Notable Alumni in the Arts

Macaronne, Nick
Theater
Graduate of SoA, MFA (Acting)
2008SoA


MacArthur, John (1956 - )
Literature
Writer, Editor
'78CC

MacArthur convinced the foundation named in his grandfather's honor to save Harper's magazine in the early 1980s; he has since edited the nation's oldest general interest monthly through a comeback. MacArthur's own writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Star and the Chicago Sun-Times. He has published several nonfiction works, including Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War (1992), and The Selling of "Free Trade": NAFTA (2000), each championing freedom of the press and American democratic institutions while arguing against the use of propaganda and pre-packaged news. He is a cofounder of the Article 19 International Centre on Censorship in London, and he directs the Committee to Protect Journalists, the J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation and the Death Penalty Information Center. Learn more.


MacMahon, Aline (1899 - 1991)
Film, Radio, Television
Actress
1920BC

MacMahon made her Broadway debut a year after graduating from Barnard. Her fifty-year career on stage, radio, television and film included an Oscar nomination for her role opposite Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed (1944). She appeared on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon (1926), T. S. Eliot's The Confidential Clerk (1954), the Drama Desk Award-winning Pictures in the Hallway (1956) and Tad Mosel's Pulitzer Prize-winning All the Way Home (1960). Her film career led to work with Lionel Barrymore, Marlene Deitrich, Burt Lancaster and Joan Crawford, in movies such as One Way Passage (1932), Ah, Wilderness! (1935), The Flame and Arrow (1950), and The Eddie Cantor Story (1953). MacMahon's final performance was in Trelawney of the "Wells" in 1975 alongside Meryl Streep. Learn more.


Malamud, Bernard (1914 - 1986)
Literature
Writer
'42GSAS

Malamud's childhood among Russian Jewish immigrants on Manhattan's Lower East Side informs many of his seven novels and six story collections. His first book, The Natural (1952), explores the American Dream of a young baseball player. His second work, The Assistant (1957), follows a gentile thief who works and lives with the Jewish grocer whom he used to rob. The Magic Barrel, a collection of short stories with influences from Yiddish folktales and traditions, won the 1958 National Book Award. His 1966 novel, The Fixer, won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize-the novel is based on an infamous anti-Semitic case in Kiev in which a Jew was imprisoned for a murder he did not commit. The Fixer, The Angel Levine, The Natural and The First Seven Years were all adapted to feature film. Among Malamud's many awards are two O. Henry Prizes (1969, 1973), the Vermont Governor's Award (1979), and the Gold Medal for fiction of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Learn more.


Mangold, James (1963 - )
Film
Director, Screenwriter
'99SoA

When James Mangold arrived at Columbia's Film Division, his film career had just encountered a setback. After early success-signing a development deal with Disney at the age of 21, weeks after graduating from California Institute of the Arts-Mangold had been fired from his first directorial assignment three days into shooting and had lost his Disney contract. At Columbia, his mentor, Milos Forman, helped him recover lost ground. Mangold has since become known for depicting characters' internal conflicts with sensitivity and insight. His films include 3:10 to Yuma (2007), Walk the Line (2005), Kate and Leopald (2001), and Girl, Interrupted (1999). Learn more.


Mankiewicz, Herman (1897 - 1953)
Film
Screenwriter
1917CC

Mankiewicz wrote titles for more than twenty-five silent films, and his penchant for one-liners and witty humor was well suited to early talkies. Mankiewicz co-authored Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941), which won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated in eight other categories. He also wrote Girl Crazy (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), It's a Wonderful World (1939) and The Pride of the Yankees (1942) about the life of Lou Gehrig, and co-wrote or polished dozens of scripts for which he was often not credited, including The Wizard of Oz (1939). Learn more.


Mankiewicz, Joseph (1909 - 1993)
Film
Screenwriter, Director, Producer
'28CC

Mankiewicz' career as screenwriter, director and producer spanned more than fifty years of American cinema. His first Oscar-nominated film was Skippy (1931), which he followed with the W. C. Fields classics Million Dollar Legs (1932) and If I Had a Million (1933). His successes as a producer include The Philadelphia Story (1940) and Woman of the Year (1942)-the first pairing of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Mankiewicz was the first man to win consecutive Oscars for directing and writing, with A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950). His other directing credits include such classic films as Julius Caesar (1953), starring Marlon Brando, The Barefoot Contessa (1954), with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner, Guys and Dolls (1955), with Frank Sinatra, and The Quiet American (1958). In 1986, he received the D. W. Griffith Award of the Directors Guild for lifetime achievement.


