Altina Schinasi

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class: Altina Schinasi Hosted by Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson | Released May 5, 2025

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Introduction to Altina Schinasi

In this captivating episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class, hosts Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson delve into the intriguing life of Altina Schinasi, a multifaceted pioneer known for her invention of Harlequin glasses and her significant contributions to art and activism. Through detailed exploration, the episode unravels Altina's journey from her affluent upbringing to her impactful legacy.

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Early Life and Family Background (02:17 - 07:19)

Altina Schinasi was born on August 4, 1907, in a lavish 12-bedroom marble mansion at 351 Riverside Drive, New York City, to Moussa (later Morris Shenazi) and Laurette Shenazi. Her father, Morris, an immigrant from Turkey, built his wealth by inventing a cigarette rolling machine and manufacturing a line of cigarettes, swiftly amassing millionaire status in the early 20th century.

Holly Fry notes, "Morris Shenazi set aside $300,000 for Jewish and Christian hospitals in the US and $1.3 million to establish and maintain a hospital for the poor in Turkey" (05:42). This philanthropic legacy was a testament to Morris's success and generous spirit.

Education and Artistic Beginnings (07:19 - 13:27)

Despite her privileged upbringing, Altina sought independence and artistic expression. After graduating high school in 1924, she spent time in Paris, where her initial foray into art began. Returning to New York, Altina enrolled at the Art Students League, where she was influenced by German artist Georg Gross and fellow student Howard Warshaw, who significantly shaped her painting technique (13:03).

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Personal Life: Marriages and Relationships (13:27 - 22:29)

Altina's personal life was marked by multiple marriages and complex relationships. Shortly after her father's death in 1928, she married Morris B. Sanders, a designer and architect, with whom she had two sons, Dennis and Terry. However, the marriage was fraught with unhappiness, leading to Altina filing for divorce on grounds of extreme cruelty in 1932 (19:11).

Following her divorce, Altina engaged in a tumultuous affair with her attorney, Mack Brandwin, despite his existing marriage to her friend. This relationship underscored Altina's struggle to balance personal desires with societal expectations (22:00).

Her openness in discussing her faults and candid reflections on personal relationships provided listeners with a nuanced view of her character: "It set up in me a very big conflict... my sex drive was just too powerful to override it" (21:22).

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Invention of Harlequin Glasses (22:29 - 26:36)

One of Altina's most notable achievements was the invention of Harlequin glasses, which revolutionized eyewear for women. Dissatisfied with the unattractive designs of the time, Altina was inspired by Harlequin masks and began experimenting with paper cuts before developing prototypes. Despite initial rejections, her persistence paid off when Lou Jeans, a Manhattan eyewear shop, became the exclusive distributor (22:29).

Tracy V. Wilson highlights the cultural impact: "With Shenazi's innovation, glasses had become a fashion accessory." The Harlequin glasses swiftly gained popularity among high-profile individuals like Clare Boothe Luce and Peggy Guggenheim, earning Altina the Lord and Taylor Annual American Design Award in 1939 (25:35).

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Activism During World War II (26:36 - 27:48)

With the outbreak of World War II, Altina leveraged her success to aid others. She signed over a dozen affidavits to help individuals immigrate to the United States, demonstrating her commitment to humanitarian efforts (26:36). This act of kindness led her to meet Eric Barrett, a doctor she later married, further intertwining her personal and activist endeavors.

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Later Life: Art, Activism, and the Red Scare (27:48 - 41:15)

Altina's later years were a blend of artistic exploration and political activism. Moving to California with her husband Eric, she focused on her art, creating a dedicated studio space and briefly operating a sunglasses factory. Despite challenges, including racial tensions among employees, Altina remained committed to her creative pursuits (29:23).

During the Red Scare, Altina and Eric provided refuge to director John Barry, who was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Their guest house became a sanctuary for those targeted by McCarthyism, reflecting Altina's steadfast support for civil liberties (33:23).

Her artistic endeavors expanded into sculpture, where she pioneered a unique style of sculpted portraits in the form of chairs and benches. These works, inspired by Henri Cartier Bresson's photography, earned her significant recognition in Washington, D.C., and beyond. As Holly Fry recounts, "I don't know who decreed that art should just be something you nail up on a wall." (38:25).

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Final Years and Legacy (41:15 - 42:47)

Altina continued to create and influence until her passing in 1999 at the age of 92. Her autobiography, "The Road I Have Traveled," remains a rare and cherished glimpse into her extraordinary life. After her death, her granddaughter Victoria R. Sanders praised her vibrant spirit and relentless pursuit of artistic and humanitarian endeavors: "The thing about my grandmother was she was not like anybody else's grandmother or mother... she was always working on some new project." (42:21).

