LILLIE LANGTRY, British actress was born (d. 1929) Langtry was one of the most famous actresses of her day, but her real talent were her dalliances and marrying well.

Her heyday as a society beauty culminated in her becoming a semi-official mistress to the Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria’s son Albert Edward ("Bertie"), the future king Edward VII. Her relationship with Edward cooled when she infuriated him by becoming intoxicated at a party and slipping and falling after stepping on a piece of ice. He later (possibly to rid himself of the affair) encouraged Prince Louie of Battenberg, to replace him as Langtry's lover.

Bertie once complained to her, "I've spent enough on you to build a battleship," whereupon she tartly replied, "And you've spent enough in me to float one." Other lovers included wealthy Britons Robert Peel and George Baird. Among her friends were the Irish writer Oscar Wilde and the American artist James McNeill Whistler. Langtry became an American citizen, and divorced her husband the same year in California. A letter of condolence written by her to a widow reads in part: "I too have lost a husband, but alas! it was no great loss."

In 1899 she married the much younger Hugo Gerald de Bathe, who would inherit a baronetcy, and became a leading owner in the horse-racing world, before retiring to Monte Carlo. Her last years of acting were performed in vaudeville.

She resided during her final years in a home in Monaco, with her husband living separate from her a short distance away. During this period the two saw one another only when she called on him for social gatherings, or in brief private encounters. Her constant companion during this time was her close friend, Mathilda Peat, the widow of Lillie's deceased butler.

RICHARD HOWARD, American poet, born; A distinguished American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher and translator, Howard was born in Cleveland, Ohio and is a graduate of Columbia University where he studied under Mark Van Doren, and where he now teaches. He lives in New York City and was a companion of novelist, SANFORD FRIEDMAN.

After reading French letters at the Sorbonne in 1952-53, Howard had a brief, early career as a lexicographer, but soon turned his attention to poetry and poetic criticism. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his 1969 collection Untitled Subjects, which took for its subject dramatic imagined letters and monologues of 19^th century historical figures.

He was awarded the PEN Translation Prize in 1976 for his translation of E.M. Cioran’s A Short History of Decay and the American Book Award for his 1983 translation of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal. Howard was a long-time poetry editor of The Paris Review and is currently poetry editor of The Western Humanities Review. In addition to his Pulitzer, he has also received the Academy of Arts and Letters Literary Award and a MacArthur Fellowship. A former Chancellor of the Academy of Poets, he is Professor of Practice in the writing program at Columbia's School of the Arts. He served as Poet Laureate of the State of New York from 1994 to 1997. In 1982, Howard was named a Chevalier of L’Ordre National du Mérite by the government of France.

Fontanalia A festival dedicated to Fontus the god of wells and springs and the son of Jutuma (goddess of fountains, wells and springs)and Janus (the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, and endings).