Name: Cecil Beaton birth place: London England birth date: 14 January 1904 zodiac sign: Capricorn death place: Wiltshire England death date: 18 January 1980 Biography of Cecil Beaton Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton CBE (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was an English fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Oscar–winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre. Photographer: When Beaton was growing up his nanny had a Kodak 3A Camera, a popular model which was renowned for being an ideal piece of equipment to learn on. Beaton's nanny began teaching him the basics of photography and developing film. He would often get his sisters and mother to sit for him. When he was sufficiently proficient, he would send the photos off to London society magazines, often writing under a pen name and ‘recommending’ the work of Beaton. Beaton attended Harrow School, and then, despite having little or no interest in academia, moved on to St John's College, Cambridge, and studied history, art and architecture. Beaton continued his photography, and through his university contacts managed to get a portrait depicting the Duchess of Malfi published in Vogue. It was actually George "Dadie" Rylands – "a slightly out-of-focus snapshot of him as Webster's Duchess of Malfi standing in the sub-aqueous light outside the men's lavatory of the ADC Theatre at Cambridge." Since 1927, Cecil Beaton started to work for American Vogue regularly and he is known for his fashion photographs and society portraits. Besides working as staff photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair he also photographed celebrities in Hollywood. In the 1930s, Cecil Beaton returned to England, where he became leading war photographer with the recommendation of the Queen, and also the photographer of the royal family on many occasions, including Duke and duchess of Windsor's wedding. Costume designer: After the war, Beaton tackled the Broadway stage, designing sets, costumes, and lighting for a 1946 revival of Lady Windermere's Fan, in which he also acted. His costumes for Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady (1956) were highly praised. This led to two Lerner and Loewe film musicals, Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady (1964), each of which earned Beaton the Academy Award for Best Costume Design. He also designed the period costumes for the 1970 film On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. Cecil Beaton was knighted in the 1972 New Year Honours. Two years later he suffered a stroke that would leave him permanently paralysed on the right side of his body. Although he learnt to write and draw with his left hand, and had cameras adapted, Beaton became frustrated by the limitations the stroke had put upon his work. As a result of his stroke, Beaton became anxious about financial security for his old age and, in 1976, entered into negotiations with Philippe Garner, expert-in-charge of photographs at Sotheby's. On behalf of the auction house, Garner acquired Beaton's archive—excluding all portraits of the Royal Family, and the five decades of prints held by Vogue in London, Paris and New York. Garner, who had almost singlehandedly invented the photographic auction, oversaw the archive's preservation and partial dispersal, so that Beaton's only tangible assets, and what he considered his life's work, would ensure him an annual income. The first of five auctions was held in 1977, the last in 1980. By the end of the 1970s, Beaton's health had faded. He died on 18 January 1980, at Reddish House, his home in Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, four days after his 76th birthday Further interestBooks Gorgeously repackaged, this reissue of the classic book presents the iconic photographer’s expert and witty reminiscences of the personalities who inspired fashion’s golden eras, and left an indelible mark on his own sense of taste and style. "The camera will never be invented that could capture or encompass all that he actually sees," Truman Capote once said of Cecil Beaton. Though known for his portraits, Beaton was as incisive a writer as he was a photographer. First published in 1954, The Glass of Fashion is a classic—an invaluable primer on the history and highlights of fashion from a man who was a chronicler of taste, and an intimate compendium of the people who inspired his legendary eye. Across eighteen chapters, complemented by more than 150 of his own line drawings, Beaton writes with great wit about the influence of luminaries such as Chanel, Balenciaga, and Dior, as well as relatively unknown muses like his Aunt Jessie, who gave him his first glimpse of "the grown-up world of fashion." Out of print for decades but recognized and sought after as a touchstone text, The Glass of Fashion will be irresistible to a new generation of fashion enthusiasts and a seminal book in any Beaton library. It is both a treasury and a treasure. This book offers five decades of Beaton's Royal portraits, capturing, in many never-before-seen photographs, the history, romance, and majestic grandeur of royalty, as well as the human side of the Royal Family
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Christine Maria Kaufmann (11 January 1945 – 28 March 2017) was a German-Austrian actress, author, and businesswoman. The daughter of a German father and a French mother, she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress for Town Without Pity in 1961, the first German to be so honoured. Christine Kaufmann was born in Lengdorf, Styria, Austria, then part of Nazi Germany. Her mother, Geneviève Kaufmann, was a French make-up artist; her father, Johannes Kaufmann, was a German Luftwaffe officer and engineer. Growing up in Munich, Bavaria, Kaufmann became a ballerina at the Munich Opera. She began her film career at the age of seven in The White Horse Inn (1952) and appeared as a lead actress in Der Schweigende Engel the same year, but gained big attention with Rose-Girl Resli in 1954. She achieved international recognition when she starred with Steve Reeves in The Last Days of Pompeii (1959) and with Kirk Douglas in Town Without Pity (1961). In 1962, Christine Kaufmann met Tony Curtis while filming Taras Bulba, and they married in 1963 when Kaufmann was 18. They had two daughters and divorced in 1968. After her divorce, Kaufmann resumed her career, acting in dozens of films and tv series, notably the supporting roles in the Rainer Werner Fassbinder films Lili Marleen and Lola. She often worked with German director Helmut Dietl, for example in the satirical television series Monaco Franze (Der ewige Stenz). Kaufmann married three more times: to television director Achim Lenz (1974–76), musician and actor Reno Eckstein (1979-1982) and illustrator Klaus Zey (1997-2011). She spoke three languages: her native language German, English, and French. and she enjoyed traveling and moved from one place to another frequently—a pattern that she believed she had inherited from her Circassian forefathers. In 2014, Christine Kaufmann played Aunt Polly in the German version of American film Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn. It would be her last acting role. In her later years, Kaufmann was also a successful businesswoman; she promoted her own line of cosmetics products that sold well in Germany. From her 40s until her death, the media often called Kaufmann the "most beautiful grandmother in Germany".She wrote several books about beauty and health, as well as two autobiographies.