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Notable Quotes

• Altina Schinasi:

  • "I have three strong currents running in my life. One, a strong sex drive and curiosity. It cannot be that this is the only man I will know. Two, a strong creative drive that kept pushing me to inventions, creations, writing objects, etc. Three, a strong attachment to my two children." (18:25)
  • "I really didn't want to be idle and I wanted to do things." (08:32)
  • "I don't know who decreed that art should just be something you nail up on a wall." (38:25)

• Tracy V. Wilson:

  • "If this were an ad for immigrating to the United States, it would have results not typical in very small letters at the bottom of the screen." (07:19)

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Conclusion

Altina Schinasi's story is a testament to innovation, resilience, and the pursuit of creativity amidst personal and societal challenges. From her groundbreaking Harlequin glasses to her unwavering activism, Altina left an indelible mark on both the fashion and art worlds. Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson expertly weave her multifaceted life into an engaging narrative, ensuring that listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of this remarkable woman's legacy.

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Additional Resources

• Documentary: Altina Schinasi: The Road I Have Traveled produced by her granddaughter, Victoria R. Sanders.
• Autobiography: The Road I Have Traveled by Altina Schinasi

For more information and to listen to this episode, visit the iHeartRadio app or your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Daniel]

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The app Store today Explore the winding halls of historical true crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tremarchi, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the Highwayman suggests men dominated the field, but tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrars, known as the Wicked lady who terrorized England in the mid-1600s. Her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season. Find more crime and cocktails on Criminalia. Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

Altina Shinazi has been on my list for a while for the simple fact that she, spoiler alert, invented cat eye glasses. She called them harlequin glasses. It's one of those things that comes up kind of annually on her birthday. Like, there's been a Google doodle about her, and people sometimes will like to write in fashion magazines and stuff, a quick, like, the birthday of the woman who, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh, that's fascinating. She sounds interesting. She's so much more interesting than I knew, because once I dug into her story, I was really entranced by how much she had done in her life and how many historical events she bumped up against. And we're pretty lucky in this case because she is recent enough that there are even video interviews with her. There's an entire documentary that was made by her grandkids. I call them grandkids. They are adults and, you know, filmmakers. But I don't want anybody to think it's like, little kids that made this.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

They did not a kindergarten project.

[Holly Fry]

It is an actual film. And that's also fascinating because this is a woman who had faults, like anybody does. She made some bad decisions in interviews. She's so casually frank about all of it. She never seems to want to gloss over the things about her that some people would find less appealing. That's honestly quite refreshing. It's also a little wild. I just. The candor is really disarming in a way. But it made it all the more funny to me that in most, you know, blurbs, you'll see about her, it's all about the cat eye glasses, and none of the other things, some of which are really interesting. So today we're gonna talk about the glasses, but we will also talk about her art that she did, the documentaries that she worked on, her activism, her politics, and just a whole lot more. There are a lot of husbands, so buckle in.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, I wasn't quite prepared for that part of it. Altina Shenazi was born on Aug. 4, 1907, at 351 Riverside Dr. At 107th street in New York City. Her parents were Moussa and Laurette Shenazi, and they already had two daughters, Victoria and Juliet. Altina's father, Musa, was born in Turkey and Americanized his name to Morris after moving to the United States. Her mother had been born in what was at the time the Ottoman Empire. So Morris had left his village at the age of 15 and gone to Egypt to find work, he went there by cattle boat and learned about shipping while living in Egypt. That's also where he learned about tobacco, which would become an important part of his life later on. Altena later recounted that while in Egypt, a Greek man named Garofalo had taken Morris under his wing and basically raised him as a son. When Morris was around 30, it was that man who told him that he really should head to the United States because of all the opportunities there.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, and I, I want to say I'm not 100% sure on that name of Gruffalo. She says it in interviews. I only saw the one interview where she talked about that man. And it's a little unclear. It's not super well enunciated. So there's a poss possibility that the name might be wrong there. But Morris did emigrate at that man's urging to the United States in the late 1800s and he became very wealthy. Morris's story is kind of a storybook immigrant, rags to riches tale. Due to disadvantaged circumstances in his early life, he didn't have any formal education, but he was incredibly smart. He reportedly spoke eight different languages. And after he moved to the United States, he saw a need for something. This comes with some baggage, but at the time it was very, very commonplace and accepted that a lot of people smoked and they had to roll their own cigarettes. And he invented a cigarette rolling machine. And this was a completely new idea at the time. He had just noticed that, you know, it was a big sloppy mess most of the time when people rolled their own cigarettes. So he invented this machine that would do it for them, make it a very neat package. He patented it and it took off. His brother Saul joined him and they opened a factory at 120th in Broadway. And Altina would later estimate that the two men had become millionaires within just five or six years of business. And that's millionaires in the very early 20th century. So that's a lot of money. Very fast.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah. If this were an ad for immigrating to the United States, it would have results not typical in very small letters at the bottom of the screen. Shehnazi then built on the success of that rolling machine by manufacturing a line of cigarettes. And by the time Altina was born, he had moved the family into a 12 bedroom marble mansion. That is where Altina was born. Morris didn't marry until he was 50. His bride was a lot younger than he was, more than 30 years younger. The two of them had met through Laurette's father. After Morris had made a return trip to Turkey. Lorette's father said that she would have no interest in an old man like Morris. And the two of them are said to have just let her decide for herself. She was 17 years old at that time. But Morris was handsome and dashing, and apparently he really won her over. Obviously, there were also some power politics and dynamics in play here. The two of them got married in Turkey and then traveled to the United States. And it was for Laurette that he built this mansion. It was designed by the same architect who built Carnegie Hall.

