William Page

William Page 1811-85, American historical and portrait painter, b. Albany, N.Y., studied with S. F. B. Morse and at the National Academy of Design. Among his best-known works are Farragut's Triumphal Entry into Mobile Bay (presented to Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, 1871) and Ruth and Naomi (N.Y. Historical Society). Influenced by Emerson, Page was probably closer to the ideas of transcendentalism than any other American painter. He believed that art was the earthly counterpart of the divine creative process. In Italy from 1850 to 1857, he constructed a system of body proportions inspired by classical antiquity. He also devised color theories. Page is highly esteemed for his portraits, which are simply and poetically rendered. A portrait of his wife, Sophie, is in the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Bibliography: See monograph by J. Taylor (1957).

Page, Geraldine (1924–87), American Method actress, who made her début in Chicago in 1940 and in New York in 1945. She then appeared for several years with stock companies and did not come into prominence until 1952, when her portrayal of Alma Winemiller in a New York revival of Tennessee Williams's Summer and Smoke was widely acclaimed. In 1954 she scored a big success as Lizzie Curry, the plain spinster, in N. Richard Nash's The Rainmaker (London, 1956). She successfully succeeded Margaret Leighton in the New York production of Rattigan's double bill Separate Tables (1957), and in 1959 created the role of the Princess in Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth, giving a virtuoso performance as a fading star. A revival of O'Neill's Strange Interlude in 1963 in which she played Nina Leeds was followed in 1964 by a production of Chekhov's Three Sisters in which she played first Olga and then Masha. She was later seen in such plays as Shaffer's double bill White Lies and Black Comedy (1967), Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular (1974), and a triple bill of Strindberg's Creditors, The Stronger, and Miss Julie (1977). In 1980 she starred in Williams's Clothes for a Summer Hotel. Much of her career was devoted to non-commercial work, and in the 1980s alone she appeared Off-Broadway in plays by Ibsen (as Mrs Alving in Ghosts), Giraudoux, Maugham, and Robert Bolt, while in 1985 she was in Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind. She had great sensitivity and a wide range, her comic gifts being well shown in her role as the eccentric Madame Arcati in a revival of Coward's Blithe Spirit, during the run of which she died.

Front Page, The (1928), a play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. [Times Square Theatre, 276 perf.] To his fellow newsmen hanging around the press room of Chicago's Criminal Court Building awaiting a murderer's execution, Hildy Johnson ( Lee Tracy) announces that he is quitting the Herald Examiner, getting married, and heading for New York. His plans are temporarily stymied when the murderer, Earl Williams ( George Leach), escapes, and Hildy phones in a scoop to his paper. Williams suddenly appears in the press room, and Hildy and a prostitute, Molly Malloy ( Dorothy Stickney), hide him in a folding desk. Hildy's dapper, devilish editor Walter Burns ( Osgood Perkins) appears, prepared to take over. Amid the mayhem that ensues it is discovered that the governor has pardoned Williams. Telling Hildy of his gratitude for the scoop, Burns presents him with a watch, apologizing for the fact that the watch has his own name engraved in it. Hildy and his fiancée head off to catch the train. But Burns really has had no intention of allowing Hildy to go. He sends a wire to the chief of police in La Porte, Indiana, telling him to arrest Hildy: “The son of a bitch stole my watch!” Alison Smith of the World rejoiced, “‘The Front Page,’ with its rowdy virility, its swift percussion of incident, its streaks of Gargantuan derision, is as breath‐taking an event as ever dropped . . . on Broadway.” The play, produced by Jed Harris, while not the first to be set in a press room, remains an exemplar of its kind and has enjoyed numerous revivals, the most notable American one in 1969 with Bert Convy as Hildy and Robert Ryan as Walter Burns. A 1986 revival at Lincoln Center received mixed notices. It has been made into at least three films. In 2003 John Guare rewrote the comedy as His Girl Friday, based on the 1940 film of the same title, and it premiered in London.