Martin, Agnes (1912 - 2004)
Visual Arts
Artist
'42TC, '52MA

Although Canadian Agnes Martin lived on the Lower East Side in the 1950s and '60s, her paintings were influenced by her years in the American Southwest. Much of her work took the form of six-foot-square canvases illuminated with bands of color over horizontal graphite lines. Martin enjoyed retrospective exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Pennsylvania (1973) and the Whitney Museum (1992). Her work hangs in the Tate Gallery in London, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and major American institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, the Guggenheim and the Hirschorn Museum. She published a memoir, Writings, in 1992. Martin was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton in 1998 and a lifetime achievement award from the Women's Caucus for Art.

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Mastin, Florence Ripley (1886 - 1968)
Literature
Poet
1908BC

Mastin's first volume, Green Leaves, appeared in 1918, and Cables of Cobweb followed in 1935. Her work appeared regularly in Poetry magazine and The New York Herald Tribune. Between 1915 and 1960, Mastin published nearly one hundred poems in The New York Times. "At the Movies" (1919), a poignant female reaction to the horrors of World War I, is anthologized in A Treasury of War Poetry (1919). Moved again by the tragedies of World War II, Mastin composed "Bombers Over Tokyo" (1944) and "Gold Star Mother" (1945). New York State chose "Freedom's Dream" as its official poem in 1960.


Matteson, John
Writer/Historian
1999GSAS

John Matteson has an A.B. in History from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University. He also holds a law degree from Harvard University and has practiced as a litigation attorney in California and North Carolina. He has written articles for The Harvard Theological Review, Architectural Record, CrossCurrents, New England Quarterly, Streams of William James, and other publications. He received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his book Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. He has taught literature and legal writing at John Jay College since 1997.

Matthews, Brander (1852 - 1929)
Theater
Scholar, Critic, Playwright
1871CC, 1874LAW

Matthews was regarded as the nation's leading drama critic and historian at the turn of the twentieth century. He tried his hand at Theater in the late 1800s, producing A Gold Mine (1887) and On Probation (1889). His authoritative writing on the Theater includes French Dramatists of the 19th Century (1881), The Development of the Drama (1903), Moliere (1910), Shakespeare as a Playwright (1913) and Playwrights on Playmaking (1923). Columbia President Seth Low created a professorship for Matthews, making Matthews the nation's first professor of dramatic literature. Matthews left the University his collection of Theater memorabilia, from photographs to model sets to manuscripts, with an endowment for its expansion and preservation. Matthews served as President of the Modern Language Association (1910), President of the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1913) and Chancellor of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1922-1924). Learn more.


Mayo, Archie (1891 - 1968)
Film, Theater
Actor, Director, Producer


Mayo moved from the stage to Hollywood in 1915, where he earned gag roles before directing slapsticks. He began directing feature films for Warner Brothers in 1926, just as the studio was adding sound to pictures. Mayo directed such greats as John Barrymore in Svengali (1931), James Cagney in The Mayor of Hell (1933), and George Raft and Bette Davis in Bordertown (1935). Other films include They Shall Have Music (1939) and A Night in Casablanca (1946). Learn more.


McCaffery, John K. M. (1914 - 1983)
Radio, Television
Newscaster
GSAS

McCaffery was seen and heard on American television and radio for nearly three decades as a newscaster, master of ceremonies and quiz-show host. He broadcasted the "11th Hour News" on NBC from 1952 until 1963, beginning the program each program with the signature line, "What kind of day has it been?" McCaffery was also hosted the radio/television show, "The Author Meets the Critics" on CBS, as well as the game show, "What Makes You Tick?" McCaffery's other work included instructing English at Pratt and City College, and editing the fiction section of American Magazine.


McCullers, Carson (1917 - 1967)
Writer
CC

McCullers, a leading 20th century writer of southern gothic fiction, was born Lulu Smith in Georgia. She originally aspired to be a musician, moving to NY reportedly to study at Juilliard but abandoned this idea after suffering rheumatic fever. Working odd jobs, McCullers turned to writing, taking creative writing classes at Columbia University and NYU. McCullers’ first novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, (1940) garnered critical praise and commercial success. Her talents and lifestyle attracted other creative talents including Truman Capote; she shared living quarters with Leonard Bernstein and Richard Wright. Longtime friend, Tennessee Williams, collaborated with McCullers on a stage adaptation of her novel, The Member of the Wedding, which won the 1950 Drama Critics’ Circle Award.

