AE Vol.3 Issue 8- Preview

A me rican Es s e nc e

American Essence

AUGUST 2023

FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S CO U N T RY

The Nostalgia Issue Life With Gary Cooper The actor’s only child reminisces on the qualities that made her father a Hollywood legend

Time Travel Through Fashion

AUGUST 2023

From ‘Mad Men’ to ‘1923,’ Janie Bryant’s costume design brings the worlds of hit TV shows to life

Dennis Quaid Gets Inspired What drives his creative decisions, from writing heartfelt music to portraying President Ronald Reagan

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‘‘God Bless America’’

By Irving Berlin

God bless America, Land that I love, Stand beside her and guide her Through the night with a light from above.

From the mountains, to the prairies, To the oceans white with foam, God bless America, My home sweet home.

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Devils Tower National Monument in northeastern Wyoming.

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History 40 | A King of Hollywood Gary Cooper’s daughter recalls his lasting influence portraying “the best an American man could be.”

50 | The Legacy of a Game Maker Milton Bradley created a board game that reflected American values and virtues.

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54 | Mountain Man Proving what man can endure, Hugh Glass survived a grizzly mauling and abandonment in the wilderness.

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Contents First Look 4 | Pretty in Red A makeup expert’s tips for perfecting the classic red lip.

6 | How to Be a Gracious Guest How to be a dinner party delight.

10 | All Aboard!

Take a trip back in time on these historic train rides.

14 | Why I Love America Reader Sheri Slater Nielsen expresses gratitude for the examples of selflessness she witnesses in her daily life.

16 | Soulful Musings Actor Dennis Quaid on finding spiritual meaning in life and in his work.

60 | Candy Shop Time Machine At the country’s oldest operating candy shop, the sugar highs come with a heavy dose of history.

66 | Cultivating a Life of Beauty Slow down and find the beauty in the everyday, says author Jennifer Scott.

24 | Escape From Castro’s Cuba A former political prisoner’s harrowing journey to freedom.

Features

30 | Building Worlds Through Wardrobes Janie Bryant, Emmy-winning costume designer for hit TV shows “Mad Men” and “1923,” on iconic eras and timeless style.

12 | Family Roots Reader Tammy Isabell honors the spirit of her great-grandmother, who humbly toiled for her family.

38 | Radical Kindness A military spouse aims to support others who, like her, struggle with loneliness.

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72 | Tropical Treasures A chef’s advice for making the most of in-season mangoes.

74 | Grace Kelly’s Timeless Elegance Take style inspiration from the beloved actress-turned-princess.

78 | Beauty by Nature Shiva Rose shares the natural remedies and rituals that helped her heal.

84 | Gilded Age Entertaining From absinthe spoons to grape shears, a food historian’s antique collection is a delicious look back in time.

86 | Play It Again The iconic toys that defined American childhoods through the decades.

88 | The Birds of America, Illustrated John James Audubon vividly captured the behavior of birds with his dramatic poses and compositions.

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96 | Parting Thoughts Ronald Reagan through the memories of his eldest son, Michael.

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Dennis Quaid plays Ronald Reagan from his 30s through the end of his life, in the upcoming film ‘‘Reagan.’’

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Entertainers | Features

Getting Candid With Dennis Quaid The longtime actor on preparing to release new music close to his heart, and portraying President Ronald Reagan WRITTEN BY Catherine Yang

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ennis Quaid is drawn to projects that strike fear on first encounter.

“You take that fear and you channel it, and you use it. Then what it is is energy,” said Quaid, actor and, some may be surprised to know, singer-songwriter. Fear is what ignited some of his most inspired moments while writing his latest album, “Fallen: A Gospel Record for Sinners,” and what drove him to say yes to playing Ronald Reagan in the upcoming biopic “Reagan,” which spans the life of the late president and is told from the perspective of a KGB agent.