[Holly Fry]

But while this seemed like a good match, initially, the marriage turned out to be mostly unhappy. Morris was not faithful to his wife, but he was also very jealous because she was very young and pretty. Laurent lived a unique life. She had everything she could ever want, but she didn't really have her own freedom. She could, for example, charge any purchase she might need, but she wasn't allowed to carry cash. Altina later described her mother as being like a prisoner. Lorette did not particularly care for that giant house and lavish life. It all felt like too much for her. And at one point, Lorette, in an effort to kind of get away from it, although sort of this is a weird way to get away from a life of luxury, she rented an entire floor of the Plaza Hotel for an entire year and took Altina and her two older sisters with her to try to get a taste of independence. I mean, I would love to do that, but I don't think I would feel like I was getting away from my trappings of an overblown life at that point.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

My read on that was that it more gave her a break from the day to day of her marriage, more so than the expanse and luxury of the mansion.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, I think she really did just want to not deal with her husband for a minute. Yeah. Although it was his money paying for.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The entire floor of the hotel. So in her early years, Altina, who went by Tina, had private tutors providing her education. Then she went to the Horace Mann School until it was time to start high school. In the early 1920s, she was enrolled at the Dana Hall School, that's a private all girls school in Wellesley, Massachusetts. While there, she was active in a lot of school groups, but none of them really hinted at the art career that she would eventually choose. She was part of the athletic association and the varsity hockey team, the French club and the Christian association. And that one's a little odd because Altina was Jewish. She was one of the school's only Jewish students. And she general hid that fact. So her membership in the Christian association might have just been an effort to try to blend in. She mentioned that she always felt isolated there and noted in a later interview, quote, it was high Episcopalian and I was the token Jew there. Nonetheless, she seems to have been well liked. She was the class vice president in her junior and senior years.

[Holly Fry]

When Altina graduated from high school in 1924, she went to Paris and she spent some time there with her older sister. And it's there that she first began to study art. But she still didn't think art was really going to be anything for her other than a hobby. While she acknowledged that she had in her younger years thought about being an artist, she also noted that quote, sometimes I thought I wanted to be a scientist. What she knew she did not want was to only be a housewife and mother.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

After returning to New York, she started studying at the Art Students League. This organization also came up in our recent two parter on Wandagog. Although Shehnazi was there more than a decade after Gog was. We didn't really talk about this school in the earlier Wandag episode, but it does merit some backstory. The Art Students League of New York was formed in 1875. It was an association formed by art students from the National Academy of Design. After the Academy stopped classes for a reorganization during a tumultuous time, the students, with no study options available, formed the league having for its objects the attainment of a higher development in art studies, the encouragement of a spirit of unselfish and true friendship among its members, the imparting of a valuable knowledge pertaining to art as acquired by any of the members, the accumulation of works and books of art and such properties as will best advance the interests of the members, mutual help and study, and sympathy and practical assistance if need be in times of sickness and trouble. From that beginning, the Art Students League of New York has persisted and it's become a school where both professionals and amateurs study art. It continues through to today.

[Holly Fry]

Shenazi's time at the Art Students League was defined by two teachers. First, German artist Georg Gross, who she later described as inspiring but not necessarily a good teacher. She said that he didn't really teach anything. He would become very important in her her later life, though. The other was fellow student Howard Warshaw, who she said actually taught her a great deal about painting and technique.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

At 21, Altina's life changed in multiple ways and we will talk about them after we pause for a sponsor break.

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[Daniel]

Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I think our universe is absolutely extraordinary.

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Hello, I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites along with nature's other creepy crawlies and there's just endless things about this universe that I find fascinating.

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All right, well basically we're both nerds. We love learning about this extraordinary universe and we love sharing what we've learned. So that's what we're gonna do.

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[Margie Murphy]

In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI fueled nightmare.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Someone was posting photos.

[Daniel]

It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Else'S body parts on my body parts.

[Holly Fry]

That looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream.

[Margie Murphy]

It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the Internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography.

[Holly Fry]

This should be illegal.

But what is this?