On 28 March 2017 Kaufmann died of leukaemia in Munich at age 72, only a few days after she had been diagnosed with the disease. original name: Carolyn Jeanne Bessette birth place: White Plains, New York, U.S. birth date: 7 January 1966 zodiac sign: Capricon death place: Martha´s Vineyard death date: 16 July 1999 Height: 175 cm / 5'9¨ Weight: 59kg / lbs Measurements: 76cm-65cm-90cm Occupation: Pulicist Languages: English Profile of Carolyn BessetteCarolyn Jeanne Bessette-Kennedy (January 7, 1966 – July 16, 1999) was a publicist for Calvin Klein and the wife of John F. Kennedy Jr. After her marriage, Bessette-Kennedy's relationship with her husband and her fashion sense became the subjects of media scrutiny, drawing comparisons to her mother-in-law Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The couple and Bessette-Kennedy's older sister, Lauren, died in a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in July 1999. Biography of Carolyn BessetteBessette was born in White Plains, New York, the youngest child of William J. Bessette, a cabinet maker, and Ann Messina, an academic administrator in the New York City public school system. She had two older sisters, twins Lauren and Lisa. Bessette's parents divorced when she was very young. Her mother later remarried Richard Freeman, an orthopedic surgeon, and moved to Old Greenwich, Connecticut, while Bessette's father stayed in White Plains. Bessette attended Juniper Hill Elementary School, where art teacher Linda Bemis recalled her as a shy but ordinary child. At Juniper Hill, Bessette's mother was a substitute teacher. Raised in a Roman Catholic household, Bessette later attended St. Mary's High School. At St. Mary's, Bessette was voted by her classmates the "Ultimate Beautiful Person", edging out Haley Miller. During her high school experience, Bessette was described as being part of the "in crowd" and having attended "all the right parties". She had initially started high school at Greenwich High School, but her parents transferred her to St. Mary's because they felt she was not taking her studies seriously. After graduating from high school in 1983, Bessette attended Boston University's School of Education, graduating in 1988 with a degree in elementary education. Bessette briefly attempted a modelling career, and hired a professional photographer to take pictures for her portfolio. Although her modelling career did not prove to be profitable, she did appear on the cover of Boston University's calendar, "The Girls of B.U." After college and until her marriage to Kennedy, Bessette worked for Calvin Klein Ltd., a high-end American fashion house. During her successful career there, she went from being a saleswoman at the Chestnut Hill Mall in the town of Newton, Massachusetts to becoming the director of publicity for the company's flagship store in Manhattan. While working for Klein in Boston, Bessette was noticed by Susan Sokol, a travelling sales coordinator for the company. Sokol, impressed with Bessette's grace and style, later recommended her for a position dealing with Klein's high-profile clients, such as actress Annette Bening and newscaster Diane Sawyer. By the time she left Calvin Klein, she was the Director of Show Productions earning a salary in the low six figures. Bessette first met Kennedy in 1992, while he was dating actress Daryl Hannah. Bessette and Kennedy began dating in 1994 and became a popular paparazzi target, and gossip columns detailed where they ate and shopped, and even covered their arguments. Paparazzi often waited outside the couple's Tribeca apartment to snap photographs. Bessette was introduced to John's uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, in the late summer of 1994. Following the marriage, the senator would tell the press: "You could tell right away that there was something special between the two of them." Bessette moved into Kennedy's Tribeca loft in the summer of 1995, and the couple became engaged later that year. She quit her job at Calvin Klein in the spring of 1996. Kennedy and Bessette succeeded in keeping their September 21, 1996 wedding a secret from the press, avoiding media onlookers.The ceremony took place by candlelight on the remote Georgia island of Cumberland, in a tiny wooden chapel, the First African Baptist Church. The bride selected the then-little-known designer Narciso Rodriguez of Cerruti for her wedding dress of pearl-white crepe. The groom's older sister, Caroline Kennedy, was matron of honor, and Anthony Radziwill, the son of his aunt Lee Radziwill-Ross, served as Kennedy's best man. Caroline's two daughters, Tatiana and Rose, were flower girls, and her son Jack was the ring bearer. The couple honeymooned in Turkey. (In the summer of June 2019, a video of the secret wedding that took place in the remote Georgian Island was released for public viewing.) After the wedding, the