“Fear is really inspirational,” Quaid said with a laugh.

open about his struggle with cocaine in the ’80s. The song was released with the addition of a bridge he penned within minutes, on the soundtrack of the 2018 faith-based film “I Can Only Imagine.”

“So it took me 30 years and 15 minutes to write the song,” Quaid said. After her passing four years ago, he felt compelled to write a song about her vision of heaven. She was religious, and a bit literal about it, he said; he himself has always been more of a spiritual person.

“My dad passed back in ’87, and my mom passed four years ago, and it led to a lot of thinking about what’s after this, and what is all this for?” Quaid said. “It’s about a personal relationship with God.” Quaid grew up on Seeking God the hymns of the Baptist Church and loved “Fallen,” the album, was 30 years in the making, the music even though he had grown “disilluhe explained, built around a song he had earlier sioned with church-ianity,” he said. In his teens, written for his mother, “On My Way to Heaven.” he read the Herman Hesse novel “Siddhartha” “I was coming out of addiction at that time, about the life of the Gautama Buddha, and and I wrote the song to let my mother know he started on a journey of reading books and that I was okay,” said Quaid, who has been sacred texts from different faiths.

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“They’re really all about the same thing,” he said. “It’s man seeking God and knowing God.” When he overcame his addiction, Quaid returned to his spiritual journey. “I started reading again,” he said. He mined the various spiritual disciplines around the world and saw common threads, then returned to the Bible and found the same principles within.

They taught people not just what heaven was, but how to live on Earth, Quaid said. “A way to live, and a way to be with people; how to treat other people, and how to treat yourself, and how to get on the spiritual path—the mystery of all that.”

A lifelong seeker and student of the

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human condition, Quaid learned that “we all worship something.” In the absence of a spiritual relationship with God that human beings innately seek, we find other things to worship—money, relationships, other material things that don’t last, that “don’t fill that hole,” he said. His album “Fallen,” released on July 28, includes renditions of seven hymns like “Amazing Grace” and “The Lord’s Prayer,” as well as five original songs with themes of gratitude and hope.

Quaid, who now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, has toured the country performing for the past four decades, including with the band The Sharks. Since the pandemic, he’s

ABOVE ‘‘Reagan,’’ set

for an early 2024 release, examines the man who won the Cold War through the lens of an enemy KGB agent.

RIGHT Quaid said he had to get past his own admiration for Reagan to find the man behind the public figure.

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Fashion of the Times Janie Bryant brings the past alive through costume design for hit TV shows such as “Mad Men,” “Deadwood,” and “1923” WRITTEN BY

Catherine Yang

Emmy-winning costume designer Janie Bryant with her beloved poodle.

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Features | Costume Design

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andcarved wooden buttons, a hat with the perfect amount of crease, a tie of just the right width—every visual detail in a great film or show adds to the creation of a world, and Janie Bryant knows how clothing can tell a story.

“Reading the script is like reading a great novel. … A script is like my road map to understanding the character, which leads my imagination, and the costume,” said Bryant, an Emmy award-winning costume designer whose career has been filled with era-defining drama series. The latest, screenwriter-director Taylor Sheridan’s “1923,” is set in a time of contrasts, when “chic” fashion and haute couture found its roots. It’s also a world where different cultures often clashed.

“There’s these worlds with restrictions and boundaries, and then the other side of it is freedom and letting loose and going wild,” said Bryant, who worked on both prequels to the

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hit “Yellowstone” TV series, “1883” and “1923.”

Scarlett, My Icon Classic films have served as an inspiration throughout Bryant’s life. As a child, the Tennessee native would watch “Gone With the Wind,” “Wuthering Heights,” “My Fair Lady,” and “Guys and Dolls” regularly with her family, and she still revisits these favorites frequently.

“I mean, Walter Plunkett, he’s probably my favorite costume designer,” said Bryant.

