Felicia Montealegre Bernstein facts for kids

Felicia Montealegre Bernstein (née Felicia María Cohn Montealegre; February 6, 1922 – June 16, 1978) was a Costa Rican-American actress and social activist.

As an actress, Montealegre was famous for her performances in televised dramas at beginning of the Golden Age of Television, and in theatrical roles on and off Broadway.

She appeared with symphony orchestras throughout the United States in dramatic acting and narrating roles, including collaborations with her husband, American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein.

Life and career

Early life and education

Felicia María Cohn Montealegre was born on February 6, 1922 in San José, Costa Rica to Clemencia Cristina Montealegre Carazo, and Roy Elwood Cohn, a United States mining executive then stationed in Costa Rica. She had two sisters, Nancy Alessandri and Madeline Lecaros.

Educated in Chile, she was raised Catholic, and later converted to Judaism, when marrying Leonard Bernstein (her own paternal grandfather had been Jewish).

In 1944, Montealegre established herself in New York, where she took piano lessons from her Chilean compatriot Claudio Arrau.

Television career

Beginning in 1949, Montealegre starred in leading roles on weekly television anthology dramas for Kraft Television Theatre (NBC), Studio One (CBS), Suspense (CBS), The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre (NBC) and The Philco Television Playhouse (NBC), among others.

Montealegre made her television debut on NBC's Kraft Television Theatre on May 11, 1949 as Hygieia in Mary Violet Heberden's The Oath of Hippocrates, alongside actors Dean Harens and Guy Spaull. In 1950, she appeared in the leading role of Nora Helmer in dramatization of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, with John Newland as Krogstad and Theodore Newton as Thorvald.

She made her first appearance on The CBS Television Network's Studio One in the psychological thriller Flowers from a Stranger (aired May 25, 1949), with actor Yul Brynner. She acted in eleven Studio One teleplays between 1949 and 1956, including Of Human Bondage (aired November 21, 1949), based on Somerset Maugham's novel in which Montealegre played Mildred opposite Charlton Heston as Philip Carey. In 1952, she co-starred alongside Heston again in The Wings of the Dove, based on the 1902 eponymous novel by Henry James.

Montealegre appeared in four episodes of the Suspense series (1949-1954), live teleplays featuring people in dangerous situations. In an episode entitled "The Yellow Scarf" (air date June 7, 1949), she played a housekeeper Hettie, who finds herself in a strange scenario involving her mysterious employer Mr. Bronson, portrayed by Boris Karloff, and a social mission worker, Tom Weatherby, played by Douglass Watson.

Dramatic works with orchestra

In 1957, Montealegre performed her first dramatic role in a classical music concert as the narrator in Lukas Foss's Parable of Death, based on the mystical poem by Rilke, for a concert of the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music.

She performed the title role of Joan in Arthur Honegger's Joan of Arc at the Stake (Fr: Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher) several times, including in 1958 with her husband, Leonard Bernstein, conducting the New York Philharmonic and Leontyne Price in the role of Margaret.

Bernstein wrote the narration for his Symphony No. 3: Kaddish with Montealegre in mind, and she narrated its first American performance with soprano Jennie Tourel and Charles Munch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra on January 31, 1964.

Personal life

Montealegre met composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein in 1946 at a party given by Claudio Arrau. Their first engagement was broken off, and she subsequently had a several-year relationship with Broadway and Hollywood actor Richard Hart. She married Bernstein, on September 9, 1951, with whom she had three children, Jamie, Alexander and Nina.

In 1967, Montealegre co-founded an anti-war organization "Another Mother for Peace" which educated women against the war in Vietnam. After hosting an evening for the Black Panther Party in 1970, she became a primary focus in Tom Wolfe's New York essay entitled "Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's". Two years later, she was also one of the 100 individuals arrested in an antiwar protest in Washington, D.C.

On her mother's side she was a relative of actress Madeleine Stowe, their common ancestor being Mariano Montealegre Bustamante, Vice Head of State of Costa Rica.

Montealegre died of lung cancer in East Hampton, New York, in 1978, aged 56.

Television credits

See also

In Spanish: Felicia Montealegre para niños