A00123 - Carmen de Lavallade, Actress, Dancer and Choreographer

Carmen de Lavallade (born March 6, 1931) is an American actress, dancer and choreographer.

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Biography
  • 1.1 Early years
  • 1.2 Career
  • 1.3 Personal life
• 2 Awards
• 3 References
• 4 External links

Biography[edit]

Early years[edit]

Carmen de Lavallade was born in Los Angeles, California, on March 6, 1931,^[1] to Creole parents from New Orleans, Louisiana. She was raised by her aunt, Adele, who owned one of the first African-American history bookshops on Central Avenue. De Lavallade's cousin, Janet Collins, was the first African-American prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera.^[2][3]

De Lavallade began studying ballet with Melissa Blake at the age of 16. After graduation from Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles was awarded a scholarship to study dance with Lester Horton.^[4]

Career[edit]

De Lavallade became a member of the Lester Horton Dance Theater in 1949 where she danced as a lead dancer until her departure for New York City with Alvin Ailey in 1954. Like all of Horton's students, de Lavallade studied other art forms, including painting, acting, music, set design and costuming, as well as ballet and other forms of modern and ethnic dance. She studied dancing with ballerina Carmelita Maracci and acting with Stella Adler. In 1954, de Lavallade made her Broadway debut partnered with Alvin Ailey in Truman Capote's musical House of Flowers (starring Pearl Bailey).^[5]

In 1955, she married dancer/actor Geoffrey Holder, whom she had met while working on House of Flowers.^[6] It was with Holder that de Lavallade choreographed her signature solo Come Sunday, to a black spiritual sung by Odetta (then known as Odetta Gordon). The following year, de Lavallade danced as the prima ballerina in Samson and Delilah, and Aida at the Metropolitan Opera.^[7][8]

She made her television debut in John Butler's ballet Flight, and in 1957 she appeared in the television production of Duke Ellington's A Drum Is a Woman. She appeared in several off-Broadway productions, including Othello and Death of a Salesman.^[9] An introduction to 20th Century Fox executives by Lena Horne led to more acting roles between 1952 and 1955. She appeared in several films, including Carmen Jones (1954) with Dorothy Dandridge and Odds Against Tomorrow(1959) with Harry Belafonte.^[9]

De Lavallade was a principal guest performer with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company on the company's tour of Asia and in some countries the company was billed as de Lavallade-Ailey American Dance Company. Other performances included dancing with Donald McKayle and appearing in Agnes de Mille's American Ballet Theatre productions of The Four Marys and The Frail Quarry in 1965. She joined the Yale School of Drama as a choreographer and performer-in-residence in 1970. She staged musicals, plays and operas, and eventually became a professor and member of the Yale Repertory Theater. Between 1990 and 1993, de Lavallade returned to the Metropolitan Opera as choreographer for Porgy and Bess and Die Meistersinger.^[7]

In 2003, de Lavallade appeared in the rotating cast of the off-Broadway staged reading of Wit & Wisdom.^[10] In 2010, she appeared in a one-night-only concert semi-staged reading of Evening Primrose by Stephen Sondheim.^[11]

Personal life[edit]

De Lavallade had resided in New York City with her husband Geoffrey Holder until his death on October 5, 2014.^[12] Their lives were the subject of the 2005 Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob documentary Carmen and Geoffrey.^[13] The couple had one son, Léo. De Lavallade's brother-in-law was Boscoe Holder.^[14][15]

Awards[edit]

In 2004 de Lavallade received the Black History Month Lifetime Achievement Award and the Rosie Award (named for Rosetta LeNoire and "given to individuals who demonstrate extraordinary accomplishment and dedication in the theatrical arts and to corporations that work to promote opportunity and diversity"),^[16][17] the Bessie Award in 2006, and the Capezio Dance Award in 2007,^[18][8] as well as an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Juilliard School in 2008.^[19]a00

^{____________________________________________________________________________________________________________}

^{Carmen de Lavallade (born March 6, 1931) is an American actress, dancer and choreographer.}

Carmen de Lavallade was born in Los Angeles, California, on March 6, 1931, to Creole parents from New Orleans, Louisiana. She was raised by her aunt, Adele, who owned one of the first African American history bookshops on Central Avenue. De Lavallade's cousin, Janet Collins, was the first African-American prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera. 