Plunkett worked on no fewer than 150 projects during his Hollywood career, including Scarlett O’Hara’s iconic dresses from “Gone With the Wind” which so inspired Bryant as a child. Initially, though, she had no idea this BOTH PAGES Bryant liked to incorporate vintage pieces on ‘‘Mad Men.’’ On the right, the character of Betty Draper, played by January Jones, wears an early-1960s blouse with butterfly print. ‘‘I loved using butterfly imagery for Betty because I always felt like she was this caterpillar waiting for a change to emerge,’’ Bryant said.

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American Cinema | History

Gary Cooper:

Defending the Underdog Maria Cooper Janis discusses her father’s integrity and courage on- and off-screen WRITTEN BY Dustin Bass

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ary Cooper is synonymous with the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was one of its most successful box office draws. He was nominated five times for the Best Actor Oscar and won twice for “Sergeant York” and “High Noon.”

Handsome, strong, and with an honest stare, Cooper became the country’s model of masculinity, integrity, and courage.

His roles were varied. They ranged from military heroes, like Alvin York, the most

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decorated U.S. soldier in World War I, and Billy Mitchell, considered the Father of the U.S. Air Force; to a Quaker father in “Friendly Persuasion”; the tragic baseball player Lou Gehrig in “The Pride of the Yankees”; and a tamer of the Old West, none better known than the fictional Marshal Will Kane in “High Noon.”

LEFT Maria Cooper Janis holds a photo of herself with her mother, actress Veronica Cooper (née Balfe), and her father, Gary Cooper.

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Features | American Cinema

vvv Cooper was one of the kings for several decades.

But alternatively to Hollywood royalty, he was an Everyman.

Maria Cooper Janis, the daughter and only child of Cooper and Veronica Balfe, recalled her father saying that he wanted to try to portray the best an American man could be.

These dignified and masculine roles surely captured the ideal, but they also captured something else. Janis said the man that millions of moviegoers saw, and still see today, was, in so many ways, playing himself.

Rugged and Sophisticated From the rough-and-tumble Western stereotypes to the sophisticated man-about-town, he was “as comfortable in blue jeans as he was in white ties and tails,” she said.

There is a famous photo called “The Kings of Hollywood” of Cooper standing alongside

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American Cinema | History

ABOVE LEFT Gary Cooper was a car enthusiast and especially loved this Jaguar convertible.

ABOVE (L to R) Actors Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper, and James Stewart enjoy a laugh during a New Year’s party held at Romanoff’s restaurant in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, and Van Heflin in their white ties and tails, cocktails in hand, having a laugh. It is the elegant and sophisticated version of Cooper—the quintessential image of Hollywood’s leading man. Indeed, Cooper was one of the kings for several decades.

But he was also an everyman. Cooper grew up in early 1900s Montana. He was born in Helena just a few years after it was named the state’s capital. It was a rich town despite being part of the recently settled West. It was an environment—both rugged and luxurious— that Cooper would go on to personify.

Janis said her father’s first friends were the local Native Americans. They taught him how to stalk and hunt animals and perform his

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own taxidermy. His friendships helped him understand the plight of the Indians. His father, Charles Cooper, a justice on the Montana Supreme Court, had long been concerned about the Native Americans.

“My grandfather was always working for the underdog,” she said. “My father must have heard a lot of those stories. [My father] always felt he should defend those who needed defending, especially those who didn’t have the clout or standing to win.”

The Defender Cooper found himself defending others on film and in real life, and sometimes those two mixed. Although he stated before Congress that he was “not very sympathetic to com-

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Lifestyle | Food

A Sugar-Coated

Time Machine With 100-year-old recipes and painstakingly preserved decor, Shane Confectionery, the country’s oldest operating candy shop, captures a sweet moment in history WRITTEN BY

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Crystal Shi

he aroma hits as soon as you step inside: hot sugar and rich chocolate, a perfume of nostalgia that you can’t help but smile at. It’s seeped deep into the bones of this building, where generations of confectioners have worked since 1863. Today, Ryan and Eric Berley continue the sweet tradition.

