She Changed the Rhythm of American Life
Part of an all-female, mixed-race swing band in 1940s America, Helen Jones Woods dodged the Klan to make a joyful—and powerful—noise
The World’s Most Amusing Naughty Person
As Sotheby’s prepares to auction the treasures of John Richardson, his friend remembers the art historian’s intense, inspiring, high-low life
A Writer’s Editor
A longtime editor for Time magazine, Ray Cave brought ambition, wisdom, and wit to the job
La Chanteuse des Rues
Inspired by Edith Piaf, Lily Lian sang for the pedestrians of Paris
Leading Lady
Olivia de Havilland’s soft power on-screen blew away even the likes of Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh
I ❤️ MG
A longtime collaborator recalls Milton Glaser, a giant of midcentury graphic design
The Fall Guy
Bronx nebbish Herb Stempel revealed that America’s best-rated quiz show was a fraud—and so was its beloved champion, Charles Van Doren
The Real Benjamin Braddock
Charles Webb rebelled against his privileged upbringing by writing The Graduate—then renounced his own phenomenal success
Live at the Front
Vera Lynn’s torch songs were not high art, but they kept up morale among the rank-and-file British soldiers fighting W.W. II
James Sherwood
In 1982, he boldly resurrected the fabled Orient Express. It became the cornerstone of Belmond, the billion-dollar hotel group
The Robespierre of Lafayette Street
The director who first staged The Normal Heart remembers the many-sided activist-playwright Larry Kramer
Siegfried Meir
Taken to Auschwitz at eight, he turned his awful experience into a source of inspiration for others
Natale Rusconi
A master at tending to V.I.P.’s from Princess Margaret to Maria Callas, he transformed the Hotel Cipriani into one of the jet set’s premier destinations
Miranda, Countess of Stockton
When she married Peter Sellers, at 23, her two Pekingese dogs (Tabitha and Tomasina) served as bridesmaids
Mort Drucker
For 55 years, the Mad-magazine illustrator was, as George Lucas said, the “Leonardo da Vinci of comic satire”
“Nipper” Read
In the 1960s, he took down the Kray twins, Swinging London’s most ruthless gangsters—and helped solve the Great Train Robbery
Wait, That Was True?
An American veteran confirms a British W.W. II soldier’s outlandish account of being the first to liberate Paris from the Nazis
Harry Hamilton
The British soldier who claimed he got lost and liberated Paris by accident
Albert Uderzo
Illustrator and co-creator of the walrus-moustached Asterix the Gaul, who represented “the revenge of the little guy”
A Pen for All Seasons
A collection of letters belonging to the late Philip Poole, owner of a storied London pen-nib store, is an ode to the art of craftsmanship
Ailsa Maxwell
The economics student turned codebreaker was on duty when Germany’s unconditional surrender came over the wire in May of 1945
Peregrine Pollen
Brilliant, curious, and gifted, the Oxford-born art-world character ran Sotheby Parke-Bernet
Nell Gifford
Re-inventor of the English circus
Guy Arnold
Explorer, prolific travel writer, cat-lover, and host of lavish dinner parties