De Lavallade began studying ballet with Melissa Blake at the age of 16. After graduation from Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles was awarded a scholarship to study dance with Lester Horton. 

De Lavallade became a member of the Lester Horton Dance Theater in 1949 where she danced as a lead dancer until her departure for New York City with Alvin Ailey in 1954. Like all of Horton's students, de Lavallade studied other art forms, including painting, acting, music, set design and costuming, as well as ballet and other forms of modern and ethnic dance. She studied dancing with ballerina Carmelita Maracci and acting with Stella Adler.  In 1954, de Lavallade made her Broadway debut partnered with Alvin Ailey in Truman Capote's musical House of Flowers (starring Pearl Bailey).

In 1955, de Lavallade married dancer/actor Geoffrey Holder, whom she had met while working on House of Flowers.  It was with Holder that de Lavallade choreographed her signature solo Come Sunday, to a black spiritual sung by Odetta.  The following year, de Lavallade danced as the prima ballerina in Samson and Delilah, and Aida at the Metropolitan Opera. 

She made her television debut in John Butler's ballet Flight, and in 1957, she appeared in the television production of Duke Ellington's A Drum Is a Woman.  She appeared in several off-Broadway productions including Othello and Death of a Salesman.  An introduction to 20th Century Fox executives by Lena Horne led to more acting roles between 1952 and 1955.  She appeared in several films including Carmen Jones (1954) with Dorothy Dandridge and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) with Harry Belafonte.
De Lavallade was a principal guest performer with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company on the company's tour of Asia and in some countries the company was billed as de Lavallade-Ailey American Dance Company.  Other performances included dancing with Donald McKayle and appearing in Agnes de Mille's American Ballet Theatre productions of The Four Marys and The Frail Quarry in 1965.  She joined the Yale School of Drama as a choreographer and performer-in-residence in 1970.  She staged musicals, plays and operas, and eventually became a professor and member of the Yale Repertory Theater.  Between 1990 and 1993, de Lavallade returned to the Metropolitan Opera as choreographer for Porgy and Bess and Die Meistersinger.

In 2003, de Lavallade appeared in the rotating cast of the off-Broadway staged reading of Wit & Wisdom.  In 2010, she appeared in a one-night-only concert semi-staged reading of Evening Primrose by Stephen Sondheim.  Truman Capote's musical House of Flowers (starring Pearl Bailey). 

De Lavallade had resided in New York City with her husband Geoffrey Holder until his death on October 5, 2014. Their lives were the subject of the 2005 Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob documentary Carmen and Geoffrey. The couple had one son, Léo. De Lavallade's brother-in-law was Boscoe Holder.  

In 2004 de Lavallade received the Black History Month Lifetime Achievement Award and the Rosie Award (named for Rosetta LeNoire and "given to individuals who demonstrate extraordinary accomplishment and dedication in the theatrical arts and to corporations that work to promote opportunity and diversity"), the Bessie Award in 2006, and the Capezio Dance Award in 2007,as well as an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Julliard School in 2008.

A00122 - Ann Lee, Leader of the Shakers

Mother Ann Lee (29 February 1736 – 8 September 1784) was the leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, or Shakers.