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This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carville. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart podcasts Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Holly Fry]

In 1928, Altina's father died. He was wealthy and important enough that there were many mentions in the paper about the estate that he left behind. Morris Shenazi had set aside $300,000 for Jewish and Christian hospitals in the US and $1.3 million to establish and maintain a hospital for the poor in Turkey. That was a bequeathment that Altina's mother, Lorette, oversaw personally. She traveled to Turkey, saw the hospital get built, and then administered the upkeep money from there. The rest of his considerable estate, ranging from about 3.5 to 7 million, depending on the source that you read, was distributed among Lorette, Altina, Victoria, and Juliet. So at this point, Altina was kind of set for life.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The same year that Morris died, Altena got married to designer and architect Morris B. Sanders. They had met at a party while he was still a student. She also had a French suitor who wanted to marry her, and she joked about flipping a coin to make the decision between the two of them. However she arrived at it, she decided to marry Sanders. And for a moment, it really seemed like the two of them were the it couple of the New York design scene. Their apartment was the penthouse at 544 E. 86th St. And it was featured in Architecture magazine not long after their wedding. But later in life, Altina noted that they were really both too young, explaining, quote, we really didn't know each other at all.

[Holly Fry]

They welcomed their first child, a son named Dennis, on January 21, 1929. They had a second son, Terry, on December 30, 1931. But this was not a happy time in her life. Morris was not a great husband, and Altina felt very lonely. She would later write of this time, quote, I have three strong currents running in my life. One, a strong sex drive and curiosity. It cannot be that this is the only man I will know. Two, a strong creative drive that kept pushing me to inventions, creations, writing objects, etc. Three, a strong attachment to my two children. Dennis was like a rooster and Terry was soulful and shy.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

After four years of marriage, Altina filed for divorce on the grounds of extreme cruelty and insulting treatment. Her divorce attorney, Mack Brandwin, would become an important figure in her life for many years. As this divorce played out, there were rumors that her ex husband was very angry and might become violent. So she took the boys and went to Europe. This early 1930s crossing of the Atlantic was made aboard a German ship and Altina later told the story of several conversations aboard where people engaged her in discussions about the issue of the so called Jewish question. Was the ongoing debate about the status that Jews should have in Germany. And it was of course obviously stoked by antisemitism. The people asking Altina about it clearly did not know that she was Jewish.

[Holly Fry]

Yes, she tells one story where she was talking to a woman that she met on board and she was like, she seemed very lovely and we were having a lovely conversation and then she asked me about the Jewish question and then I realized I didn't like her at all. And it's, she's so matter of fact about it. Once the divorce was settled though, and Shenazi was back in New York, she took a job as a window dresser working under Peter Copeland, who designed windows for retailers on fifth Avenue. To be clear, she didn't really need to take this job. Like I said, she was kind of set for life. But she also did not want to be idle and she wanted to do things. Window trimming gave her a sense of usefulness and this was really the beginning of considering art as a career. In this job she also rubbed shoulders with well known artist Salvador Dali. When Dali got a contract to design a window for the luxury department store Bonwit Teller, Altina worked with him on the project. This was not a project that resulted in a lifelong friendship or a collaboration. The whole thing went sort of terribly. Although it doesn't sound like that had anything to do with Shenazi's work. The store management just did not like Dali's concept and they tried to change things. Dali apparently had a very passionate reaction and somehow window glass ended up broken.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

During this period in her life, Altina started an affair with her attorney Mack Brandwin. She would reflect years later, quote it set up in me a very big conflict. It wasn't so much that this man had been her divorce attorney. It was that Mac's wife was her friend. She didn't want to be a mistress and she wanted him to leave his wife. He didn't. But the affair continued. While talking about it in a 2014 documentary directed by her grandson, Peter Sanders, Altina sort of coolly and matter of factly discussed that her sex drive was just too powerful to override it.

[Holly Fry]

As a divorced woman who had her own money and a staff to look after her children, Shenasy was free to cultivate the life that she wanted in Manhattan. Her home was very open, and her social circle was artsy and fun. She hosted sketch classes once a week, and people would sometimes just drop in for dinner. Her son Terry later said, quote, I grew up thinking every family on Thursday night had a nude in the living room, referring to the nude models who would come and sit for the sketch class.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And now we get to the story of the glasses. This is a story that gets told a number of different ways. One is that she had to work on a window display for an optician. Another is that while she was working on one window, she saw another one nearby that featured women's glasses. A newspaper account from 1939 had kind of a wild story. Quote, the glasses were born the day Altina S. Sander went to a bridge party and found that her aesthetic sense was offended by the glasses her friends wore.

