Category: people

“In the world of type design – an exacting, arcane craft that is underappreciated for its impact on how people communicate and receive communication – Mr. Zapf was a giant.” Among the more than 200 typefaces he created (in several alphabets) are Palatino, Optima, Melior, and the befuddling, beloved Dingbats.

“Actor, stage director, set designer, architect, coach, mentor, educator, community-builder, inspirational visionary, teller of amazing tales and the longest-serving continuous executive producer/director of a professional theatre in the United States. Jac Alder oversaw at least 378 main stage shows during his 54-year tenure.”

“[He] was an MGM contract star and an associate artist at the Royal Shakespeare Company from its inception in 1960. In a career of astonishing range and variety, he was a handsome leading man … an action hero in wartime movies, a character actor, a producer, writer, lecturer and hotelier. He also turned down the role of James Bond in the first film of the series. And yet he was not associated with any one role in particular.”

“For ‘peeling’ a tangerine isn’t the lesson at hand. ‘You have to understand that in a tangerine there are two important points,’ she says. These points guide the human figure that she proceeds to draw on the tangerine, and that brings to mind some of her drawings of bald, large-breasted figures.”

“He writes energetically and reads voraciously, has a personal collection of ‘some 50,000 books and growing’ and cannot recall ever reading a book that he did not like. He can, however, easily and vividly remember the book that started it all.”

“The question was reasonably obscure — What was the last opera in Wagner’s “Ring” cycle? — but Ruthie Duskin knew the answer. ‘The Dusk of the Gods,’ she intoned into the microphone. A fellow panelist leapt to correct her. ‘It’s Gott-dam … Gott-dam,’ he stammered, as the producers of the live radio broadcast winced. ‘He means the German name, Götterdämmerung,’ Ruthie interrupted. ‘But in English, it’s what I said.’ She was 7 years old.”

“It’s about as dramatic a career turnaround as possible for a Hollywood filmmaker, but escaping his five-year stint in movie jail was far from the only time Feig’s found himself standing at the precipice of a professional chasm. It’s happened, in truth, with some frequency.”

“‘We sang songs of hope in that strange time after World War II, when already the world was preparing for Cold War,’ Ms. Gilbert recalled in ‘The Weavers: Wasn’t That a Time,’ a 1982 documentary about the group. ‘We still had the feeling that if we could sing loud enough and strong enough and hopefully enough, it would make a difference.'”

“And while he embraced a variety of visual styles over the course of his career, he became best known in the United States for the unapologetically traditional sets he designed for a memorable run of operas at the Met directed by Otto Schenk, particularly from the Wagner canon. The productions, which flew in the face of the modern reinterpretations that were in vogue, proved popular with operagoers.”

“Mr. Williams was dancing with the Martha Graham Dance Company when he was recruited by the choreographer Alvin Ailey as a last-minute replacement for an Ailey troupe member in 1963. He performed with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater until 2005, continued to dance with Paradigm, a trio of older dancers he formed with Carmen de Lavallade and Gus Solomons Jr., and taught at the Ailey School, on West 55th Street in Manhattan, until he died.”