In 1774 Ann Lee and a small group of her followers emigrated from England to New York. After several years, they gathered at Niskayuna, renting land from the Manor of Rensselaerswyck, Albany County, New York (the area now called Colonie). They worshiped by ecstatic dancing or "shaking", which dubbed them as the Shakers. Ann Lee preached to the public and led the Shaker church at a time when few women did either.^[1]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Early history
• 2 Rise to prominence
• 3 Move to America
• 4 Legacy
• 5 See also
• 6 References
• 7 Further reading
• 8 External links

Early history[edit]

Ann Lee was born in Manchester, England, and baptised privately at Manchester Cathedral on 1 June 1742,^[2] aged 6. Her parents were members of a distinct branch of the Society of Friends, and too poor to afford their children even the rudiments of education.^[3] Ann Lee's father, John Lees, was a blacksmith during the day and a tailor at night. It is probable that Ann Lee's original surname was Lees, but somewhere through time it changed to Lee. Little is known about her mother other than she was a very religious woman. When Ann was young she worked in a cotton factory, then she worked as a cutter of hatter's fur, and later as a cook in a Manchester infirmary.

In 1758 she joined the Wardley's, an English sect founded by Jane and preacher James Wardley; this was the precursor to the Shaker sect.^[4] She believed in and taught her followers that it is possible to attain perfect holiness by giving up sexual relations. Like her predecessors, the Wardleys, she taught that the shaking and trembling were caused by sin being purged from the body by the power of the Holy Spirit, purifying the worshiper.

Beginning during her youth, Ann Lee was uncomfortable with sexuality, especially her own. This repulsion towards sexual activity continued and manifested itself most poignantly in her repeated attempts to avoid marriage and remain single. Eventually her father forced her to marry Abraham Stanley. They were married at Manchester Cathedral on 5 January 1761.^[5] She became pregnant four times, all of her children died during infancy. Her difficult pregnancies and the loss of four children were traumatic experiences that contributed to Ann Lee's dislike of sexual relations.^[6] Lee developed radical religious convictions that advocated celibacy and the abandonment of marriage, as well as the importance of pursuing perfection in every facet of life. She differed from the Quakers, who, though they supported gender equality, did not accept forbidding sexuality within marriage.

Rise to prominence[edit]

In England, Ann Lee rose to prominence by urging other believers to preach more publicly concerning the imminent second coming, and to attack sin more boldly and unconventionally. She spoke of visions and messages from God, claiming that she had received a vision from God the message that celibacy and confession of sin are the only true road to salvation and the only way in which the Kingdom of God could be established on the earth. She was frequently imprisoned for breaking the Sabbath by dancing and shouting, and for blasphemy.^[7]

Lee often was characterized as a virago (a woman with masculine, domineering attributes), possibly because most English and Americans could not accept her ideals of gender equality, or possibly because she was extraordinarily outspoken.

She claimed to have had many miraculous escapes from death. She told of being examined by four clergymen of the Established Church, claiming that she spoke to them for four hours in 72 tongues.^[8]

While in prison in Manchester for 14 days, she said she had a revelation that "a complete cross against the lusts of generation, added to a full and explicit confession, before witnesses, of all the sins committed under its influence, was the only possible remedy and means of salvation." After this, probably in 1770, she was chosen by the Society as "Mother in spiritual things" and called herself "Ann, the Word" and also "Mother Ann." After being released from prison a second time, witnesses say Mother Ann performed a number of miracles, including healing the sick.^[9]

Lee eventually decided to leave England for America in order to escape the persecution (i.e. multiple arrests and stays in prison) she experienced in Great Britain.^[7]

Move to America[edit]

A group of Shakers, published in 1875

In 1774 a revelation led her to take a select band to America. She was accompanied by her husband, who soon afterwards deserted her. Also following her to America were her brother, William Lee (1740–1784); Nancy Lee, her niece; James Whittaker (1751–1787), who had been brought up by Mother Ann and was probably related to her; John Hocknell (1723–1799), who provided the funds for the trip; his son, Richard; James Shepherd, and Mary Partington. Mother Ann and her converts arrived on 6 August 1774, in New York City, where they stayed for nearly five years. In 1779 Hocknell leased land atNiskayuna, in the township of Watervliet, near Albany, and the Shakers settled there, where a unique community life began to develop and thrive.^[7]

During the American Revolution, Lee and her followers maintained a stance of neutrality. Maintaining the position that they were pacifists, Ann Lee and her followers did not side with either the British or the colonists.