[Holly Fry]

But the way she told the story, she was not at work when inspiration struck, and she was certainly not at a bridge party. Here is her account. And then one day, I was walking from a movie with some guy, I don't remember his name, and I passed a shop, an optician, and I saw this oil painting with glasses glued onto the face. And I thought, that is really so ugly. And then Dorothy Parker was writing verses, men never make passes at girls who wear glasses. And I felt, well, something better could be done than just these awful glasses that looked like the time of Benjamin Franklin. And then I thought, well, what's good? What would be good on the face? And I thought of a mask, a Harlequin mask. They're really beautiful on a face.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

She had been in Venice during Carnival, and the imagery of the harlequin mask had really stuck with her. So she started playing with that shape in paper cut, and then she had prototypes made. When she thought she had the design just right, Shenazi thought she was onto something with these glasses, and she started to approach eyewear companies with this design. She later recounted being told, quote, well, when we're ready to sell glasses to lunatic asylums, we'll let you know.

[Holly Fry]

But Altina was not dissuaded, and she eventually approached a shop in Manhattan called Lou Jeans. Initially, this meeting, which was with the shop's head salesman, looked like A bus, just like every other meeting. But by pure happenstance, the owner of the shop happened to walk through as their meeting was concluding and he saw the photos of Shenazi's prototype and he saw the potential. And he spoke with her about her new style of glasses. And then at the end of that conversation, he asked to be the exclusive distributor of the design. She took that deal.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Mr. Lujean was wise to do so. The new Harlequin glasses, as they were called, became very popular very quickly. Their rise to prominence was helped by the fact that a lot of high profile people were early adopters of Shenazi's glasses design. Clare Boothe Luce is often said to have bought one of the first pairs. Peggy Guggenheim wore them. Soon they were getting write ups in magazines and this was really a huge moment. Glasses for women up to that point had been seen as kind of a curse. They were not designed for anything other than utility. It was sort of universally acknowledged that they would never look good on basically anybody. But with Shenazi's innovation, glasses had become a fashion accessory.

[Holly Fry]

The ad campaigns for the glasses really reflected this shift. One magazine ad read, quote, be glad you wear glasses, wear harlequins. No longer is the girl who wears glasses doomed to look owlish, bookish, or just plain dull. Flattering. Harlequins are so gay and debonair, they give your very spirits a lift. Remember, it is Harlequin's exclusive design that makes the difference. Look for the tag on the frame.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1939, Shenazi won the Lord and Taylor annual American Design Award. While she certainly could have stayed in the eyeglass game for the rest of her life, at the top of her game, after winning this award, Shenazi decided to sell the company and get out of the industry altogether. Many years later, after Altina's death, her granddaughter said of this choice, quote, she could have been one of the wealthiest women in the country, if not the world, if she had stayed in that business. She never loved the business of a business. She loved the art.

[Holly Fry]

Altina Shinazi was a person at this point of wealth and importance living a very successful life in New York as the designer of the new chic glasses that everyone seemed to want. And then World War II broke out and she actually used that success to help others. When a friend asked her if she would sign affidavits that could be used to get people out of Europe, she readily agreed and estimated that she signed 13 of them. These affidavits were required for people to immigrate. It basically was a document that vouched for the person named as being of good character. And it said that the signer would look after the person coming over so that they would not become a burden. So to sign more than a dozen of them was actually a pretty significant act.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And it was because of that act that she met Eric Barrett, a doctor she had signed an affidavit for. When he got to the United States, he phoned her and said, madam, I have arrived. Up to this point, Altina was still in her relationship with her lawyer, Mack Brandwin, who was still married to her close friend. But Eric started visiting her, and she later described their growing acquaintance as, quote, eating away at her connection to Mac.

[Holly Fry]

Eric was by all accounts a very kind and sweet man. He was a great piano player, in addition to being incredibly smart. And Altina fell very hard for him. But not long into their relationship, while he was working in a tuberculosis hospital in New England, he came down with tuberculosis himself, and the two of them didn't see each other for two years. But then Eric wrote to Altina and he told her that his health had actually improved. And he asked if she wanted him back in her life. And she absolutely did. The pair got married soon after. She worried she would later confess about possible transmission of the disease to herself or more concerningly, to her boys. But none of them ever contracted tuberculosis.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Eric had spent time working at a hospital in Los Angeles, and he fell in love with California. When he returned to New York, he pitched the idea to Altina that they should move there, and she went for it. They bought a house in Coldwater Canyon with a view of the city. Though there were ongoing issues with Eric's health and Altena needing to learn to keep house after having had a staff her whole life. She later described this period as peaceful and one of the nicest times in her life. She wanted to really focus on her art. So one of the rooms in the California house was made into a studio with a sign on the door that read, do not come in unless there's a catastrophe. She would say that she wanted to have just three hours a day to herself without interruption, and that she really did work very hard.

[Holly Fry]

For a brief time, Altina actually started a factory to make sunglasses in her signature harlequin shape in la. According to a story that she later told her employees were a mix of black and white workers. And there was tension when some of the white employees made the racist complaint about sharing a bathroom with her black co workers. Shenazi's solution was simple. The black employees could just use the executive bathroom. That only she used. She reportedly though closed the factory after realizing once again she really hated all the day to day aspects of running a business. There's a secondary funny story involving the mob that I will tell on Friday.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Okay, in a moment we'll talk about Shehnazi's connection to the McCarthy era Red Scare, but first we will pause for.

