“Turandot” premieres in Milan on April 25, 1926:

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Poster

Turandot premiered at La Scala in Milan on 25 April 1926, almost a year and a half after Puccini’s death. Puccini’s friend Arturo Toscanini, who had worked on the score with the composer during the last months of Puccini’s life, conducted the premiere. As is widely recorded, when the opera reached the last note written by Puccini, Toscanini ended the performance. What he said at the time has been variously reported, from the poetic “Here death triumphed over art” to the poigniant “For me, the work ends here.” An eyewitness quoted in a recent biography puts it somewhere between the two: “Here ends the opera, because at this point the maestro was dead.”
FROM http://www.theopera101.com/operas/turandot/

Lee Miller: Born April 23, 1907

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Lee Miller archives: https://bit.ly/3maYfBR

picAt the age of 19, Lee Miller was prevented from being hit by a truck in NYC by Condé Nast, the publisher of Vogue. Condé Nast thought she had the makings of a model, putting her on the cover of the magazine, which launched her modeling career. For a couple of years Miller was in high demand by photographers, until 1929 when a photograph of her taken by Edward Steichen was used to advertise Kotex pads, effectively ending her popularity as a model.kotex

Miller then moved to Paris, with the intention of working with Man Ray. She became his model, muse, collaborator, and lover, thus beginning a new career on the other side of the camera as well as continuing as a model.
manray
Lee Miller returned to New York in 1932, where she set up her own studio. She continued to pursue dual careers as model and photographer, however photography became her primary interest.

Miller was married in 1934 and moved to Cairo. The following years saw a succession of lovers and locations, eventually landing her in London where once again Vogue magazine had a major influence on her life, this time as a photographer: her work for them included being their war correspondent during WWII. warShe covered many major events including Normandy, the Liberation of Paris, and the death camps of Dachau and Buchenwald. There was a famous photo of her taking a bath in Hitler’s apartment in Munich taken as the war drew to its close.
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Miller’s only child was born in 1947, fathered by her lover Sir Roland Penrose, whereupon she divorced her husband and married Penrose. They settled in a farm in England. Miller became a gourmet cook and a hostess for some of the most famous artists and photographers of the time, but her life became colored by her ongoing clinical depression and she started on what her son described as a “downward spiral”. She died of lung cancer in 1977. After her death, 60,000 of her photographic negatives were found in a stash of cardboard boxes.withson

Lee Miller has such an amazing biography that I haven’t even attempted to cover it all. I recommend using Google to learn more about her life, or following some of the links I’ve posted here:
Victoria and Albert Museum~ http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/l/lee-miller/
Much More Than A Muse: Lee Miller And Man Ray~ http://www.npr.org/2011/08/20/139766533/much-more-than-a-muse-lee-miller-and-man-ray
Lee Miller’s Photographs of the Second World War~
http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/photography/articles/119376.aspx
The Roving Eye~ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/01/21/the-roving-eye

Myron Waldman: Born on April 23, 1908

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/06/arts/television/06waldman.html

Myron Waldman (April 23, 1908-February 4, 2006) was an American animator, best known for his work at Fleischer Studio…He started his first career work in 1930 at Fleischer Studio. At Fleischer he worked on Betty Boop, Raggedy Ann, Gulliver’s Travels, the animated adaptations of Superman, and Popeye. He was head animator on two Academy Award nominated shorts, Educated Fish (1937) and Hunky and Spunky (1939).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myron_Waldman

John Waters: Born April 22, 1946

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WatersFace

“Beverly Hills John,” 2012, C-Print

The Hollywood Reporter: You made a hilarious, new 74-minute version of your X-rated 1972 cult film Pink Flamingos, rewritten as a “desexualized sequel” — a children’s movie with an all-kid cast. Why did you decide to exhibit the video here, in this way?
John Waters: I don’t think of it as the next movie in my filmography at all.I don’t want it showing in a movie theater where people have to come in and take a seat and have to watch it straight through. You understand what the piece is if you watch it for 20 minutes.
The Hollywood Reporter: Tell me a little bit about how you reconcile your work in the worlds of art and of film, pop and pulp culture?
John Waters: I have gone to great lengths in my career to keep my art career and my film career completely separate. But my art work is as equal to me as making movies.