The brothers are the proprietors of Shane Confectionery, in the heart of Philadelphia’s historic Old City district. It holds the title of the country’s oldest continuously operated candy shop—a slice of living history—and the Berleys take their role as its stewards seriously.

The interior boasts painstakingly preserved pressed tin ceilings and intricate woodworking, with details painted white against pastel blue, a shade borrowed from inside Independence Hall. Rainbow-hued penny

ABOVE The shop’s famous buttercream candies are

made using the Shane family’s 100-year-old recipe. The Berleys have introduced a variety of new flavors, such as raspberry.

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candies fill old-fashioned jars that line the shelves to the ceiling, and chocolate-dipped bonbons gleam under glass display cases like jewels.

Peek into the back of the store, and you might catch a worker grinding freshly roasted cacao beans to make the chocolate that goes into all those handmade treats. Sign up for a tour, and you’ll be whisked away to the mini Willy Wonka-esque workshop upstairs, where antique candy molds line the walls and 19th-century copper pots rest over gas flames.

And when you’ve finally made your selection, a candy clerk in period dress will ring you up at an antique cash register from 1911.

“The vision from the beginning,” said Ryan Berley, “was to create this immersive historical experience. We’re in a high-traffic tourist area that is rich with the incredible history of our nation, its founding.”

The Candy Capital It’s rich with a sweeter kind of history, too.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, “Philadelphia was the confectionery capital [of the country],” said shop manager Laurel Burmeister, who also leads Shane’s historic tours and outreach programs. The city was a key port in the sugar and cacao trade, and the Delaware River ferried both ingredients and customers to the more than 100 candy and chocolate makers that sprung up across town.

Among them was renowned confectioner Samuel Herring, who opened a wholesale shop at 110 Market Street in 1863. Edward

Food | Lifestyle

Brothers Ryan (L) and Eric Berley bought the historic candy shop in 2010.

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Jennifer L. Scott at her home in Southern California.

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Home | Lifestyle

In Pursuit of Everyday Beauty Author Jennifer Scott, of ‘Madame Chic’ book series fame, offers an Old World-inspired guide to cultivating a beautiful life WRITTEN BY

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Brett Chudá

or all of society’s new tech-driven shortcuts, are we more relaxed and in control of our time? On the contrary, life seems to be speeding out of control, and our personal lives bear the brunt of the ensuing chaos and clutter.

One American found an antidote to the modern frenzy in France. After growing up in casual Southern California, Jennifer L. Scott discovered wisdom in Old World etiquette and the traditional Parisian way of dressing, dining, communicating, and living beautifully at home—a higher standard of living. She shares her advice and inspiration on her blog and YouTube channel, The Daily Connoisseur, and in her best-selling books.

“We, especially as Americans, can really get swept up in the rat race,” Scott said. “But I think that we miss something when we do that: We miss a lot about the beauty of everyday life.”

That’s why, she said, “one of my missions in life is to encourage people to live a beautiful life at home, and to live life as a formal affair. I do think that the home is a sacred space; it’s our most important space. It’s

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where we spend the most time and our environment affects us. … We have a life at home— and for many people that life is in chaos.”

Fish Out of Water Scott’s slower living approach is a way that Americans used to follow but that she hadn’t encountered while growing up. All that changed the year she went to Paris on a study abroad program.

“Suddenly, I found myself living with this very formal, traditional Parisian family in the 16th arrondissement in Paris,” Scott said. “It’s a fish-out-of-water experience for me.” Her books—“Lessons from Madame Chic,” “At Home with Madame Chic,” “Polish Your Poise with Madame Chic,” and “Connoisseur Kids”— are full of stories about what she learned from her host family, including “Madame Chic”— her nickname for her host mother—and Parisian culture in general.

On one of her first nights there, for instance, she learned a sartorial lesson she’ll never forget. Scott’s host mother spotted her in the pajamas she had brought from California, an ancient pair of sweatpants with a hole in them.

