472) Kurt Eisner

Kurt Eisner (1867 – 1919). German journalist and theatre critic. As a socialist journalist, he organised the Socialist Revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy in Bavaria in November 1918. He is used as an example of charismatic authority by Max Weber. He proclaimed the Free State of Bavaria. He was assassinated in Munich by a German nationalist on 21 February 1919.

- "A red-haired Jew, he possessed a magnetic and artistic temperament, and had various special methods of arousing and restraining the revolutionary masses, including orchestral and vocal concerts of high excellence in the formerly royal theatres and the opera house of Munich." https://en.wikisource.org/…/1922_Encyclop%C3%A…/Eisner,_Kurt

- "There were no trains running so we got in touch with Kurt Eisner, the little red-haired Marxist who at the time was czar of Bavaria, and who a few weeks later was assassinated." https://www.americanheritage.com/…/%E2%80%9Cgood-evening-ev…

471) Mary Vetsera

Baroness Marie Alexandrine von Vetsera (1871 – 1889). Member of Austrian "second society" (new nobility) and one of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria's mistresses. Vetsera and Rudolf were found dead, an apparent murder suicide, at his hunting lodge, Mayerling.

- In this forum thread, Mary Vetsera's hair are described as "chestunt" and "red". http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=16484.450

                                                    Vetsera's lock of hair (see here)

470) Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria

Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria (Rudolf Franz Karl Joseph; 1858 – 1889). Only son of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Elisabeth of Bavaria. He was heir apparent to the throne of Austria-Hungary from birth. In 1889, he died in a suicide pact with his mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera, at the Mayerling hunting lodge. The ensuing scandal made international headlines.

- "Rudolf was thirty, though he looked far older. His brownish-red hair was distressingly thin..." https://books.google.it/books…

469) Robert Turnbull Macpherson

Robert Turnbull Macpherson (1814 – 1872). Scottish artist and photographer who worked in Rome, Italy, in the 19th century.

- "He frequented the Roman Museums to draw the masterpieces where he was recognizable for his tall slender figure, long red hair and traditional Scottish kilt." http://www.luminous-lint.com/…/photog…/Robert__Macpherson/A/

- "In appearance he was the quintessential Scotsman abroad, with flaming red hair..." http://www.avictorian.com/Macpherson_Robert.html

- "His striking appearance (tall and fair-skinned, with long red hair and blue eyes, rendered all the more exotic by the native Scottish kilt he customarily wore)..." https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/283141

468) Louis Drouet

Louis-François-Philippe Drouet (1792 – 1873). 19th-century French flautist and composer.

- "He was tall and thin with red hair." http://www.claudioferrarini.it/immagini/Drouettte.html

467) Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809 – 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn. German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early romantic period. Mendelssohn wrote symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano music and chamber music. His best-known works include his Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the overture The Hebrides, his mature Violin Concerto, and his String Octet.

His aunt was the novelist Dorothea von Schlegel.

- "Weber described 'his auburn hair clustering in ringlets round his shoulders..." https://books.google.it/books…

466) Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon

Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1827 – 1891). English educationalist and artist, and a leading mid-19th-century feminist and women's rights activist.

- "Leigh Smith was beginning each day with a visit to the rose border behind the low wall next door, where she gathered blooms to pin into her red-gold hair."  https://books.google.it/

- "Barbara's friend Jessie Boucherett described her as "beautifully dressed, of radiant beauty, and with masses of golden hair..." http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/wojtczak/bodichon.html

- "The illegitimate child of a radical MP, she was tall, red-haired, vivacious and charismatic." https://www.abebooks.co.uk/…/Barbara-Leigh-Smith-Bodich…/plp

- "He was especially proud of red-haired Barbara, the strongest-willed and the most beautiful of his three daughters." https://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n19/dinah-birch/one-of-the-cracked

465) Clara McCandless Thomas

Clara Thomas (née McCandless; 1919 - 2013). Canadian academic. A longtime professor of English at York University, she was one of the first academics to devote herself specifically to the study of Canadian literature.