Ann Lee opened her testimony to the world's people on the famous Dark Day in May 1780, when the sun disappeared and it was so dark that candles had to be lighted to see indoors at noon.^[10] She soon recruited a number of followers who had joined the New Light revival at New Lebanon, New York, in 1779, including Lucy Wright.

Beginning in the spring of 1781 Mother Ann and some of her followers went on an extensive missionary journey to find converts in Massachusetts and Connecticut. They often stayed in the homes of local sympathizers, such as the Benjamin Osborn House near the New York - Massachusetts line. There were also songs attributed to her which were sung without words.^[11]

The followers of Mother Ann came to believe that she embodied all the perfections of God in female form,^[12] and was revealed as the "second coming" of Christ.^[13] The fact that Ann Lee was considered to be Christ's female counterpart was unique. She preached that sinfulness could be avoided by not only treating men and women equally, but also by keeping them separated so as to prevent any sort of temptation leading to impure acts. Celibacy and confession of sin were essential for salvation.^[12]

Ann Lee's mission throughout New England was especially successful in converting groups who were already outside the mainstream of New England Protestantism, including followers of Shadrack Ireland. To the mainstream, however, she was too radical for comfort.^[14] Ann Lee herself recognized how revolutionary her ideas were when she said, "We [the Shakers] are the people who turned the world upside down."

Unfortunately, the Shakers were sometimes met by violent mobs, such as in Shirley, Massachusetts, and Ann Lee suffered violence at their hands more than once. Because of these hardships Mother Ann became quite frail; she died on 8 September 1784, at the age of 48.^[7]

Mother Ann Lee tombstone

She died at Watervliet and is buried in the Shaker cemetery located in the Watervliet Shaker Historic District.^[15]

It is claimed that Shakers in New Lebanon, New York experienced a 10-year period of revelations in 1837 called the Era of Manifestations. It was also referred to as Mother Ann's Work.^[16]

Legacy[edit]

Ann Lee is memorialized in:

• Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party^[17]

• the (afterword (Epilogue) of the) 1985 novel A Maggot by John Fowles.

A00121 - Florence Shinn, New Thought Spiritual Teacher

Florence Scovel Shinn (September 24, 1871, Camden, New Jersey – October 17, 1940) was an American artist and book illustrator who became a New Thought spiritual teacher and metaphysical writer in her middle years.^[1][2] In New Thought circles, she is best known for her first book, The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925).

Shinn expressed her philosophy as:

The invisible forces are ever working for man who is always ‘pulling the strings’ himself, though he does not know it. Owing to the vibratory power of words, whatever man voices, he begins to attract.

The Game of Life, Florence Scovel Shinn^[1]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Early life
• 2 Writings and New Thought
• 3 Bibliography
• 4 Notes
• 5 References
• 6 Further reading
• 7 External links

Early life[edit]

Florence Scovel was born in New Jersey, the daughter of Alden Cortlandt Scovel, and Emily Hopkinson Scovel.^[3] She was educated in Philadelphia where she attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and there met her future husband, the artist Everett Shinn (1876–1953). After marriage they moved into a studio apartment at 112 Waverly Place, near Washington Square, New York. Everett built a theatre next door, and wrote three plays in which Florence played a leading role.^[4] Everett Shinn became known as a member of the Ashcan School of art, and Florence worked as an illustrator.^[5] They were divorced in 1912.^[3]

Writings and New Thought[edit]

Her metaphysicals works began with her self-published The Game of Life and How to Play it in 1925. Your Word is Your Wand was published in 1928 and The Secret Door to Success in 1940.^[4] The Game of Life and How to Play it includes quotes from the Bible and anecdotal explanations of the author's understanding of God and man. Her philosophy centers on the power of positive thought and usually includes instructions for verbal or physical affirmation.

"The Unitarians have such nice children's parties", a drawing published in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, 1904.

