Arlene Alda

{{Infobox person

| name = Arlene Alda

| image =

| caption =

| birth_name = Arlene Weiss

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1933|3|12}}

| birth_place = New York City, U.S.

| alma mater = Hunter College

| occupation = Photographer, writer

| years_active = 1963–present

| spouse = {{marriage|Alan Alda|1957}}

| children = 3, including Elizabeth and Beatrice

| relatives = Robert Alda (father-in-law)

| website = {{URL|arlenealda.com}}

}}

Arlene Alda ({{née}} Weiss; born March 12, 1933){{cite web |title=Alda, Arlene 1933- |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/children/scholarly-magazines/alda-arlene-1933 |website=Encyclopedia.com |publisher=Cengage |access-date=June 28, 2022}} is an American photographer and writer. She began her career playing clarinet professionally, then moved on to photography and writing children's books. She is married to actor Alan Alda.

Early life

Alda was born Arlene Weiss in the Bronx, New York City to Jewish parents. She attended Evander Childs High School and Hunter College, graduating in January 1954 as a music major, Phi Beta Kappa, Cum Laude.{{cite news |title=Arlene Alda: Life as a Feminist's Wife |work=The New York Times |date=May 31, 1981 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/31/style/arlene-alda-life-as-a-feminist-s-wife.html |access-date=June 28, 2022|last1=Klemesrud |first1=Judy |author1-link=Judy Lee Klemesrud }}{{cite web |title=Back in the Bronx featuring Arlene Alda |url=https://www.bronxmuseum.org/events/back-in-the-bronx-featuring-arlene-alda |website=The Bronx Museum of the Arts}} She became a member of the National Orchestra, a training orchestra, conducted by Leon Barzin. She studied clarinet with Abraham Goldstein and Leon Russianoff, becoming a member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, playing assistant first clarinet and bass clarinet under the baton of Leopold Stokowski.

Weiss played first clarinet in the Ridgefield Orchestra. She pursued an early interest in photography by studying with Mort Shapiro and Lou Bernstein, ultimately changing careers and becoming a photographer and writer. As a photographer, Alda had several one-person shows, including those in Nikon House in New York City and the Mark Humphrey Gallery in Southampton, New York. As a freelance photographer, her photographs have appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Vogue, People Magazine, Life Magazine, and Today's Health Magazine, for which she received a Chicago Graphics Communications Award for her photo essay, "Allison's Tonsillectomy".

Literary works

Alda is the author of 15 children's books, including the best seller, Sheep, Sheep Sheep, Help Me Fall Asleep (Doubleday Books for Young Readers, 1992), Arlene Alda's 1,2,3 (Tricycle Press 1998), which won an American Library Notable citation, The Book of ZZZs (Tundra 2005), Did You Say Pears? (Tundra 2006) and Except the Color Grey (Tundra 2011). She also wrote the popular Hurry Granny Annie (Published by Tricycle Press in 1999) as well as Hold the Bus (Published by Troll Press in 1996), Iris Has a Virus (2008) and Lulu's Piano Lesson (2010). For much, but not all, of her career as an author, she has provided her own photography as illustrations used in her children's books.[http://www.arlenealda.com/ "Arlene Alda's official website"]

She is also represented in photo anthologies, Women of Vision, and Soho Gallery 2. Alda is the author of On Set (Fireside/Simon and Schuster 1981) illustrated with over one hundred of her photographs and The Last Days of Mash (Unicorn, 1983) with photos by Alda and co-written with her husband, Alan Alda. Her most recent book, Just Kids from the Bronx (Henry Holt and Co. March 2015.) an Oral History of 64 interviews with prominent Bronxites. The story tellers include Al Pacino, Regis Philbin, Colin Powell, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Mary Higgins Clark, Avery Corman, Chazz Palminteri, TATS CRU Graffiti Artists, Grandmaster Melle Mel, and the others, from age 93 to age 23.

Personal life

Arlene is married to actor Alan Alda. They wed on March 15, 1957, and they have three daughters, Eve (b. 1958), Elizabeth (b. 1960), and Beatrice (b. 1961), as well as eight grandchildren.{{cite web |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/31/style/arlene-alda-life-as-a-feminist-s-wife.html |title= Arlene Alda: Life as a Feminist's Wife |date= May 31, 1981 |publisher= NY Times |first= Judy |last= Klemesrud |author1-link=Judy Lee Klemesrud }}

Awards and honors

Alda was honored as The New Jewish Home's Eight Over Eighty Gala 2015 honoree.{{cite web |title=Eight Over Eighty Gala Celebrates 8 Remarkable New Yorkers |url=http://archive.jewishhome.org/eight-over-eighty-gala-celebrates-8-remarkable-new-yorkers/ |access-date=July 13, 2021 }}{{Dead link|date=January 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

References

External links

{{Official website|http://arlenealda.com/}}
[http://us.macmillan.com/author/arlenealda Arlene Alda] at Macmillan
{{IMDb name|nm1683901}}
[http://justkidsfromthebronx.com Just Kids From the Bronx] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423015223/https://www.justkidsfromthebronx.com/ |date=April 23, 2023 }}
{{cite web |url= http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/13/the-secret-to-a-lasting-m_0_n_6865738.html |title= Secret To A Lasting Marriage, From Arlene Alda |website= HuffPost |date= Mar 2013}}

Category:Living people

Category:Writers from the Bronx

Category:American children's writers

Category:American classical clarinetists

Category:Women clarinetists

Category:Musicians from the Bronx

Category:Hunter College alumni

Category:1933 births

Category:20th-century American classical musicians

Category:20th-century American women musicians

Category:20th-century American photographers

Category:20th-century American women writers