- "She sat up very straight, her red hair in a perfect coif and listened intently." https://www.library.yorku.ca/…/memorial-tribute-to-clara-m…/

- "Early on a cute red-headed girl marched up to me and announced that she knew who I was..." https://books.google.it/books…

- "She emerged, with a shock of red hair, a mere two months after their wedding." https://www.theglobeandmail.com/…/author-a…/article15666600/

464) Anna Brownell Jameson

Anna Brownell Jameson (nee Murphy, 1794 – 1860). First English art historian. Born in Ireland (she migrated to England at the age of four), she became a well-known British writer and contributor to nineteenth-century thought on a range of subjects including early feminism, art history (particularly sacred art), travel, Shakespeare, poets, and German culture. Jameson was connected to some of the most prominent names of the period including Fanny Kemble, Elizabeth Barrett-Browning and Robert Browning, Harriet Martineau, Ottilie von Goethe (the daughter of Goethe), Lady Byron, Charles and Elizabeth Eastlake, and Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon.

- "The intrepid red-haired English explorer, Anna Jameson..." https://books.google.it/books…

- "Although red-haired, white-skinned and plumpy pretty when young..." https://books.google.it/books…

- "Anna Jameson's father painted miniatures on ivory of the paintings in Windsor Castle and his red-haired daughter knew these paintings well..." http://www.florin.ms/ebbflor1.html

493) Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy

Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy (1455 – 1492) (also spelt MacCarthy and Macarthy). Irish ecclesiastic. He was a bishop who never ruled his see, even though he was appointed to two of them: Bishop of Ross, Ireland in 1482 and Bishop of Cork and Cloyne in 1490. His feast day is 25 October. He died in the Italian city of Ivrea, where his tomb became a local shrine. In 1742, when the tomb was opened, the body was found to be perfectly preserved.

- "Eventually the tombs of both saints were opened and Thaddeus’s remains were re-interred in a reliquary (he was found to have red hair)" https://roaringwaterjournal.com/…/thaddeus-mccarthy-the-bi…/

462) Zbigniew Brzezinski

Zbigniew Kazimierz "Zbig" Brzezinski (1928 – 2017). Polish-American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981. Brzezinski belonged to the realist school of international relations, standing in the geopolitical tradition of Halford Mackinder and Nicholas J. Spykman.

- "... and he dubbed National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski 'Woody Woodpecker' because of his prominent facial features and his mound of red hair." https://books.google.it/books…

461) Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547 (assumed) – 1616 NS). Spanish writer who is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. His masterpiece Don Quixote has been translated into more languages than any other book except the Bible.

- "... a portrait very similar to that which Cervantes gives of himself in his prefaces to the Plays, namely 'a stature between the two extremes, good complexion, chestnut-clored hair, red beard and mustachios, lively eyes and hooked nose'." https://books.google.it/books…

460) Ignacio Allende

Ignacio José de Allende y Unzaga (1769 – 1811), born Ignacio Allende y Unzaga. Captain of the Spanish Army in Mexico who came to sympathize with the Mexican independence movement. He attended the secret meetings organized by Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, where the possibility of an independent New Spain was discussed. He fought along with Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in the first stage of the struggle, eventually succeeding him in leadership of the rebellion. Allende was captured by Spanish colonial authorities while he was in Coahuila and executed for treason in Chihuahua.

- "He was tall and powerfully built, with curly red hair, robust whiskers, blue eyes and a prominent, slightly crooked nose." https://books.google.it/books…

                            Artist unknown, Ignacio Allende, 19th century, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional de Historia

459) Agnes Salm-Salm

Agnes Salm-Salm (born Agnes Elisabeth Winona Leclerc Joy, 1844 – 1912). American wife of Prince Felix zu Salm-Salm, a Prussian mercenary beside whom she played a role in the American Civil War, the Mexican Civil War between President Benito Juárez and the Austrian archduke Maximilian I of Mexico, and the Franco-Prussian War.

- "She was described as red-haired, strong willed, small, and dainty." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Salm-Salm

- "The red-haired princess Agnes, daughter of General Le Clerq..." https://books.google.it/books…

- "The Times reporter described her as 'slender, of medium height' and with hair 'more auburn than grey'." https://books.google.it/books…

458) Colette

Colette (born Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, 1873 – 1954). French novelist nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. She was also a mime, an actress, and a journalist.