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[Kelly Wienersmith]

Hey everyone, we want to tell you about our podcast.

[Daniel]

Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I think our universe is absolutely extraordinary.

[Kelly Wienersmith]

Hello, I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites along with nature's other creepy crawlies. And there's just endless things about this universe that I find fascinating.

[Daniel]

All right, well, basically we're both nerds. We love learning about this extraordinary universe and we love sharing what we've learned. So that's what we're going to do.

[Kelly Wienersmith]

And on our podcast, Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is all about the mind blowing discoveries we've made about this crazy beautiful cosmos.

[Daniel]

From the tiniest particles to the biggest blue whales.

[Kelly Wienersmith]

Each Tuesday and Thursday, we take an hour long dive into some science topic, during which time I try to suppress my biologist training and keep the poop jokes to a minimum.

[Daniel]

Learn all about our amazing and beautiful universe on Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Margie Murphy]

In 2020, a group of young women in a tidy suburb of New York City found themselves in an AI fueled nightmare.

[Holly Fry]

Someone was posting photos.

[Daniel]

It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Else'S body parts on my body.

[Holly Fry]

Parts that looked exactly like my own. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scream.

[Margie Murphy]

It happened in Levittown, New York. But reporting the series took us through the darkest corners of the Internet and to the front lines of a global battle against deepfake pornography.

[Holly Fry]

This should be illegal, but what is this?

[Margie Murphy]

This is a story about a technology that's moving faster than the law and about vigilantes trying to stem the tide. I'm Margie Murphy. And I'm Olivia Carvell. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart podcasts Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Holly Fry]

As we've mentioned on the show before, in the 1940s and 1950s, the Red Scare was ablaze in the U.S. altina described this as a very bad time when, according to McCarthy, quote, Everybody was a communist. Ten Hollywood screenwriters, Alva Bessie, Herbert Bieberman, Lester Cole, Edward demetric ring, Lardner Jr, John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo, had all refused to answer questions before Congress after having been subpoenaed by the House UN American Activities Committee. They were held in contempt, blacklisted, and they got the nickname the Hollywood 10. Director John Barry, who went by Jack, made a documentary about these men that was sympathetic to their situation. And soon he too was on the list to be called before the committee. But he dodged the subpoena by hiding in Altina and Eric's guest house. They kept their friend hidden until one night he just left quietly and made his way to Europe.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Eric's health concerns had a fresh ray of hope when streptomycin was introduced as a treatment for tuberculosis. He went to the Mayo Clinic for treatment, and initially it was a huge help. But over time, he built up a resistance to the drug and his health started to decline. He died in 1958, after which Altina said, quote, the world sort of fell apart.

[Holly Fry]

She met Charles Carey, who went by Charlie a few months after losing Eric. And at the time, he had just started all of the proceedings of getting a divorce. In an interview in the documentary that we've referenced a couple of times, Charlie actually started crying while relaying a story about Altina caring for him. During this time, when they had just met, she had kind of negotiated with his landlord to be let into his apartment, which she wasn't supposed to have access to, but it was so she could supply his kitchen with groceries. Charlie eventually moved into Altena's house. His job was in political science, so their social group became this very curious mix of artists and. And people in politics. Soon, the two of them were married.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Altino was not in love with Charlie, although she did like him. She became depressed in their marriage, and this was a period when she painted a lot. Her work during this third marriage is vibrant and surrealist. Eventually, she found new projects and new media to work in, which kept her occupied. One of them was moving into the world of film. She got permission from George Gross, her teacher from back in New York, to make a film about his experiences in Nazi Germany. The resulting film, titled Interregnum, was nominated for an Academy Award.

[Holly Fry]

She also started volunteering as an art therapist at Synanon. It's an addiction treatment facility in Los Angeles that has its own wild story. If you want to look it up, there's a recent documentary about it kind of turned into a cult. As for Shehnazi's involvement, she and a close friend worked alongside the people who were getting treatment there. She painted a huge mural in the facility's open space, and then she worked alongside residents to create a second large mural.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

She also became invested in the work of Martin Luther King Jr. She and her husband Charlie met Dr. King and a lot of the people in his inner circle with the proposal that they would like to make a documentary about the civil rights work that he was doing. King went for this idea and promised to do anything he could to help them. Writer John Killens signed on to write the script. He lived with Charlie and Altina while he wrote and was picked up by the police several times while they were in their upscale neighborhood. Just because he was black. This film never got made, though there was a lack of funding. Nobody really wanted to touch the subject matter because it was so divisive. And then Dr. King was assassinated and the project fell apart.