 

McFadden, Mary (1938 - )
Fashion
Designer
'59GS

McFadden studied fashion in Paris at L'Ecole Lubec and the Sorbonne, and sociology at Columbia. Her popular designs for tunics and pants inspired by travels to South Africa were featured in Vogue magazine in the 1970s. Subsequent collections have been inspired by her travels to Greece, Byzantium, South America and China. McFadden's signature pleating style, called "Marii," set trends in eveningwear, and her work, commonly described as "wearable art," remains popular. McFadden's awards include the Coty American Fashion Critics Award (1976, 1978, 1979), the Audemars Piquet Fashion Award (1976), the Rex Award (1977), the Neiman Marcus Award (1979) and the American Printed Fabrics Council Tommy Award (1991). Learn more.


McNally, Terrence (1939 - )
Film, Theater
Playwright, Screenwriter
'60CC

McNally's forty-year career includes the scripts for Frankie and Johnnie in the Claire de Lune (1987) and a series of Tony-winning successes: Love! Valour! Compassion! (Best Play, 1994), Master Class (Best Play, 1996), and adaptations of Kiss of the Spider Woman (1992), Ragtime (1998) and The Full Monty (2000). McNally is esteemed for his sensitive treatment of issues such as the impact of AIDS and homophobia. He has won two Guggenheim fellowships, a Rockefeller grant, an Emmy and a number of Obie awards. Learn more.


Mengestu, Dinaw (1978 - )
Literature
Novelist, Magazine Writer
'05SoA

In his debut novel, The Beautiful Things Heaven Bears (2007), Dinaw Mengestu tells the story of an Ethiopian immigrant living in Washington, D.C. after fleeing Ethiopia's communist revolution seventeen years earlier. The work received the 2007 Guardian First Book Award, was a 2007 New York Times Notable Book, and was selected by Amazon.com as one of 2007's ten best novels. Mengestu has written about African politics for Rolling Stone, Jane Magazine, and Harper's. A native of Ethiopia, he immigrated to the United States at the age of two and attended Georgetown University and Columbia's School of the Arts. In 2006, he received a Fellowship in Fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He lives in New York City. Learn more.


Merton, Thomas (1915 - 1968)
Literature
Writer
'38CC, '39GSAS

Poet, religious writer, Catholic monk and essayist Thomas Merton is remembered for introducing Eastern spirituality to Western Christians. Born to two artists in Cambridge, England, Merton came to the United States for college. In 1938, he converted to Catholicism and began to write poetry. He published Thirty Poems in 1944, starting a career that would span three decades. Despite being censored by his superiors, Merton used his poetry to advocate for social activism, particularly through the turbulent the years of the Vietnam War. Accepting Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam without compromising his own faith, Merton used his unique perspective to analyze current events. Seven Storey Mountain (1948), an autobiography published at the age of thirty-three, remains his most famous work. Among Merton's honors are the Columbia University Medal for Excellence (1961) and the Pax Medal (1963). Learn more.


Millett, Kate
Writer
1970GSAS

Author of Sexual Politics, feminist, and artist.

Minot, Susan (1956 - )
Film, Literature
Fiction Writer, Screenwriter
'83SoA

Minot's first novel, Monkeys, is a collection of nine short stories comprising a novel about a large New England family's survival of a life-altering accident. The book was published in twelve countries and won France's Prix Femina Etranger in 1987. Minot continued to examine family and marriage in Lust & Other Stories (1989), a collection set in New York City, and Folly, which follows a stifled woman's marriage in 1920s Boston. Minot collaborated with director Bernardo Bertolucci on the screenplay for Stealing Beauty (1996), which starred Liv Tyler, Joseph Fiennes and Jeremy Irons, and was nominated for the Golden Palm Award at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. Learn more.


Monod, Jean-Louis (1927 - )
Music
Pianist, Conductor, Composer
'75DMA

The French-born Monod studied privately with René Leibowitz and attended the Conservatoire National de Musique, Julliard and Columbia, where he studied conducting under Rudolf Thomas. A champion of "high-art music," Monod has since conducted major orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the world, including premieres of works by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Babbitt and Carter. For seven years, Monod conducted the BBC Orchestra in a weekly series of live broadcasts of new music. For his own compositions, Monod received the National Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1956. His composition Cantus Contra Cantum IV was recorded on the CRI label.


