Anne Baxter
Anne Baxter was born in Michigan City, Indiana on May 7, 1923. She was the daughter of a salesman and his wife, Catherine, the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect. Anne was a young girl of 11 when her parents moved to New York City, still the hub of the entertainment industry even though the film colony was moving west. The move there encouraged her to consider acting as a vocation.
By the time she was 13, she had already appeared in a stage production which had garnered rave reviews from the tough Broadway critics. The play helped her gain entrance to an exclusive acting school.
In 1937, Anne made her first foray into Hollywood to test the waters there in the film industry. As she was thought to be too young for a film career, she packed her bags and returned to New York with her mother, where she continued to act in Broadway and summer stock up and down the East Coast.
Undaunted, Anne returned to California two years later to try again. This time her luck was somewhat better. She took a screen test which was ultimately seen by the moguls of Twentieth Century-Fox and signed to a seven year contract. However, before she would make a movie with Fox, Anne was loaned out to MGM to make a film entitled TWENTY MULE TEAM (1940). At 17, she was in pictures where other starlets would slave for years as an extra before landing a meaty role.
Back at Fox, that same year, Anne played Mary Maxwell in THE GREAT PROFILE. The film was a box-office dud. The following year she played Amy Spettigue in the re-make of CHARLEY'S AUNT. It still wasn't a great role, but it was better than a bit part. The only other film Anne appeared in that year was SWAMP WATER. It was the first role that was really worth anything, but the critics weren't that impressed with the role that Anne had nor with the movie.
In 1942, Anne played Joseph Cotten's daughter, Lucy Morgan, in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS.
The following year Anne appeared in THE NORTH STAR, the first film where she received top billing. Anne and the film itself was highly praised. 1944's GUEST IN THE HOUSE was a dismal failure, but SUNDAY DINNER FOR A SOLDIER that same year was received much better by the public but ripped apart by the critics. Anne starred with John Hodiak who would become her first husband in 1947. (Anne was to divorce Hodiak in 1953. Her other two husbands were Randolph Galt and David Klee).
In 1946, Anne portrayed Sophie MacDonald in THE RAZOR'S EDGE, a film which would land her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She had come a long way in so short a time. Her next two were let downs by comparison.
One was as the narrator for MOTHER WORE TIGHTS and 1947's BLAZE OF NOON. It wouldn't be until 1950 before she landed another decent role. The film was as Eve Harrington in ALL ABOUT EVE. This film garnered Anne her second nomination but ultimately lost to Judy Holliday in BORN YESTERDAY.
After several films through the 1950's, Anne landed a super plum role. She played Nefretiri in Cecil B. DeMille's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. Never in her Hollywood career did Anne look as beautiful as she did as the Egyptian queen, opposite Charlton Heston and Yul Brenner. After that epic motion picture, the films came fewer mainly because she wasn't tied to a studio instead opting to free-lance her talents.
After no appearances in 1958, she made one film in 1959 (SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL) and one in 1960 (CIMARRON). After WALK ON THE WILD SIDE in 1962.
She took a hiatus from filming for the next four years. That was not to say she was idle during that time. She appeared in the stage and occasionally television. She wasn't really concerned with being a celebrity or a personality, Anne was more concerned with being just an actress and trying hard to produce the best performance she was capable of making. After several notable TV appearances, Anne became a staple of two television series, EAST OF EDEN and HOTEL. Her final moment before the public eye was as Irene Adler in the TV movie, SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MASKS OF DEATH (1984).
On December 12, 1985, Anne died of a stroke in New York City. She was 62.
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Andre Courreges
1923–, French fashion designer whose designs were especially popular and influential during the 1960s. He worked for the couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga from 1950 to 1961, when he opened his own house. Often using white, Courréges created space-age, unisex styles and is known for dresses and trouser suits featuring straight, flat lines and sheer tops that sometimes sported cut-outs. He is often credited with the invention of the miniskirt, which he frequently paired with shiny white boots. He later experimented with such looks as “gladiator” and ethnic outfits.
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Antoine Lavoisier
1743–94, French chemist and physicist, a founder of modern chemistry. He studied under eminent men of his day, won early recognition, and was admitted to the Academy of Sciences in 1768. Much of his work was the result of extending and coordinating the research of others; his concepts were largely evolved through his superior ability to organize and interpret and were substantiated by his own experiments. He was one of the first to introduce effective quantitative methods in the study of chemical reactions. He explained combustion and thereby discredited the phlogiston theory. He also described clearly the role of oxygen in the respiration of both animals and plants. His classification of substances is the basis of the modern distinction between chemical elements and compounds and of the system of chemical nomenclature. He also conducted experiments to establish the composition of water and of many organic compounds. Lavoisier worked as well to improve economic and social conditions in France, holding various government posts. He was appointed director of the gunpowder commission (1775), member of the committee on agriculture (1785), director of the Academy of Sciences (1785), member of the commission on weights and measures (1790), and commissioner of the treasury (1791). As one of the farmers general, however, charged with the collection of taxes, he was guillotined during the Reign of Terror. His works include Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789) and the posthumously published Mémoires de chimie (1805).
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