- "For Freund Colette's colors, her flame-red hair, her favorite blue paper, her crimson scarf, definie her." https://books.google.it/books…

- "She concealed her feelings and her talent, but she flaunted her rustic accent and a plait of auburn hair as long as she was tall." https://archive.nytimes.com/…/bo…/first/t/thurman-flesh.html

- "Colette grew into a beautiful young woman. She was strong and athletic, and she always wore her hair in a long red braid." https://www.writersalmanac.org/index.html%3Fp=7407.html

457) Richard Henry Lee

Richard Henry Lee (1732 – 1794). American statesman from Virginia best known for the Lee Resolution, the motion in the Second Continental Congress calling for the colonies' independence from Great Britain. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation, and his "resolution for independency" of June 1776 led to the United States Declaration of Independence, which Lee signed. He also served a one-year term as the President of the Congress of the Confederation, and was a United States Senator from Virginia from 1789 to 1792, serving during part of that time as the second President pro tempore of the upper house.

- "At forty-four, Richard Henry Lee was tall and lean, red-haired like Thomas Jefferson but with an aquiline nose and a profile described as Roman." https://books.google.it/books…

- "Both combatants were tall (over six feet tall) red-haired politicians supporting the cause of American independence." http://porterbriggs.com/the-jilting-of-richard-henry-lee/

- "... Richar Henry Lee, his red hair now graying..." https://books.google.it/books…

- "Tall, slim with reddish hair, Richard Henry Lee was comfortable with speaking his opinion to the public." http://www.dsdi1776.com/signers-by-state/richard-henry-lee/

456) Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry (1736 – 1799). American attorney, planter, and orator well known for his declaration to the Second Virginia Convention (1775): "Give me liberty, or give me death!" A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786.

- "Patrick Henry was tall but rather stooped and, early in life, had red hair." https://books.google.it/books…

- "He wore spectacles, concealed his reddish-brown hair by a brown wig, not too well-fitting." https://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=3053

- "None said it better than the fiery red-haired Patrick Henry when he stood in a Virgina Hall and shouted 'Give me liberty or give me death'." https://books.google.it/books…

455) Virginia Hall

Virginia Hall Goillot MBE (1906 – 1982) American spy with the British Special Operations Executive during World War II and later with the American Office of Strategic Services and the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Gestapo reportedly considered her "the most dangerous of all Allied spies".

- "Her name was Virginia Hall. She was a tall woman with bright red hair, an artificial foot, which she named Cuthbert, and a remarkable ability to improvise." http://spartacus-educational.com/SOEhall.htm
 

- "Among other feats, the 'tall woman with bright red hair' would orchestrate covert missions designed to derail freight trains..." https://books.google.it/books…

- "Hall was a very striking woman who once you had seen you would never forget, for she had red hair and an artificial foot." https://books.google.it/books…

454) Red Levine

Samuel "Red" Levine (1902/1903(?) – 1972). American mobster, described as head of Lucky Luciano's hit squad of Jewish gangsters.

- "He said he was in fights on board constantly because of his red hair and his Jewish heritage." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Levine_(mobster)

- "Yet, Levine -- a Jewish gunman whose red hair and freckles inspired his nickname -- allegedly participated in two of the most pivotal crimes in Mafia history." https://www.ibtimes.com/ballad-red-levine-mafia-assassin-wh…

- "The nickname Red, was the obvious choice for Samuel, the freckled faced, red headed boy from Toldeo." http://sixforfive.blogspot.com/…/i-thought-with-passover-ho…

453) William H. Seward

William Henry Seward (1801 – 1872). United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, and earlier served as Governor of New York and United States Senator. A determined opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, he was a dominant figure in the Republican Party in its formative years, and was praised for his work on behalf of the Union as Secretary of State during the American Civil War.

He is the man who negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia. 

 

 - "Was famous in his lifetime for his red hair and energetic way of walking." https://www.geni.com/…/William-Henry-Se…/6000000000898791399

 

- "He was five feet, six inches in height, red-haired, blue-eyed, and slight of build, bright, charming, and stubborn, with a taste for adventure." https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/3452

- "Mary Jennings was of Irish descent, and may have been the source for her son’s thicket of unruly red hair." https://www.biography.com/people/william-seward-21010687

452) Jeanne Samary

Jeanne Samary (1857 – 1890). French actress at the Comédie-Française and a model for Auguste Renoir, including for Renoir's 1881 painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party.

