Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Zsigmond, Vilmos

(Encyclopedia)Zsigmond, Vilmos, 1930–2016, Hungarian-American cinematographer. As a film student in Budapest, he and fellow student (and later cinematographer) Laszlo Kovacs secretly filmed the street fighting as...

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. vŏnˈəgət [key] 1922–2007, American novelist, b. Indianapolis. After serving in World War II, he worked as a police reporter and wrote short stories for mainstream and science...

Gish, Lillian

(Encyclopedia)Gish, Lillian, 1896–1993, American stage and movie actress, b. Springfield, Ohio. In 1912 she began her film career with D. W. Griffith. A fragile, delicate beauty, Gish often played a heroine rescu...

Streep, Meryl

(Encyclopedia)Streep, Meryl, 1949–, American actress, b. Summit, N.J., as Mary Louise Streep. She attended Yale Drama School and appeared in many Broadway and off-Broadway productions during the early 1970s. Movi...

Weir, Peter

(Encyclopedia)Weir, Peter wēr [key], 1944–, Australian film director, b. Sydney. His early work helped to bring Australian film to world attention; his later films, made in Hollywood, mingle American movie techn...

Weaver, Sigourney

(Encyclopedia) Weaver, Sigourney , 1949- , American actress, b. New York, N.Y., as Susan Alexandra Weaver, Stanford Univ. (B.A., 1972), Yale Univ. (M.F.A., 1974). Wea...

Schneemann, Carolee

(Encyclopedia)Schneemann, Carolee, 1939–2019, American multimedia artist, b. Fox Chase, Pa., B.A. Bard College, 1959, M.F.A. Univ. of Illinois, 1961. Her art encompassed numerous genres, including painting, colla...

Washington, Booker Taliaferro

(Encyclopedia)Washington, Booker Taliaferro, 1856–1915, American educator, b. Franklin co., Va. Washington was born into slavery; his mother was a mulatto slave on a plantation, his father a white man whom he nev...

Wistar, Isaac Jones

(Encyclopedia)Wistar, Isaac Jones, 1827–1905, American financier, b. Philadelphia; great-nephew of Caspar Wistar. His early manhood was spent adventurously in the West as a muleteer, trapper, and gold miner. In t...

Scudder, Janet

(Encyclopedia)Scudder, Janet, 1873–1940, American sculptor, b. Terre Haute, Ind., studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, with Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago, and in Paris. Her fountains and other ...