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Goldberg, Rube

(Encyclopedia)Goldberg, Rube (Reuben Lucius Goldberg), 1883–1970, American cartoonist and sculptor, b. San Francisco. After drawing cartoons for San Francisco newspapers, he moved to New York City. There he worke...

Grant, Cary

(Encyclopedia)Grant, Cary, 1904–86, British movie actor, b. Bristol as Archibald Alexander Leach. He began on stage in 1923 and made his first film in 1932. An almost immediate hit, Grant was a leading star until...

Garbo, Greta

(Encyclopedia)Garbo, Greta, 1905–90, American film actress, b. Stockholm, Sweden, as Greta Gustafsson. Garbo's success in the Swedish film The Atonement of Gösta Berling (1923) brought her to Hollywood. Possessi...

metaphysical poets

(Encyclopedia)metaphysical poets, name given to a group of English lyric poets of the 17th cent. The term was first used by Samuel Johnson (1744). The hallmark of their poetry is the metaphysical conceit (a figure ...

Nasby, Petroleum V.

(Encyclopedia)Nasby, Petroleum V., pseud. of David Ross Locke, 1833–88, American journalist and satirist, b. Vestal, N.Y. Locke was editor of the Findlay, Ohio, Jeffersonian when he first became prominent by publ...

Longworth, Alice Lee Roosevelt

(Encyclopedia)Longworth, Alice Lee Roosevelt, 1884–1980, American socialite, b. New York City. The only child of Theodore Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, she was a teenager when her father assum...

Marquand, John Phillips

(Encyclopedia)Marquand, John Phillips märˈkwänd [key], 1893–1960, American novelist, b. Wilmington, Del., grad. Harvard, 1915. Most of Marquand's gently satirical novels examine life among the rich and sociall...

Lucan

(Encyclopedia)Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus) lo͞oˈkən [key], a.d. 39–a.d. 65, Latin poet, b. Córdoba, Spain, nephew of the philosopher Seneca. At first in Nero's favor, he was later forced to kill himself whe...

Pfitzner, Hans

(Encyclopedia)Pfitzner, Hans häns pfĭtsˈnər [key], 1869–1949, German conductor and composer, b. Moscow. Pfitzner studied music at Hoch's Conservatory in Frankfurt/ Main. His music, conservative in idiom (Pfit...

Vidocq, Eugène François

(Encyclopedia)Vidocq, Eugène François ûzhĕnˈ fräNswäˈ vēdôkˈ [key], 1775–1857, French detective. After a career of crime for which he had been imprisoned, he joined the Paris Sûreté (security police)...