451) Aline Charigot

Aline Charigot (1859 – 1915). Model for Auguste Renoir. She later became his wife while continuing to model for him and care for him when he became disabled.

450) Mona von Bismarck

Mona von Bismarck (née Strader; 1897 – 1983), also known as Mona Bismarck. American socialite, fashion icon and philanthropist. Her five husbands included Harrison Williams, among the richest men in America, and Count Albrecht Edzard von Bismarck-Schönhausen, a grandson of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. She was the first American to be named "The Best Dressed Woman in the World" by a panel of top couturiers, including Coco Chanel, and she was also named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. 

- "She was absolutely fantastic and one of the most beautiful women I ever saw, with her green eyes and red hair..." http://theesotericcuriosa.blogspot.com/…/kentuckyian-counte…

- "... the red-haired, green-eyed beauty had begun life more modestly..." https://books.google.it/books…

- "She had wide set, green eyes for which she was quite famous, and striking red hair — a combination of Anglo exoticism that evokes fairies, or sirens." https://medium.com/…/salvador-dalis-nasty-woman-f484467e3555

449) Vladimir Gippius

Vladimir Vassiliévitch Hippius (also spelt Gippius, 1876 - 1941). Russian poet, literary critic and teacher.

- "A fiery little man now in his late thirties with flaming red hair and angular shoulder..." https://books.google.it/books…

- "... a rather unusual red-haired man..." https://books.google.it/books…

- "... a certain Vladimir Hippius, a red-haired poet..." https://books.google.it/books…

448) Moira Shearer

Moira Shearer, Lady Kennedy (1926 – 2006). Internationally renowned British ballet dancer and actress. She achieved international success with her first film role as Victoria Page in the Powell & Pressburger ballet-themed film The Red Shoes, (1948). Even her hair matched the titular footwear, and the role and film were so powerful that although she went on to star in other films and worked as a dancer for many decades, she is primarily known for playing "Vicky".

- "As he recalled, "here was this apparition with the reddest of red hair, a figure like an hour-glass, blue-green eyes the size of saucers, the prettiest of noses and a most pleasing voice." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/…/ob…/1509410/Moira-Shearer.html

- " Her cloud of red hair, as natural and beautiful as any animal's, flamed and glittered like an autumn bonfire. She had a magnificent body. She wasn't slim, she just didn't have one ounce of superfluous flesh." https://www.scotsman.com/…/moira-shearer-star-of-the-red-sh…

447) Gwen Verdon

Gwyneth Evelyn “Gwen” Verdon (1925 – 2000). American actress and dancer. She won four Tony awards for her musical comedy performances and served as uncredited choreographers assistant and specialty dance coach for both theater and film. Having originated many roles in musicals she is also strongly identified with her second husband, director–choreographer Bob Fosse.

- "With flaming red hair and a quaver in her voice, Verdon was a critically acclaimed performer on Broadway in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwen_Verdon

- "To show her dedication to the show, Verdon dyed her red hair, because she thought that Anna should be blonde [...] whenever she was in a show, they talked about the "flame-haired gree-orbed Gwen Verdon". She felt that the first thing was always her red hair. When the producer saw the sketches for her costumes, he felt that they were too plain, but he was assured by others that Verdon's red hair would make them stand out." https://books.google.it/books…

446) Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (born Miller; 1890 – 1976). English writer. She is known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Christie also wrote the world's longest-running play, a murder mystery, The Mousetrap, and six romances under the name Mary Westmacott. In 1971 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her contribution to literature.
Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books, behind only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author, having been translated into at least 103 languages.

And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the world record for longest initial run. It opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in the West End on 25 November 1952, and as of September 2018 is still running after more than 27,000 performances. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award. In 2013, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best crime novel ever by 600 fellow writers of the Crime Writers' Association.

She was the first British woman surfing standing up, in Waikiki (Hawaii) in 1922.

She is the only mystery writer to be promoted Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire only for her literary works.