[Holly Fry]

Altina's activism continued when it came to the recent podcast topic the Vietnam War. She and her husband Charlie were both vehemently and very vocally against the war. And they actually took out an ad in the New York Times that was like a large statement against the war. This was really risky, particularly for Charles Kerry because of his political science career.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The pair moved to Washington, D.C. in the 1970s, when Carrie got a job in the State Department. With her life uprooted, Altina once again threw herself into her art, and she started a series of sculptures that have become iconic. She called these sculptures characters because they are sculpted portraits in the form of chairs and benches. She would make plaster casts of the sitters and then make a mold and make castings from that so that she could use the cast of one model multiple times with different changes to sculpt and paint. In a 1978 radio interview, Altina said she had gotten the idea after looking at photographs by Henri Cartier Bresson, who had taken pictures of chairs as they were used in various social settings. The first set of these characters were displayed at the Touchstone gallery in Washington, D.C. but she continued to make them for years after that. Throughout her art career, she had often gone just by the name Altina. And though the harlequin frames had made her well known in the 1930s, she had a second huge surge of name recognition in the late 1970s because of these characters. She appeared on television regularly, including on Good Morning America, where she famously said, quote, I don't know who decreed that art should just be something you nail up on a wall.

[Holly Fry]

In July of 1980, a refugee from Cuba named Celestino Miranda arrived in the US he was an artist, and he was hired, along with his friend Fernando, to help Altina with her sculptures because she was quite a petite woman. She was getting older, and these casts were often very heavy. And she and Tino really hit it off. Eventually, after they had visited Santa Fe briefly on a work trip, Altina asked him to move to Santa Fe permanently with her as her assistant for the rate of a thousand dollars a week. And he said he would think about it. And they continued working together in Washington.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

D.C. altino was still married to Charlie, but one night when he was in LA on business, she asked Tino to spend the night. In his retelling of it, he didn't get her message. Initially, he thought she was just afraid to be alone in the house without her husband and that he would be sleeping in the maid's room. But Altina clarified that she was interested in him romantically.

[Holly Fry]

Before long, Charlie and Altina were divorced, and she married for a fourth time in 1981 to Celestino Miranda. This was scandalous to a lot of people that Shenazi knew and socialized with, aside from the fact that she had had an affair and left her husband for her lover, because there was a concern that this much younger man who really had Nothing in terms of finances, was just marrying her for her money and social standing.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Not long after they married, Tina was diagnosed with cancer. It was at this point that they finally moved to New Mexico permanently for his health. He would later recount that she let him get all kinds of animals, which he believed cured him. Altina did, too, and she made a lot of artwork about their farm. They also continued to collaborate on sculpture. While people might have doubted the reasons that the two of them married each other, they clearly had found a unique compatibility as artists, and this created a very deep bond between them. A lot of the benches still in this character style that they made together during this time. Featured couples.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, some of those pieces are really quite beautiful. Her son Dennis died suddenly of a heart attack in 1987, and that was a terrible shock to Altina. She told friends that she felt paralyzed. And that's something that is echoed in Tino's later account, where he describes her as never having cried and said that she kept everything inside.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1995, Altina Shinazi published her autobiography, the Road I have Traveled.

[Holly Fry]

I could not get my hands on a copy of this book. It is kind of rare. There was nothing I could get that wasn't gonna take, like, a month to come from, like, Europe. Even though it was a US Publication. There just aren't many copies floating around. That one bit that we read earlier about the three currents of her life is from it. But it is from her reading aloud from it that I got that. On the evening of August 19, 1999, Altina told Tino that she just thought her dinner was digesting poorly. She died later that night at the age of 92.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In a write up about Altina after her death, her granddaughter Victoria R. Sanders, who produced the documentary that we've mentioned a few times, told a newspaper reporter, quote, the thing about my grandmother was she was not like anybody else's grandmother or mother, for that matter. She looked 20 years younger. She was inquisitive, vibrant. Anything was possible. She was always working on some new project.

[Holly Fry]

And that's Altina Shinasi. I. I love her. I have so many things to say about her on. Okay, Friday. I have, you know, mixed things. I have listener mail.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Great.