media attention surrounding the couple intensified, and Bessette-Kennedy often found it difficult to deal with the harassment. When the couple returned from their honeymoon, a mass of reporters was waiting on their doorstep. John said, "Getting married is a big adjustment for us, and for a private citizen like Carolyn even more so. I ask you to give her all the privacy and room you can." Bessette-Kennedy was badly disoriented by the constant attention from the paparazzi. The couple was permanently on show, both at fashionable Manhattan events and on their travels to visit celebrities such as Mariuccia Mandelli and Gianni Versace.Bessette-Kennedy told her friend, Carole Radziwill, that the only way to avoid the paparazzi was to leave her apartment at 7 in the morning. She also complained to her friend, journalist Jonathan Soroff, that she could not get a job without being accused of exploiting her fame. Her minimalist "throwaway chic" fashion sense was chronicled by various fashion publications and drew repeated comparisons to her mother-in-law, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. While the interest surrounding the couple continued, Bessette-Kennedy refused to give interviews and turned down offers to appear in fashion magazines. Towards the end of her life, Bessette-Kennedy became more involved with charity work and often accompanied her husband to dinners at the White House (the couple were given a tour by President Bill Clinton in March 1998) and acted as the hostess for parties for her husband's political magazine George. According to some reports published after their deaths, the Kennedys were experiencing marital problems and contemplating divorce in the months preceding their deaths. The couple had various disagreements, including her refusal to start a family, John’s work on the George magazine where she felt forsaken, and her dislike of John’s publishing partner Michael Berman. According to Vanity Fair, Bessette-Kennedy's "insecurity fueled a need to control and manipulate; her frequent use of cocaine made her paranoid". Moreover, Bessette-Kennedy was jealous of and barely on speaking terms with her sister-in-law Caroline Kennedy, who reportedly criticized the bride for being late to her own wedding and wearing heels on the beach. However, close friends reject the divorce claims. Robert Littell, who spent the weekend with John and Carolyn a week before their deaths, also reject the allegation that the couple were living apart at the time of their deaths. In his book, The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Has Haunted America's First Family for 150 Years, author Edward Klein claimed that the couple's problems reportedly stemmed from Bessette-Kennedy's difficulty dealing with the media attention surrounding her and the marriage, accusations of infidelity, disagreements about having children, and Bessette-Kennedy's alleged cocaine use. Although Klein is the author of several Kennedy books, John Kennedy Jr. said, when speaking of Klein, "he is a guy who had lunch with my mother twenty years ago and has been dining out on it ever since." Friends of the couple's, including John Perry Barlow and Christiane Amanpour, said that Bessette-Kennedy and Kennedy fought on occasion and that Bessette-Kennedy had trouble adjusting to the intense media coverage, but denied that she used drugs or that the couple was planning to divorce. The couple began seeing a marriage counselor in March 1999 and sought counseling from Cardinal John O'Connor in the summer of 1999. Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy died on July 16, 1999, along with her husband John F. Kennedy Jr. and her older sister Lauren, when the light plane John was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the western coast of Martha's Vineyard. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the probable cause of the crash was: "The pilot's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation. Factors in the accident were haze and the dark night." After a five day search, the wreckage was discovered in the late afternoon of July 21. The bodies were recovered from the ocean floor by Navy divers and taken by motorcade to the county medical examiner's office, where autopsies revealed that the crash victims had died upon impact. At the same time, the Kennedy and Bessette families announced their plans for memorial services. Toxicology testing was conducted on the pilot and passengers. All tested negative for alcohol and drugs. In the late hours of July 21, the three bodies were taken from Hyannis to Duxbury, where they were cremated in the Mayflower Cemetery crematorium. On the morning of July 22, their ashes were scattered from the Navy ship USS Briscoe off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. Further reading:Books
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