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Knopf, Blanche W.

(Encyclopedia)Knopf, Blanche W.: see under Knopf, Alfred A. ...

Auden, W. H.

(Encyclopedia)Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh Auden) ôˈdən [key], 1907–73, Anglo-American poet, b. York, England, educated at Oxford. A versatile, vigorous, and technically skilled poet, Auden ranks among the major ...

Murnau, Friedrich W.

(Encyclopedia)Murnau, Friedrich W. frēˈdrĭkh mo͝orˈnou [key], 1889–1931, German film director, b. as Friedrich W. Plumpe. He began directing films in Germany in 1919 and went to Hollywood in 1927. Murnau's f...

Handy, W. C.

(Encyclopedia)Handy, W. C. (William Christopher Handy), 1873–1958, American songwriter and band leader, b. Florence, Ala. Largely self-taught, Handy began his career as a cornet player in a minstrel show in 1896,...

Griffith, D. W.

(Encyclopedia)Griffith, D. W. (David Llewelyn Wark Griffith), 1875–1948, American movie director and producer, b. La Grange, Ky. Griffith was the first major American film director. He began his film career as an...

Friendly, Fred W.

(Encyclopedia)Friendly, Fred W., 1915–98, American broadcaster and author, b. New York City as Ferdinand Friendly Wachenheimer. He began his career at age 22 at a radio station in Providence where he wrote, produ...

Abel, I. W.

(Encyclopedia)Abel, I. W. (Iorwith Wilbur Abel) yôrˈwĭth [key], 1908–87, American labor leader, b. Magnolia, Ohio. In 1925 he went to work in a rolling mill in Canton, Ohio, and was appointed (1937) staff repr...

Fields, W. C.

(Encyclopedia)Fields, W. C. (William Claude Fields), 1880–1946, American comic actor, b. Philadelphia as Claude William Dukenfield. He began his career as a juggler, and much later appeared in the Ziegfeld Follie...

Sebald, W. G.

(Encyclopedia)Sebald, W. G. (Winfried Georg Maximilian Sebald), 1944–2001, German novelist, grad. Freiburg Univ. (1965). Sebald's novels are dense, elegiac, and meditative. They mingle fiction with history and th...

Smith, W. Eugene

(Encyclopedia)Smith, W. Eugene (William Eugene Smith), 1918–78, American photojournalist, b. Wichita, Kan. Smith is considered one of the principal masters of modern photojournalism. The distorted newspaper cover...