Sunday 25 April 2010

Dropping a 'Few' Names...

(with apologies for all the accent marks omitted)

Here is a puzzle for you. Can you guess, who:

Worked with: Vincente Minnelli, Fanny Brice, Eve Arden, George Balanchine, Bob Hope, Rudy Vallee, Florenz Ziegfeld, Perry Como, Edgar Bergen, Ethel Waters, the French Resistance…

Wore clothes by: Jean Patou, Cristobel Balenciaga, Pierre Balmain, Christian Dior, Madame Vionnet, Paul Poiret…

Featured in the art of: Pablo Picasso, Le Corbusier, Alice B. Toklas, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Madame Vionnet, Man Ray, Ira Gershwin...

Had friends including: Colette, Grace Kelly, Bridget Bardot, Farah Dibah Empress of Iran, Marcel Marceau, Maurice Chevalier, Hasaan II King of Morocco, Gypsy Rose Lee…

Had lovers including: Le Corbusier, George Simenon, Pasha of Marrakesh El Glaoui Si Thami, Maharajah of Kapurthala, and (possibly) Gustav Crown Prince of Sweden…

Was awarded: the Croix de Lorraine; the Medaille De La Resistance, Avec Rosette; the Legion D’Honneur, lifetime membership in NAACP…

Had an audience with: Pope Pius XII...

Protested with: Joan Baez, Peter Paul & Mary, Odetta, Bob Dylan, Bobby Darin, Dr Martin Luther King...

Had fans including: Mick Jagger, Marc Bohan, The Aga Khan, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Albert King of Belgium, Lily Pons, Charlie Chaplin, Barbara Hutton, Alain Delon, Giscard D’Estaing, Jean Paul Sartre, Jean Moreau, Fidel Castro, Gary Cooper, General Charles de Gaulle, Jean Cocteau, Catherine Deneuve, ee cummings, Eva & Juan Peron, Nancy Cunard, Benito Mussolini, Duke Ellington, Ernest Hemingway, Paulette Goddard, Debbie Reynolds, Fiorello LaGuardia, Simone de Beauvoir, Golda Meir, Andy Warhol, Marshal Tito, the Sultan of Morocco…

Other names mentioned in the biography I just read include: Louis Armstrong, Tallulah Bankhead, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Dwight David Eisenhower, Cecil Beaton, Marc Chagall, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Winston Churchill, Delores Del Rio, Sergei Diaghilev, Marlene Dietrich, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Isadora Duncan, Diana Ross, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Zelda Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, Edward Prince of Wales, Josef Goebbels, Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Farouk King of Egypt, Jose Ferrer, W. C. Fields, Will Rogers, Judy Garland, Benny Goodman, Peggy Guggenheim, Haile Selassie Emporer of Ethiopia, Helen Hayes, Ranier III Prince of Monaco, Buster Keaton, Rosalind Russell, Wallis Simpson, Edward the Duke of Windsor, Frank Sinatra, Jackie John & Robert Kennedy, Charles Lindburgh, Louis IX King of France, Edouard Manet, Mary Queen of Scots, Mata Hari, Bette Midler, Glen Miller, Rudolf Nureyev, Dorothy Parker, Anna Pavlova, Joe Louis, Edith Piaf, Cole Porter, Vaslav Nijinsky, Gertrude Stein, Elsa Schiaparelli, Sugar Ray Robinson, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Conde Nast, Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson, Bessie Smith, Booker T. Washington.

These are just the names that I recognized. No doubt many other names could and should have been on these lists. I started to find links to some or all of these people, but figured I'd never get away from the computer if I did! I may go back and do that at some point (what else is retirement for?).

So, whose life was so sparkly?

6 comments:

James said...

Josephine Baker?

Shelley said...

James - I'll not publish your answer until later but yes, you got it right. I'll have more to say on the subject Wednesday. Well done!

TKW said...

Certainly not my life, that's for sure. This sounds like one busy individual!

Anonymous said...

I have no idea... A biography you said? How interesting.

Shelley's Garden said...

Will wait for you to unveil the mystery. We do share a great name, don't we!!.

Frugal Scholar said...

JB?