Ève Denise Curie Labouisse (December 6, 1904 – October 22, 2007) was a
French-American writer, journalist and pianist of Polish descent. Ève
Curie was the youngest daughter of Marie Salomea Skłodowska-Curie and
Pierre Curie. Her sister was Irène Joliot-Curie and her brother-in-law
Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Ève was the only member of her family who did not
choose a career as a scientist and did not win a Nobel Prize, though
her husband did. She worked as a journalist and authored her mother's
biography Madame Curie and a book of war reportage, Journey Among
Warriors. From the 1960s she committed herself to work for UNICEF,
providing help to children and mothers in developing countries.
Childhood
Ève Denise Curie was born in Paris, France on December 6, 1904. She was
the younger daughter of the scientists Marie and Pierre Curie, who also
had another daughter Irène (born 1897). Ève virtually did not know her
father, who died tragically in 1906 in an accident, run over by a horse
cart. After this accident, Marie Curie and her daughters were supported
for some time by their paternal grandfather Dr. Eugène Curie. When he
died in 1910, Marie Curie was forced to bring up her daughters herself
with the help of governesses. Even though Ève confessed later that as a
child she had suffered from a lack of sufficient attention of her mother
and that only later, in her teens, she developed a stronger emotional
bond to her, Marie took great care for the education and development of
interests of both her daughters. Whereas Irène followed in her mother's
footsteps and became an eminent scientist (she was awarded the Nobel
Prize in Chemistry with her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie in 1935), Ève
showed more artistic and literary interests. Even as a child she
displayed a particular talent for music.
Marie Curie also took care of the physical development of the girls.
Whatever the weather, they went on long walks and rode on bikes. They
went swimming in summer, and Marie had gymnastics equipment installed in
the garden of their house in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine. Ève and Irène also
learned sewing, gardening and cooking.
Although the girls were French nationals (Ève became later an American
citizen), and their first language was French, they were familiar with
their Polish origin and spoke Polish. In 1911 they visited Poland, which
was then under Russian rule. The main purpose of the visit was to visit
with Bronisława Skłodowska, Marie's sister, who was staying in a
sanatorium at the time. During their visit to Poland, they also rode
horses and hiked in the mountains.
Youth
In 1921, 16-year-old Ève set off on her first journey across the
Atlantic Ocean: that spring, she sailed with her sister and mother on
board the ship RMS Olympic to New York City. Marie Curie, as a two-time
laureate of the Nobel Prize, the discoverer of radium and polonium, was
welcomed there with all due ceremony; her daughters were also very
popular with American high society. Radiant at parties and joyous, Ève
was dubbed by the press "the girl with radium eyes". During the trip Ève
and Irène also acted as their mother's "bodyguards" – Marie, usually
focused on research work and preferring a simple life, did not always
feel comfortable facing the homage paid to her. While in the United
States, Marie, Irène and Ève met President Warren G. Harding in
Washington, D.C., saw the Niagara Falls and went by train to see the
Grand Canyon. They returned to Paris in June 1921.
Ève, like her sister Irène, graduated from the Collège Sévigné in Paris,
where she obtained two bachelor's degrees, in Science and Philosophy,
in 1925. Meanwhile, she also improved her piano skills and gave her
first concert in Paris in 1925. Later, she performed on stage many
times, giving concerts in the French capital, in the provinces and in
Belgium.
After Irène married Frédéric Joliot in 1926, Ève stayed with her mother
in Paris, taking care of her and accompanying her on trips throughout
France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland. In 1932, they also accompanied
President of Czechoslovakia Tomáš Masaryk on his trip to Spain.
Although she loved her mother, Ève had a quite different personality
from her (and from her sister Irène). She was not interested in science,
preferring the humanities. Unlike her mother, she was always attracted
by refined life. Whereas Marie usually wore simple, black dresses, Ève,
with an attractive appearance, always cared about smart clothes, wore
high-heeled shoes and make-up, and loved shining at parties. However,
both Ève and Irène nursed her mother with devotion til her death. Marie,
ill with aplastic anemia, probably caused by her long-term exposure to
radium, died on July 4, 1934.
Mother's biography
After Marie Curie's death, Ève decided to give voice to her love for her
by writing her biography. To this end, she temporarily withdrew from
social life and moved to a small flat in Auteuil, Yvelines, where she
gathered and sorted out documents and letters left by Marie. In autumn
1935, she also visited her family in Poland, looking for information
about her mother's childhood and youth. The fruit of this work was the
biography Madame Curie, simultaneously published in France, Britain,
Italy, Spain, the United States and other countries in 1937.
The biography became highly popular instantly upon its publication; in
many countries (including the United States) it was a bestseller. The
book won the 1937 National Book Award for Fiction, and was adapted for
the silver screen in 1943 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with Greer Garson in
the title role.