FROM http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/director-john-waters-has-a-762318

Interview, 2015, The Guardian~
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jun/30/john-waters-art-lassie-justin-bieber-ansel-adams
Interview, 2004, BOMB~ http://bombmagazine.org/article/2628/john-waters
John Waters: Born April 22, 1946~
https://schristywolfe.com/2015/04/22/john-waters-born-april-22-1946/
New John Waters Bathrooms at the BMA~ https://bmoreart.com/2021/10/speeches-champagne-and-lines-for-the-loo-new-john-waters-bathrooms-at-the-bma.html

FrameScreenersArt

Queen Elizabeth II: Born April 21, 1926

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BabyLizNational Portrait Gallery Collection~
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp01454/queen-elizabeth-ii
Queen Elizabeth II: Her first year~
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/20/world/gallery/tbt-queen-elizabeth-ii-first-year/
Why Queen Elizabeth Has Two Different Birthdays~
http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/04/why-queen-elizabeth-has-two-different-birthdays
More Queen Elizabeth here~
https://schristywolfe.com/2015/04/21/elizabeth-alexandra-mary-born-april-21-1926/

Sisters

April 18, 1956: The “Wedding of the Century”

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“Before William and Kate, before Charles and Di, before Liz and Dick (I and II), before any of the “storybook” weddings of the past several decades, there was the fairytale wedding of the last century: the April 1956 nuptials of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III of Monaco. The tale of the American movie star and Philadelphia native marrying the prince of a small, sensationally wealthy city-state was simply too perfect to ignore — and for months leading up to the event, from the time of the couple’s engagement PGKuntil the two ceremonies (civil and religious) that formalized their union, the Hollywood princess and the real-life prince were hardly ever out of the news.

Here, LIFE.com presents photos — many of which never ran in LIFE magazine — from the moment the couple announced their engagement in January 1956 until they were married three and a half months later in Monaco.”
FROM~ http://time.com/3684060/life-with-grace-kelly-and-prince-rainier-photos-from-the-wedding-of-the-century/

Leopold Stokowski: Born on April 18, 1882

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This great conductor was born on 18 April 1882 and died on 13 September 1977…Stokowski began his conducting career at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in 1909, at the young age of 27….After a few years in Cincinnati, however, Stokowski moved on to the Philadelphia Orchestra and molded it into one of the finest orchestras in the world. In fact, Rachmaninoff claimed that the Philadelphia WAS the finest orchestra in the world.
FROM http://www.classical.net/music/guide/society/lssa/stokybio.php

Stokowski arrived in Los Angeles January 2, 1938 to record the Sorcerer’s Apprentice with a hand-picked orchestra of 85 Hollywood session musicians…Disney had decided that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice short film needed to be expanded to a full-length movie, in order to be financially viable. Fantasia was issued in 1941 and 1942, and was released again many times over the years, and continues even today to play in some theaters.
FROM http://www.stokowski.org/1939_1940_Electrical_Recordings_Stokowski.htm

Mickey

Leopold Stokowski was a frequent visitor to the [New York] Philharmonic over the years, appearing with the Orchestra on nearly 200 occasions…In his last appearance with the Philharmonic, on February 8, 1969, he led a program of music by Bach and two modern works inspired by him: Lukas Foss’s Phorion, and Rock Variations and Fantasy on a Brandenburg Concerto, written and performed by the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble.
FROM https://nyphil.org/about-us/artists/leopold-stokowski

Garth Williams: Born on April 16, 1912

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LittleHouseWith the precision of Durer but with his own sense of innocence and wonderment, Mr. Williams created a world of storybook characters. Although the books were written by a diverse range of authors, the drawings all had Mr. Williams’s impeccable, heartwarming touch.Charlotte

Generations of children picture their favorite fictional characters as drawn by Mr. Williams: that dapper mouse Stuart Little; the kindhearted spider Charlotte and her friend, Wilbur the pig; and bears, dogs, kittens, crickets, elves, fairies, children and TallBook2grown-ups in books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, George Selden, Charlotte Zolotow, Else H. Minarik and many others. Mr. Williams also wrote the text for seven children’s books, but it is primarily as an illustrator that his work is cherished.therescuerspic

He believed that books “given, or read, to children can have a profound influence.” For that reason, he said, he used his illustrations to try to “awaken something of importance . . . humor, responsibility, respect for others, cricketpicinterest in the world at large.”
FROM http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/10/arts/garth-williams-book-illustrator-dies-at-84.html

Garth Williams’ Gorgeous Original Illustrations for ‘Charlotte’s Web’~ http://flavorwire.com/260278/garth-williams-gorgeous-original-illustrations-for-charlottes-web (Flavorwire)

The Art of Garth Williams~ http://librarianbooksforchildren.blogspot.com/2012/05/art-of-garth-williams.html (Great Books for Children)

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