques-Dalcroze and taught his technique, eurythmics, to the Paris-based Ballets Russes, influencing Vaslav Nijinsky's avant-garde choreography. At the outbreak of World War I, she moved to London, where she studied ballet with Enrico Cecchetti (1850–1928); in 1920 she founded a ballet school that used his methods. In 1930 she helped found the Camargo Society and established the Ballet Club (later Ballet Rambert). As director of Ballet Rambert, she favoured experimentation, encouraging young choreographers such as Frederick Ashton and supporting new dancers and stage designers. Her troupe, renamed the Rambert Dance Company in 1987, has continued to perform.
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Notre-Dame de Paris.
(1163–
circa 1350) Gothic cathedral on the Île de la Cité in Paris. Probably the most famous Gothic cathedral, Notre-Dame is a superb example of the
Rayonnant style. Two massive Early Gothic towers (1210–50) crown the western facade, which is divided into three stories and has doors adorned with Early Gothic carvings and surmounted by a row of figures of Old Testament kings. The single-arch flying buttresses at the eastern end are notable for their boldness and grace. Its three great
rose windows, which retain their 13th-century glass, are of awe-inspiring beauty.
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Private university in Notre Dame, near South Bend, Indiana, U.S. It was founded in 1842 and reorganized in the 1920s; it became coeducational in 1972. It is affiliated with the Roman Catholic church. It has colleges of arts and letters, science, engineering, and business administration. It also has a graduate school and a law school.
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(born July 15, 1919, Dublin, Ire.—died Feb. 8, 1999, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Eng.) British novelist and philosopher. A graduate of the University of Oxford, she worked as a university lecturer while pursuing her writing career. Her first published work was a study of Jean-Paul Sartre (1953). Her novels, including The Bell (1958), A Severed Head (1961), The Black Prince (1973), The Sea, the Sea (1978), and The Book and the Brotherhood (1987), typically have convoluted plots featuring philosophical and comic elements. Her nonfiction philosophical works include The Sovereignty of Good (1970) and Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (1992). Her decline under Alzheimer disease was chronicled by her husband, the critic John Bayley, in Elegy for Iris (1999).
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Helen Porter Mitchell(born May 19, 1861, Richmond, near Melbourne, Austl.—died Feb. 23, 1931, Sydney) Australian soprano. After study with Mathilde Marchesi (1821–1913) in Paris, she debuted in Brussels in Rigoletto (1887), and in the next six years she sang in all the major opera houses of the world. One of the most celebrated coloraturas in the years preceding World War I, she sang mostly at Covent Garden after 1902. Concentrating on a few Italian and French operas, she possessed abundant technique and vocal beauty. Two foods, Melba toast and peach Melba, were named for her.
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Lilian Alicia Marks(born Dec. 1, 1910, London, Eng.—died Dec. 2, 2004, Bath) British ballerina. She made her debut with Sergey Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1924 and became a leading ballerina noted for her ethereal lightness. At the Vic-Wells Ballet (1931–35; now the Royal Ballet) she became the first English dancer to dance the lead in Giselle. With her frequent partner Anton Dolin, she formed and directed several Markova-Dolin companies (1935–38) and the Festival Ballet (1950–52; now the English National Ballet). She continued to dance as a guest artist with many companies worldwide, admired for her interpretations of roles in Les Sylphides and Swan Lake, among others. She retired from the stage in 1963 and served as director of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet (1963–69).
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(born Jan. 10, 1903, Wakefield, Eng.—died May 20, 1975, St. Ives) British sculptor. Her work, naturalistic at first, became abstract by the 1930s, when she produced severe geometrical pieces with straight edges. As Hepworth's sculpture matured during the late 1930s and '40s, she concentrated on the problem of the counterplay between mass and space. By the 1950s she was internationally famous, and she received many prestigious commissions, including Single Form (1963), a memorial to Dag Hammarskjold at the UN Building, New York City. She became, with Henry Moore, a leader of the modern movement in England and one of the most influential sculptors of the mid 20th century.
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Margaret Hookham
Margot Fonteyn in Ondine.
(born May 18, 1919, Reigate, Surrey, Eng.—died Feb. 21, 1991, Panama City, Pan.) British ballerina. She debuted with the Vic-Wells Ballet (later
Royal Ballet) in 1934 and soon became its leading dancer, creating many roles in works by
Frederick Ashton, including
Horoscope,
Symphonic Variations, and
Ondine. In the 1960s she won worldwide acclaim for her appearances with
Rudolf Nureyev in ballets such as
Swan Lake,
Raymonda, and
Le Corsaire. She continued to dance as a guest artist into the mid 1970s.
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Dame Edith Evans as Mrs. Ross in The Whisperers, 1967.
(born Feb. 8, 1888, London, Eng.—died Oct. 14, 1976, Cranbrook, Kent) British actress. She made her stage debut as Cressida in
William Shakespeare's
Troilus and Cressida (1912) and joined the
Old Vic company in 1925. One of the finest actresses of the 20th century, she appeared in London and on Broadway in plays by Shakespeare,
George Bernard Shaw, and
Noël Coward. She played Lady Bracknell in
Oscar Wilde's
The Importance of Being Earnest on stage and screen (1952). Her other films include
Look Back in Anger (1959),
Tom Jones (1963),
The Chalk Garden (1964), and
The Whisperers (1967).
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(born Dec. 9, 1934, York, Yorkshire, Eng.) British actress. She made her stage debut in 1957 as Ophelia in Hamlet, and Shakespearean works became her specialty. She also performed in musical roles, starring in the London premiere of Cabaret in 1968. Among her many other notable credits were the 1981–84 TV series A Fine Romance and the films 84 Charing Cross Road (1986), Mrs. Brown (1997)—in which she starred as Queen Victoria—and Shakespeare in Love (1998, Academy Award).
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(born June 5, 1884, Pinner, Middlesex, Eng.—died Aug. 27, 1969, London) British novelist. She graduated from the University of London and published her first novel, Dolores, in 1911. Her second, Pastors and Masters (1925), introduced the style—employing clipped, precise dialogue to reveal her characters and advance the plot—that made her name. Her novels often dealt with struggles for power: Men and Wives (1931) featured a tyrannical mother, A House and Its Head (1935) a tyrannical father. She was created Dame of the British Empire in 1967.
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Agatha Christie, 1946.
(born Sept. 15, 1890, Torquay, Devon, Eng.—died Jan. 12, 1976, Wallingford, Oxfordshire) British detective novelist and playwright. Her first novel,
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), introduced Hercule Poirot, the eccentric Belgian detective who would appear in about 25 novels. The elderly spinster Miss Jane Marple, her other principal detective figure, first appeared in
Murder at the Vicarage (1930). Most of her approximately 75 novels, such as
Murder on the Orient Express (1933; film, 1978), were best-sellers; translated into 100 languages, they have sold more than 100 million copies. Her plays include
The Mousetrap (1952), which set a world record for longest continuous run, and
Witness for the Prosecution (1953; film, 1958). She was married to the eminent archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan (1904–78).
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Frances Margaret Anderson(born Feb. 10, 1898, Adelaide, S.Aus., Australia—died Jan. 3, 1992, Santa Barbara, Calif., U.S.) Australian-born U.S. actress. She made her stage debut in Sydney in 1915 and first appeared in New York City in 1918. She was noted for roles such as Lavinia in Mourning Becomes Electra (1932), Gertrude in Hamlet (1936), Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (1937, 1941), and the h1 role in Medea (1947). She appeared in over 25 films, usually playing an evil or sinister figure, including Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca (1940) and Ann Treadwell in Laura (1944).
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