Moody, Rick (1961 - )
Literature
Writer
'86SoA

Moody has published five novels and many short stories, including Garden State (1992), The Ice Storm (1994), Demonology (2001), and The Diviners (2005). The Black Veil (2002) won a PEN American Center Award in 2003. Critics praise Moody's unflinching examinations of the American nuclear family. Moody has won a Pushcart Press Editors' Book Award (1991) and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Paris Review and Harper's, among other publications. Learn more.


Moore, Clement C. (1779 - 1863)
Literature
Poet
'98CC

Clement C. Moore was a scholar and writer who devoted himself to the study of Hebrew. The heir to the estate of his grandfather, Major Thomas Clarke, Moore generously donated land to the founding of the General Theological Seminary, where he became a professor in 1821. Moore is best remembered for his poetry, particularly the ballad beginning, "'Twas the night before Christmas...," which he composed during a Christmas Eve sleigh ride in 1822. Learn more.


Moravec, Paul
Music
Composer
'88SoA

Moravec, who is University Professor at Adelphi University and winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Music, has composed over ninety orchestral, chamber, choral, lyric, film, and electro-acoustic compositions. Among Moravec's numerous awards are prizes from the American Academy in Rome, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts & Letters. He has taught at Harvard, Columbia, Dartmouth, and Hunter College. Paul Moravec's discography includes Tempest Fantasy, performed by Trio Solisti with clarinetist David Krakauer; The Time Gallery; and Morph, performed by the String Orchestra of New York. He has been commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera to compose an opera entitled The Letter, with libretto by Terry Teachout, for premiere in July 2009. In October 2008, Moravec's new commissioned work for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra entitled Brandenburg Gate premiered at Carnegie Hall. Learn more.


Morgan, Ralph (1883 - 1956)
Film, Theater
Actor


Morgan abandoned law for Broadway, debuting in The Bachelor in 1909 and working steadily until 1930, when he went to Hollywood. Morgan spent fifteen years on the silver screen, often playing unctuous villains in horror films and mysteries such as Rasputin and the Empress with John and Ethel Barrymore (1932), an adaptation of Graham Greene's Orient Express (1934), The Life of Emile Zola, which won three Oscars in 1937, Way Down South, co-authored by Langston Hughes (1939), and the film noir drama A Gentleman After Dark (1942). Learn more.


Moss, Arnold (1910 - 1989)
Film, Theater
Actor, Writer, Producer
GSAS

Moss is best remembered for his Shakespearean performances, particularly as Prospero in Margaret Webster's The Tempest (1945) and Malvolio in Twelfth Night (1949). His Broadway credits include Romeo and Juliet (1930); Lee Strasberg's production of Hemingway's The Fifth Column (1940); Journey to Jerusalem (1940); The Dark is Light Enough (1955); and the original production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies (1971), which earned a number of Tony and Drama Desk awards. Moss founded the repertory Shakespeare Festival Players and acted in film, television and radio-most notably My Favorite Spy (1951), Viva Zapata (1952), Salome (1953), and Gambit (1966). Moss also wrote about the Theater for The New York Times and was a narrator for the Boston, Detroit and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras. Learn more.


Mottola, Greg (1964 - )
Film
Director, Screenwriter
'91SoA

Film director and screenwriter Greg Mottola's worst summer job did not involve slaving away at a box factory or an elevator parts factory, or even serving as a night watchman on the beach (although he had each of those jobs). Working at Coney Island's Adventureland amusement park takes the cake, and is the inspiration for his most recent movie, Adventureland. The director of Superbad and The Daytrippers, Mottola also directed several episodes of the television shows Arrested Development and Undeclared. He received his BFA in art from Carnegie Mellon and an MFA in film from Columbia. Learn more.


Muhly, Nico (1981 - )
Music
Composer
'03CC

Just a few short years after receiving a degree in literature from Columbia and a masters in music from the Juilliard School a year later, Muhly is a rising star whose classical compositions have already featured in a full-evening concert at Carnegie Hall. He has released two albums-Speaks Volumes (2007) and Mothertongue (2008), composed scores for films including Choking Man (2006) and Joshua (2007), and collaborated with Benjamin Millepied on commissions for American Ballet Theater (From Here on Out, premiered 2007) and the Paris Opera Ballet (Triade, premiered 2008). Learn more.