A typical Scovel Shinn piece of advice would be "It is safe to say that all sickness and unhappiness come from the violation of the law of love. A new commandment I give unto you, 'Love one another,' and in the Game of Life, love or good-will takes every trick."^[6]

Her advice is usually accompanied by a "real life" anecdote, as for the above "Love one another" advice:

A woman I know, had, for years an appearance of a terrible skin disease. The doctors told her it was incurable, and she was in despair. She was on the stage, and she feared she would soon have to give up her profession, and she had no other means of support. She, however, procured a good engagement, and on the opening night, made a great "hit." She received flattering notices from the critics, and was joyful and elated. The next day she received a notice of dismissal. A man in the cast had been jealous of her success and had caused her to be sent away. She felt hatred and resentment taking complete possession of her, and she cried out, "Oh God don't let me hate that man." That night she worked for hours "in the silence."

She said, "I soon came into a very deep silence. I seemed to be at peace with myself, with the man, and with the whole world. I continued this for two following nights, and on the third day I found I was healed completely of the skin disease!" In asking for love, or good will, she had fulfilled the law, ("for love is the fulfilling of the law") and the disease (which came from subconscious resentment) was wiped out.."^[6]

Her books "Your Word Is Your Wand" and "The Game of Life and How To Play It" were released as audiobooks in 2014 and 2015 respectively and were narrated by actress Hillary Hawkins.

Shinn is considered part of the New Thought movement, as her writings follow in the tradition of Phineas Quimby (1802–1866), Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849–1925), and both Charles Fillmore (1854–1948) and Myrtle Fillmore (1845–1931), co-founders of the Unity Church.

Motivational author Louise Hay acknowledges her as an early influence.^[7]

A00120 - Alicia Nash, Wife of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind

Alicia Nash, 82; helped Nobel laureate rebuild life

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By Amy Ellis Nutt WASHINGTON POST  MAY 29, 2015

LAURA RAUCH/ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILE

John and Alicia Nash at the Academy Awards in 2001.

WASHINGTON — Alicia Nash, who studied physics in the 1950s and worked in computer science when few women entered the profession, aspired to be the next Madame Curie.

That she did not accomplish that goal didn’t seem to matter to her. What did was the well-being of her son and husband.

The stabilizing force behind John Nash, the mathematician and Nobel laureate who was plagued by schizophrenia for years, Mrs. Nash died May 23 along with her husband when the taxi in which they were riding crashed in New Jersey. She was 82. He was 86.

The couple, and their complex life together — they were married, divorced, and then married again — was the subject of a best-selling biography by Sylvia Nasar, ‘‘A Beautiful Mind,’’ in 1998. The book was made into an Oscar-winning film three years later. Jennifer Connelly, who won the Academy Award for best supporting actress, and Russell Crowe, who was nominated for best actor, played the Nashes.

Although the movie was criticized for glossing over some of the facts of the couple’s life, its power and poignancy derived in no small part from its accurate depiction of Alicia Nash’s devotion to her husband.

In 1959, they had been married barely two years when Mrs. Nash, pregnant with their only child, was forced to involuntarily commit her husband, in the throes of paranoid schizophrenic delusions, to McLean Hospital outside Boston.

What followed was nearly a decade of hospitalizations during which time Mrs. Nash, raising a child on her own, divorced her husband in 1963, though she remained his supporter.

When John Nash was discharged from another institution in 1970, and despite the dissolution of their marriage, she felt his mental health would best be served if he became a boarder at her house in Princeton, N.J. Continuity and familiarity, she understood, were critical to his stability.

‘‘They say that a lot of people are left on the back wards of mental institutions,’’ Mrs. Nash once said. ‘‘And somehow their few chances to get out go by, and they just end up there. So, that was one of the reasons I said, ‘Well, I can put you up.’ ’’

It was an offer that many said saved John Nash’s life.

She was born Alicia Lopez-Harrison de Lardé on Jan. 1, 1933, in San Salvador. Her prominent, upper-class family included her father, a physician, and an aunt, the poet Alicia Lardé de Venturino.

By 1945, the family had immigrated to the United States, first living in Biloxi, Miss., and later in New York City, where the young Miss de Larde attended the private Marymount School in Manhattan.

