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Mason, James

(Encyclopedia)Mason, James, 1909–84, British stage and film actor. Mason, trained at Cambridge as an architect, became a leading man in British films in the 1940s and thereafter an international star. With a velv...

Steele, Wilbur Daniel

(Encyclopedia)Steele, Wilbur Daniel, 1886–1970, American author, b. Greensboro, N.C., grad. Univ. of Denver, 1907. He studied art in Boston, Paris, and New York City. He was particularly noted for his short stori...

Vermeer, Jan

(Encyclopedia)Vermeer, Jan or Johannes vərmērˈ, Dutch yän vərmārˈ, yōhänˈəs [key], 1632–75, Dutch genre and landscape painter. He was born in Delft, where he spent his entire life. He was also known as...

Delaney, Shelagh

(Encyclopedia)Delaney, Shelagh shēˈlə [key], 1939–, English playwright, b. Salford, Lancashire. Her first play, written when she was only 17, was A Taste of Honey (1958), about a young working-class girl who r...

bundling

(Encyclopedia)bundling, courtship custom, thought to have originated in Holland and the British Isles. It was extended to America, particularly to New England, and most widely practiced in the years prior to the Re...

Brice, Fanny

(Encyclopedia)Brice, Fanny or Fannie, 1891–1951, American comedienne, b. New York City as Fanny Borach. Brice appeared in burlesque and vaudeville from 1906. She starred in the Ziegfeld “Follies” from 1910 on...

Prévost, Marcel

(Encyclopedia)Prévost, Marcel märsĕlˈ prāvōˈ [key], 1862–1941, French novelist. His novels deal chiefly with feminine questions, portraying severely what Prévost regarded as the moral frailty of modern wo...

sampler

(Encyclopedia)sampler, sample piece of needlework or embroidery, of silk, cotton, or worsted, for the preservation of some pattern or as an example of the ability of a child or a beginner. In museums and private co...

Sánchez, Florencio

(Encyclopedia)Sánchez, Florencio flōrānˈsyō sänˈchās [key], 1875–1910, Uruguayan playwright. His many plays concern pastoral life in the region of the Río de la Plata. Sánchez's style owes much to the n...

Harlow, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Harlow, Jean, 1911–37, American movie star, b. Kansas City, Mo., as Harlean Carpentier. Harlow brought charm and a sexual knowingness to a series of comedies during the 1930s, becoming the model of ...