- "Her natural intelligence and red hair made her a favourite with the soldiers and doctors, and she soon advanced to the dispensary. Here, she learnt a knowledge of drugs and poisons, invaluable to her later writing career." https://www.history.co.uk/biographies/agatha-christie

 

- "The hair bothered me every time I saw it, because Agatha Christie was a redhead as a young woman, not a brunette." https://peschelpress.com/teresa-reviews-agatha-christie-a-life-in-pictures-2004/

- "I never knew that she was a flaming redhead or that her father was American." https://bookishbeck.wordpress.com/tag/agatha-christie/

 

 

Description of A. Christie published in the Daily News when the writer went missing in 1926

 

445) Magda Gabor

Magdolna "Magda" Gabor (1915 – 1997). Hungarian-American actress and socialite and elder sister of Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor.

- "She stood 5'6" tall with red hair and gray eyes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magda_Gabor

- "She was the oldest and the only red-headed of the three Gabor sisters." https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3220/magda-gabor
 

- "Magda Gabor was said to be much like her father Vilmos, because she had his red hair, his fierce temper, was superintellectual and very much interested in literature." https://www.geni.com/people/Magda-Gabor/6000000007324512289

444) Red Buttons

Red Buttons (born Aaron Chwatt; 1919 – 2006). American actor and comedian. He won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his supporting role in the 1957 film Sayonara.

- "The combination of his red hair and the large, shiny buttons on the bellhop uniforms inspired orchestra leader Charles "Dinty" Moore to call him "Red Buttons," the name under which he would later perform." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Buttons

- "since he wore a bellhop uniform, he was, naturally, called Buttons, and at the time his hair was red. The name stuck, even though his hair turned dark brown as he got older." https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/14/arts/14buttons.html

443) George Sanders

George Henry Sanders (1906 – 1972). English film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author. His career as an actor spanned over forty years. His upper-class English accent and bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters.
For his role as the acerbic, cold-blooded theatre critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950), Sanders won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

- "He had reddish-brown hair with touches of grey." https://books.google.it/books…

- "George Sanders with red hair and beard." https://theblondeatthefilm.com/2016/12/05/the-black-swan/

442) Herbert B. Swope

Herbert Bayard Swope Sr. (1882 – 1958). U.S. editor, journalist and intimate of the Algonquin Round Table. Swope spent most of his career at the New York World. He was the first and three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Reporting. Swope was called the greatest reporter of his time by Lord Northcliffe of the London Daily Mail.

- "Red-haired, with a prowlike jaw and a jaunty, well-tailored figure, a man of cyclonic energies..." http://spartacus-educational.com/USAswope.htm
 

- "The journalist who sat down to go through the evidence was a young, tall red-haired man named Herbert Bayard Swope, an extroverted and utterly self-confident reporter..." https://books.google.it/books…

- "The tall, elegant, red-haired Swope was a man about town, a man who loved to gamble..." https://books.google.it/books…

441) Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas (born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie 1802 – 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père. French writer. His works have been translated into many languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of high adventure were originally published as serials, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later.

- "As Dumas was about to sit down for the performance, someone made a comment about his head of bushy red hair." https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Dumas%2C+Alexan…

440) Infante Francisco de Paula of Spain

Infante Francisco de Paula of Spain (1794 – 1865). Infante of Spain and the youngest son of Charles IV of Spain and Maria Luisa of Parma. He was a brother of Ferdinand VII, as well as the uncle and father-in-law of Queen Isabella II.  

In 1819, he married his niece, Princess Luisa Carlotta of Naples and Sicily, the eldest daughter of his older sister Maria Isabella. The couple had eleven children (among them the Infanta Isabel Fernanda of Spain) and were very active in political affairs. Luisa Carlotta was instrumental in securing the succession for Ferdinand VII's daughter, Queen Isabella II. Luisa Carlotta died in 1844, but, under pressure from French diplomacy, Queen Isabella II married Francisco de Asis in October 1846. As father-in-law to his niece the Queen, Infante Francisco de Paula occupied a prominent position at court during Isabella II's reign.

 - "Her husband is red-haired and ugly..." https://en.wikipedia.org/…/Infante_Francisco_de_Paula_of_Sp…