She did well enough over to earn a coveted spot at MIT, one of only 16 women among about 800 men in the class of 1955.

Although it had been coed since 1871, MIT was an inhospitable place for women. Even the university’s supervisor for female undergraduates, Margaret Alvort, did not support the presence of women on campus.

The petite, stylish student from Central America failed to wilt. On the first day of her course in advanced calculus for engineers, taught by Nash, she really did reopen the windows of the stuffy classroom after he had just closed them because of outside noise, a scene described in Nasar’s biography.

Only after she graduated with a degree in physics, however, did the two begin to date. They married two years later.

Alicia Nash remarried her former husband in 2001.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Alicia Esther Nash (née Lopez-Harrison de Lardé; January 1, 1933 – May 23, 2015) was the wife of mathematicianJohn Forbes Nash, Jr.. She was a mental-health care advocate, who gave up her professional aspirations to support her husband and son who were both diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Her life with Nash was chronicled in the 1998 book, A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar, as well as in the 2001 film of the same title.^[1][2]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Personal life
• 2 Career
• 3 Mental health advocacy
• 4 Death
• 5 Portrayal in media
• 6 Further reading
• 7 References
• 8 External links

Personal life[edit]

Alicia de Larde was born January 1, 1933 in El Salvador, the daughter of Alicia (née Lopez-Harrison) and Carlos de Lardé, a doctor. She had a brother, Rolando de Lardé. Both of her parents came from socially prominent, well traveled families, who spoke several languages. Her aunt was the poet Alice Lardé Venturino; her paternal grandfather was Jorge de Lardé, a chemical engineer.^[3]

When Alicia was a child, her father traveled to the United States a few times before deciding to move the family there permanently in 1944. After first settling in Mississippi, the family later moved to New York City. Alicia was accepted to the Marymount School with the help of a letter of recommendation from El Salvador's Ambassador to the United States^[who?]. Following graduation from Marymount, Nash was accepted into Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from where she graduated in 1955 with a degree in physics. She was one of 16 women among approximately 800 men in M.I.T.'s Class of 1955. It was there she met her future husband, John Forbes Nash, Jr..^{[citation needed]}

Alicia aspired to be the next Marie Curie, however; her relationship with her future husband began to consume her life when he began showing signs ofschizophrenia.^[4]

Alicia is credited for providing support to her husband^{[by whom?]}. They married in 1957. Alicia decided to commit her husband into McLean Hospital to receive psychiatric treatment for his illness. In 1959, Alicia and her husband had a son named John who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.^[5] Their marriage tumultuous from the beginning, the couple divorced in 1963. Alicia continued to help take care of her husband after their separation; the couple remarried in 2001.^{[citation needed]}

Career[edit]

After graduation from M.I.T., Alicia went to work for the Brookhaven Nuclear Development Corporation as a lab physicist. In the early 1960s, she worked for RCA as an aerospace engineer in the Astro Division and later worked for a short time at Con Edison as a system programmer. Years later she worked for the New Jersey Transitsystem as a computer programmer and data analyst.^{[citation needed]} She was a member of numerous women's engineering societies.^{[citation needed]} When the film A Beautiful Mind was released, Alicia was serving as president of M.I.T.'s Alumni Association Board.^[6]

Mental health advocacy[edit]

Alicia became a spokesperson about schizophrenia and mental illness.^[when?] In 2005 she was given the Luminary Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. She traveled around the country to discuss rights for those with mental illness, and in 2009 she met with New Jersey state lawmakers to discuss how to improve that state's mental health care system. In 2012, she was honored at the University of Texas at Austin’s John and Alicia Nash Conference for her support of those with mental illness, where she delivered the keynote address.^[7][8][9]

Death[edit]

Alicia Nash and her husband were killed in a car accident on the New Jersey Turnpike on May 23, 2015 near Monroe Township, New Jersey. They were on their way home after a visit to Norway, where her husband had been awarded the Abel Prize. Travelling in a taxicab from Newark Airport, the driver lost control of the cab and struck a guard rail. Both passengers were ejected from the vehicle upon impact.^{[10][11][12][13][14]}