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Lifestyle | Style

The Eternal Elegance of Grace Kelly A look at the timeless style of the beloved actress-turned-princess, and how to emulate it today

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WRITTEN BY

Sandy Lindsey

hough Grace Kelly only acted for five years, in 11 films, her classic beauty and understated elegance won admirers and emulators for decades to come. From her red carpet gowns, to her chic shirtwaist dresses, to her use of an Hermes scarf as a sling for an injured arm, she remains a style inspiration.

Unlike many Hollywood actresses of her era, Grace Patricia Kelly’s tale is not a “rags to riches” saga. She was born to John Brennan “Jack” Kelly, a self-made millionaire and three-time gold medalist sculler on the U.S. Rowing Team, and Margaret Katherine Majer, famous for founding and becoming the first coach of the University of Pennsylvania Women’s Athletic Teams.

Her sophisticated upbringing goes a long way toward explaining her style—as both glamorous Hollywood royalty and actual royalty, when she married Prince Rainier III of Monaco.

Both on screen and off, Grace used wardrobe as a way to express, not overshadow, her character. “I think it is important to see the person first and the clothes afterwards,” she said. Costume designer Edith Head, who worked with her on Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear

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Window,” once said, “I have never worked with anybody who had a more intelligent grasp of what we were doing.”

Just Right Grace Kelly understood the importance of choosing clothing and accessories to suit her face and body type. In general, follow this rule: If you’re tall and curvy, try larger patterns, big hats, wide belts, and heavier accessories. If you’re petite and thin, the opposite will suit you better.

To not overwhelm her soft features and smaller frame, Grace favored simplicity, often choosing one main color to build an outfit around, and only simple patterns, if any. She never wore clothing too big, nor too tight; pieces were well fitted and of good quality. A thin-to-medium belt often accentuated her waist.

Jewelry, judiciously chosen, meant simple yet elegant pieces that were not too heavy.

Pearls were a favorite; Grace knew how to make a casual twinset with Capri pants look chic with the addition of an elegant string. “I favor pearls on screen and in my private life,” she said, explaining, “The pearl is the queen of gems and the gem of queens.”

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Lifestyle | Illustrations

The Pictorial Record of

American Birds

Capturing the likeness and character of bird species, John James Audubon revolutionized ornithological illustrations with his dramatic designs WRITTEN BY

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Bob Kirchman

he name of John James Audubon is synonymous with the study, description, and illustration of avian species. Audubon painstakingly documented some 490 species of birds for his seminal work, “The Birds of America.”

Audubon was more than just a keen observer— he also possessed a vivid imagination. This imagination once led the great naturalist to

concoct some fictitious finned and feathered creatures that never existed! They were intended as a prank on his friend and rival, the esteemed French naturalist Constantine Rafinesque.

The story goes that Rafinesque was visiting Audubon at his home when a bat flew into the guest room. Thinking it was a new species, the Frenchman tried to kill it.

Unfortunately, the weapon he chose in haste happened to be Audubon’s favorite violin, which he managed to destroy! John plotted “revenge,” eloquently describing 11 species of fish, two birds, two plants, and nine wild rats to his friend, who fell for the elaborate joke. The Frenchman included some of the concocted species in his own works. It was only years later that biologists discovered the hoax after Rafinesque had added them to the scientific record.

An American Leonardo At the age of 18, John James Audubon first set foot on American soil. The year was 1803, and his father, Jean, had sent him to Pennsylvania to avoid his being conscripted in Napoleon’s wars. Jean owned land near Valley Forge, and it was here that young Audubon was sent to manage his father’s properties. But this inquisitive and sensitive young man would become something of a LEFT Portrait of ornithologist and painter John James Audubon by John Syme, 1826. Oil on canvas.

RIGHT The wild turkey was the first image engraved and printed for Audubon’s “Birds of America,” between 1827 and 1838.

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