French emigrants to the United States

Edgar_Varese

Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (French: [ɛdɡaʁ viktɔʁ aʃil ʃaʁl vaʁɛz]; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; he coined the term "organized sound" in reference to his own musical aesthetic. Varèse's conception of music reflected his vision of "sound as living matter" and of "musical space as open rather than bounded". He conceived the elements of his music in terms of "sound-masses", likening their organization to the natural phenomenon of crystallization. Varèse thought that "to stubbornly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called noise", and he posed the question, "what is music but organized noises?"Although his complete surviving works only last about three hours, he has been recognised as an influence by several major composers of the late 20th century. Varèse saw potential in using electronic media for sound production, and his use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as the "Father of Electronic Music" whilst Henry Miller described him as "The stratospheric Colossus of Sound".Varèse actively promoted performances of works by other 20th-century composers and founded the International Composers' Guild in 1921 and the Pan-American Association of Composers in 1926.

Lucy_O'Reilly_Schell

Lucy O'Reilly Schell (26 October 1896 – 8 June 1952) was an American racing driver, team owner, and businesswoman. Her racing endeavours focused mainly on Grand Prix and rallying. She was the first American woman to compete in an international Grand Prix race and the first woman to establish her own Grand Prix team.

George_Breakston

George Paul Breakston (January 22, 1920 – May 21, 1973) was a French-American actor, producer and film director, active in Hollywood from his days as a child actor in Andy Hardy films in the 1930s (where he played the character Beezy), to a period as an independent producer/director in the 1950s.

Isabelle_Collin_Dufresne

Isabelle Collin Dufresne (6 September 1935 – 14 June 2014), known professionally as Ultra Violet, was a French-American artist, author, and both a colleague of Andy Warhol and one of his so-called Superstars. Earlier in her career, she worked for and studied with surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Dufresne lived and worked in New York City, and also had a studio in Nice, France.

Paul_Ivano

Paul Ivano, ASC (May 13, 1900 – April 9, 1984), was a Serbian–French–American cinematographer whose career stretched from 1920 into the late 1960s. Born Paul Ivano Ivanichevitch, to Serbian parents in Nice, France, he served for two years with the Franco–American Ambulance Corps and the American Red Cross Ambulance Corps from 1916 to 1918. After the conclusion of World War I, he remained in the Balkans, acting as a photographer and interpreter for the American Red Cross. He arrived in the United States in 1919, and moved to California, the following year. In 1947 he was the cameraman who made the first aerial helicopter shots for an American feature film in Nicholas Ray's film noir They Live by Night.

Adolphe_Alexandre_Chaillet

Adolphe Alexandre Chaillet (July 15, 1867, in Paris – after 1914) was a French inventor in the field of electrical engineering.
Chaillet created the Centennial Light, which has been illuminating a fire station in Livermore, California, for over a century. Chaillet was knowledgeable in chemistry and mineralogy.

Hervé_Villechaize

Hervé Jean-Pierre Villechaize (French: [ɛʁve vilʃɛz]; April 23, 1943 – September 4, 1993) was a French actor and painter. He is best known for his roles as the evil henchman Nick Nack in the 1974 James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, and as Mr. Roarke's assistant, Tattoo, on the American television series Fantasy Island that he played from 1977 to 1983. On Fantasy Island, his shout of "De plane! De plane!" became one of the show's signature phrases. He died by suicide in 1993.