1907 births

Pierre_Dreyfus

Pierre Dreyfus (18 November 1907, Paris — 25 December 1994, Paris) was a high French civil servant who in 1955 became a wealthy businessman.
Between 1947 and 1955, he occupied senior administrative positions in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and in 1951 he became 'directeur de cabinet' at the ministry. Between 1948 and 1955, Dreyfus combined his civil service duties with the vice-presidency of the newly nationalised Renault auto business. On 11 February 1955 Pierre Lefaucheux died in a road accident and Dreyfus was appointed CEO of Renault. He retained the position until his retirement from the company in 1975.
Like Lefaucheux, Dreyfus secured his reputation in the top job at Renault by overseeing the launch and production of a model developed under his predecessor: in this case the commercial success was that of the Renault Dauphine. By the end of 1958, with Dreyfus less than three years into his time at the top, a million Renault 4CVs and half a million Dauphines had been sold. The following year, 1959, Renault ranked as the world's sixth largest auto-maker. The collapse of North American demand for the Dauphine triggered a crisis for the company that was well-publicised, especially in the United States, with unsold Dauphines on North American docksides adding to the half million unsold Detroit built products clogging the US auto-market by the end of 1960: for Renault salvation arrived just in time in the form of the Renault 4, developed under Dreyfus and built at the rate of 1,000 cars a day by the end of 1962. During Dreyfus's twenty years in charge, Renault went on to consolidate its position as France's top selling car maker, gaining particular recognition in the 1960s for popularizing front wheel drive, hatchback sedans across Europe, most notably the 4, 5 and 16 models.
During the early years of the Mitterrand presidency, Dreyfus became active on the political scene, serving briefly as Industry Minister between June 1981 and June 1982 under prime minister Pierre Mauroy.
Pierre Dreyfus was not related either to Alfred Dreyfus, famous because of the 'Dreyfus Affair' effectively publicised by Émile Zola, nor to the race-driver Pierre Louis-Dreyfus.

Dominique_Aury

Anne Cécile Desclos (23 September 1907 – 27 April 1998) was a French journalist and novelist who wrote under the pen names Dominique Aury and Pauline Réage. She is best known for her erotic novel Story of O (1954).

Betty_Warren

Babette Hilda Hogan (31 October 1907 – 15 December 1990), known professionally as Betty Warren, was a British actress active from the 1930s to the 1950s, best known for her comedy roles in Champagne Charlie (1944) and Passport to Pimlico (1949).

Paul-Emile_Victor

Paul-Émile Victor (born Paul Eugène Victor; 28 June 1907 – 7 March 1995) was a French ethnologist and explorer.
Victor was born in Geneva, Switzerland to French Jewish parents of Bohemian and Polish descent. He graduated from École Centrale de Lyon in 1928. In 1931, he learned how to fly with his instructor and friend, Claude de Cambronne. In 1936, he led an expedition traversing Greenland by dog-sled. Victor, Robert Gessain, Michel Perez, and Eigil Knuth completed the 825 km from Christianshåb in the west to Angmagssalik in the east in 44 days. During World War II, he engaged himself in the US Air Forces.
After the War, he initiated the Expéditions polaires françaises to organize French polar expeditions. He died in 1995 on Bora Bora, to which he had retired in 1977.
A survey led by Victor in 1951 concluded that, under the ice sheet, Greenland is composed of three large islands. In 1952 he was awarded the Patron's Medal by the Royal Geographical Society of London for the work.Mount Victor, in the Belgica Mountains of Antarctica, is named for him.
His son, Jean-Christophe Victor, stars in the weekly geopolitical show Le dessous des cartes on Arte until December 2016. Another son, Teva Victor, is a sculptor.

Douglas_Corrigan

Douglas Corrigan (born Clyde Groce Corrigan; January 22, 1907 – December 9, 1995) was an American aviator, nicknamed "Wrong Way" in 1938. After a transcontinental flight in July from Long Beach, California, to New York City, he then flew from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn to Ireland, although his flight plan was filed to return to Long Beach.Corrigan claimed his unauthorized transatlantic flight was due to a navigational error, caused by heavy cloud cover that obscured landmarks and low-light conditions, causing him to misread his compass. However, he was a skilled aircraft mechanic (he helped construct Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis) and had made several modifications to his own plane, preparing it for his transatlantic flight. He had been denied permission to make a nonstop flight from New York to Ireland, and his "navigational error" was seen as deliberate. Nevertheless, he never publicly admitted to having flown to Ireland intentionally.

Yves_Brayer

Yves Brayer (18 November 1907 – 29 May 1990) was a French painter known for his paintings of everyday life.
He was born in Versailles. He studied in Paris at the academies in Montparnasse starting in 1924, and then at the École des Beaux-Arts with Lucien Simon.Although he was independent and never belonged to a school, he was friends with Francis Gruber, the founder of the Nouveau Réalisme school.
He first exhibited in the salons of 1927, and then traveled to Spain, where the masterpieces in the Prado Museum had a profound influence on him. After a stay in Morocco, he went to Italy, where he won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1930.
He settled back in Paris in 1934, organizing his first solo exhibition. He remained in occupied Paris during World War II.
After the war, he traveled widely to Mexico, Egypt, Iran, Greece, Russia, the United States and Japan, trying to capture the light and colors of each country. He was interested in the techniques of copper plate engraving and lithography and produced illustrations for editions of such authors as Charles Baudelaire and Paul Claudel. He also created murals and wall ornamentations, tapestry cartoons, maquettes, sets, and costumes for the Théâtre Français and the operas of Paris, Amsterdam, Nice, Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Avignon.
In 1954 Brayer was awarded to Grand prix des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, and he was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1957. He was president of the Salon d'Automne for five years. In 1977 he was made curator of the Musée Marmottan in Paris, a position he held for 11 years.Brayer died in Paris in 1990.

Hans_Bender

Hans Bender (5 February 1907 – 7 May 1991) was a German lecturer on the subject of parapsychology, who was also responsible for establishing the parapsychological institute Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene in Freiburg. For many years his pipe smoking, contemplative figure was synonymous with German parapsychology. He was an investigator of 'unusual human experience', e.g. poltergeists and clairvoyants. One of his most famous cases was the Rosenheim Poltergeist.