[Holly Fry]

It's about strawberries. We have gotten a lot of listener mail about strawberries. I'm kind of surprised at how much. I don't know why, since we talked about how very popular they are, but this one cracked me up so hard, and I loved it. So this is from our listener, Reagan, who notes that it's pronounced like Megan. But as Tracy and I noted, we both know people who would say it Meegan. So I'm hoping. I'm hoping Reagan is correct. Reagan writes hi Holly and Tracy. I am a longtime listener who finally feels as though I have a worthy enough reason to email. Your episode on Strawberries was instantly exciting to me. I took a screenshot of the episode and sent it to my husband, who loves strawberries. He eats them every day, rain or shine, summer or winter. However, as the episode progressed, I discovered more than one coincidence that tickled both me and my husband. I was listening to the episode as I was getting ready for bed when right before an ad break, you teased about the spycraft portion happening in Chile. With face wash still on my face, I ran to the living room to tell my husband that the strawberry spycraft was happening in Chile. Why would this piece of information warrant such a response, you ask? Well, my husband's father is an immigrant from Chile. How exciting. I returned to my nighttime routine satisfied with all the excitement for the evening. Oh boy, was I wrong. The excitement was far from over. Once back from the ad break, you delve deeper into Fraisier's journey to Chile. When I heard you say that he landed in Concepcion, Chile, I nearly fell over. That is the exact town where my father in law was born and raised. Once again, I ran to tell my husband about this coincidence. What are the odds? Okay, so Now I was 100% convinced the coincidences were over for the evening. Again, I was wrong. Duchenne presented King Louis XV the successful chilean strawberries on 6th, which happens to be my husband's birthday. Then you shared that Duchenne first noticed success with Chilean strawberries on June 6, which happens to be my birthday. Now by this point I was already in bed, so I did not run to tell my husband these coincidences. However, I did tell him the next day. We were so tickled. I hope you both are also tickled to know how one episode contained so much excitement for me and my husband. We both attended your live show at the Indiana Historical Society when you discussed Gene Stratton Porter. I work at the IHS and I am the co host on our institutional podcast, so I couldn't miss the opportunity to see you two live. You bring so much learning, laughter and excitement into my life and my husband's. Because I often share a synopsis of each episode with him, I gladly share Pat Tacks. These are our two kitties, Trot, who's black and white, and Evie, a dilute Calico. We're obsessed with them. Trot is wacky and silly. As you can see, he has a little mustache. His favorite toys are clothes hangers, eyeglasses stolen from mom and Dad's nightstand, Mardi Gras style beads, and anything he can rummage from the basement to bring upstairs. Honorable mentions of basement offerings are Allen wrenches, work gloves, and parts to our shop vac. Our Eevee girl is much less flamboyant with her silliness. She's sweet and beautiful and everything is on her terms. She'll squeak at you if she wants attention, otherwise you are permitted to bask in her beauty from an arm's length away. She loves playing with strings, forehead scratches, and napping on her heated blanket. Evie is a massive fan of the bird cam on YouTube. Thanks for all you do to brighten the world with your work and simply by being yourselves. Sincerely, Reagan this is so darling. Okay, listen, Trot is cute and he looks diabolical, which is exactly my flavor of cat. And Evie is also gorgeous. Thank you for sharing this. I just love the idea of one episode hitting so many unique notes of someone's life. Yeah, strawberries. I think in honor of all of this you should get a strawberry cake and just giggle at how many coincidences you have. Reagan yeah, mostly I just want to eat strawberry cake and bring people into my web of strawberry cake evil. I just love it. I like knowing that things resonate with people in fun ways and also that it brings joy and laughter and giggles. We all need more of that. If you would like to write to us with joy, laughter and giggles or otherwise. Or or if you, like many people, want to write to us about strawberry information, there's going to be more strawberry emails read. I promise you. You can do that@history podcastheartradio.com you can also subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Holly Fry]

Halls of historical true crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tremarki, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the Highwayman suggests men dominated the field, but tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrers, known as the wicked lady who terrorized England in the mid-1600s. Her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season. Find more crime and cocktails on Criminalia. Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kelly Wienersmith]

We love learning about this extraordinary universe.

[Daniel]

And we love sharing what we've learned.

[Kelly Wienersmith]

And on our podcast, Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe, that that's what we're gonna do.

[Daniel]

I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I think our universe is absolutely extraordinary.

[Kelly Wienersmith]

I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites and there's just endless things about this universe that I find fascinating.

[Daniel]

Basically, we're both nerds.

[Kelly Wienersmith]

Each Tuesday and Thursday we take an hour long dive into some science topics.

[Daniel]

Learn all about our amazing and beautiful universe on Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe Every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or Web Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

After a crime, you read the headlines. But do you know the story?

[Holly Fry]

At the time that I called the police, he knew I had called him and left the house with a firearm and was texting me that he was going to use it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I'm Hannah Smith. And I'm Patia Eaton. We host the Knife, a podcast from the Exactly Right Network that cuts to the heart of the story. Through in depth interviews and candid conversations.

[Holly Fry]

We'Ll bring you firsthand accounts of people living through the ripple effects of crime.

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Most of us don't know the legal.

[Holly Fry]

Process and because they always tell you.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This word, closure, I really wish people.

[Line2 Announcer]

Would stop using that word because there is no such thing as closure.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

These are the scars that are left behind. These are the voices you haven't heard. New episodes every Thursday.

[Holly Fry]

Listen to the knife on the iHeartRadio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Daniel]

You're listening to an iHeart podcast.