Portrayal in media[edit]

Alicia Nash was portrayed by Jennifer Connelly in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind. For her performance as Alicia Nash, Connelly won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, mentioning Alicia Nash during her acceptance speech.^[15][16]

___________________________________________________________________________________

The story of John Nash's life -- brilliant mathematician, troubled schizophrenic, and finally winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics -- might have had a far harsher arc if not for his wife, Alicia Larde. Sylvia Nasar, the author of the book A Beautiful Mind, believes that Nash's choice of Larde revealed that his intelligence extended beyond mathematics. "It was Nash's genius," she writes, "to choose a woman who would prove so essential to his survival."

Alicia entered Nash's life as a young M.I.T. student dazzled by a star professor. Alicia remembers the first time she saw Nash. "I walked into the classroom, and I thought he was very nice looking," she said, "he was like the fair-haired boy of the math department." He, while the less eager partner, noticed her as well. "She," John admitted later in life, "was one of the few girls that attracted my attention."

Alicia was strikingly beautiful, well groomed and feminine, wearing full skirts and very high heels. She was intellectually sharp, cosmopolitan, witty, and socially savvy. According to author Sylvia Nash, Joyce Davis, a classmate of Alicia's, described the collegiate Alicia as "an El Salvadoran princess with a sense of noblesse oblige."

Alicia's extended family was an aristocratic clan that hobnobbed with the intelligentsia of El Salvador rather than with the country's landed oligarchy. Alicia's family spoke French and English as well as Spanish, traveled abroad, and lived well in a beautiful villa near the center of San Salvador, El Salvador's capital.

That life vanished when Alicia's father, a doctor, left for the United States in 1944. The family followed, first settling in Biloxi, Mississippi, and then in metropolitan New York City. With a reference written by the El Salvadoran ambassador to the United States, Alicia gained entry to the Marymount School, an exclusive Catholic girls school on the Upper East Side. Alicia's father, excited by his daughter's childhood dream of becoming the next Marie Curie, wrote a letter to the schoolmaster, asking her to help Alicia realize her aspiration to become a nuclear scientist. Alicia did well, becoming one of only 16 women entering the M.I.T. class of 1955.

John and Alicia met in an Advanced Calculus for Engineers class, but became a couple after Nash encountered Alicia at the university's music library, where she worked. Nasar points out that the two shared far more than an attraction: they were both close to their mothers; grew up in houses where intellectual achievement and status were supreme; and were both outsiders. These attractions pulled the two together in marriage in 1957.

After John's sudden onset of schizophrenia, Alicia tried to hide what was going on from friends and faculty. "Alicia wanted to save his career and preserve his intellect," recalled a friend. "It was her interest to keep Nash intact." That was her intention when, pregnant, she had her husband involuntarily committed to McLean Hospital outside Boston, something that Nash bitterly resented.

"I tried to remain positive as much as I could," Alicia remembers. " And I really tried not to feel pity for myself."

After three years of familial turmoil, Alicia filed for divorce, something that the Hollywood version of Nash's life left out. With the help of her mother, Alicia raised their son John on her own. Later he, too, turned out to have schizophrenia. In 1970 a decade after the divorce and with her ex-husband struggling just to survive, Alicia took him into her home not as a husband but as what she called her " boarder."

"They say that a lot of people are left on the back wards of mental institutions," says Alicia, speaking of her decision to take Nash in. "And somehow their few chances to get out go by and they just end up there. So, that was one of the reasons I said, 'Well, I can put you up.' "

"If she hadn' t taken him in, he would have wound up on the streets," believes Nasar. "He had no income. He had no home. I think that Alicia saved his life." In the 1980s, John slowly emerged from schizophrenia and in 1994 he received aNobel Prize in Economics for the game theory work he completed as a young man. In the spring of 2001, Alicia and John were remarried, 38 years after their divorce.

"We thought it would be a good idea," Alicia stated quite simply. "After all, we've been together most of our lives."