In later years, however, Marie Curie's biography often met with
criticism of science historians, who accused Ève of presenting her
mother in an over-sentimental way and failing to mention, for example,
Marie's love affair with Paul Langevin, her husband's former student.
Langevin was a married man and a father of four; their relationship,
established after Pierre Curie's death, caused a great scandal in early
twentieth century France. Ève was also accused of not presenting all the
troubles and insults her mother had to suffer from French scientific
circles and the gutter press.
Ève became more and more engaged in literary and journalistic work.
Apart from her mother's biography, she published musical reviews in the
Candide weekly and articles on theatre, music and film in other Paris
newspapers.
Second World War
After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the novelist and
playwright Jean Giraudoux, who had become the French Information
Commissioner (Commissaire général à l'information) in the same year,
appointed Ève Curie head of the feminine division in his office. After
Germany invaded France, Ève left Paris on June 11, 1940, and after the
surrender of France she fled with other refugees on board an overcrowded
ship to England, which was strafed by German aircraft. There she joined
the Free French Forces of General Charles de Gaulle and started her
active fight against Nazism, which resulted in the Vichy government's
depriving her of French nationality and confiscating her property in
1941.
Ève Curie spent most of the war years in Britain, where she met Winston
Churchill, and the United States, where she gave lectures and wrote
articles to American newspapers (mostly the New York Herald Tribune. In
1940 she met Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House. Inspired by this
visit, she later gave a series of lectures on French Women and the War;
in May 1940 The Atlantic Monthly published her essay under the same
title.
From November 1941 to April 1942, Ève Curie traveled as a war
correspondent to Africa, the Soviet Union and Asia, where she witnessed
the British offensive in Egypt and Libya in December 1941 and the Soviet
counter-offensive at Moscow in January 1942. During this journey she
met the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the leader of Free China,
Chiang Kai-shek, fighting the Japanese, and Mahatma Gandhi. Several
times, she also had the opportunity to meet her half-compatriots, Polish
soldiers, who fought on the side of the British or organized the Polish
Army in the Soviet Union. Curie's reports from this journey were
published in American newspapers, and in 1943 they were gathered in the
book Journey Among Warriors, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize
for Correspondence in 1944 (eventually losing to Ernest Taylor Pyle)
After her return to Europe, Ève Curie served as a volunteer in the
women's medical corps of the Free French during the Italian Campaign,
where she was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the 1st Armored
Division. In August 1944 she took part in landing with her troops in
Provence in southern France. She was decorated with the Croix de guerre
for her services.
After the war
After the liberation of France, Ève Curie first worked as a co-editor of
the daily newspaper Paris-Presse from 1944 to 1949, but was also active
in the political sphere. For example, she was responsible for women's
affairs in de Gaulle's government, and in 1948 along with other
prominent European intellectuals, she appealed to the United Nations for
recognition of the state of Israel. In the years 1952-1954, she was a
special advisor to Hastings Lionel Ismay, the first Secretary General of
NATO. On 19 November 1954 she married the American politician and
diplomat Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr., who served as the United
States Ambassador to Greece from 1962 to 1965. Ève Curie became an
American citizen in 1958.
Work for UNICEF
In 1965, Ève's husband gave up his job in the U.S. government when the
Secretary General of the United Nations U Thant offered him the position
of the Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF.
Labouisse held this office till 1979, actively supported by his wife,
who also worked for the organization and was often called "the First
Lady of UNICEF". Together, they visited more than 100 countries, mostly
in the Third World, which were beneficiaries of UNICEF's help. In 1965,
Labouisse, accompanied by his wife, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize,
which was awarded to his organization.
Last years of life
After her husband's death in 1987, Ève lived in New York City. She had
no children from her marriage to Henry Labouisse, and was only visited
by her stepdaughter, Anne Peretz (Labouisse's only daughter, born of his
first marriage).
In December 2004, Ève Curie's celebrated her one-hundredth birthday. On
this occasion, she was visited in her New York flat by the Secretary
General of the United Nations Kofi Annan. She also received
congratulatory letters from the presidents of the United States – George
W. Bush – and France – Jacques Chirac.
In July 2005, Ève Curie Labouisse was promoted for her work in UNICEF to
the rank of ‘Officier de la Légion d’Honneur’ of the Republic of France
- the country’s highest decoration. She expressed thanks for the
decoration, saying:
I feel honoured, I feel proud. I'm a little embarrassed because I
don't think I deserve all those wonderful compliments, so I just don't
quite know how to behave. But it's a really wonderful day for me and I
will remember it for a very long time.
She sometimes joked that she brought shame on her family. "There were
five Nobel Prizes in my family," she joked, "two for my mother, one for
my father, one for [my] sister and brother-in-law and one for my
husband. Only I was not successful…".
Ève Curie died in her sleep on 22 October 2007 in her residence on Sutton Place in Manhattan, aged 102.
Ann Veneman, the Executive Director of UNICEF, said after her death:
Mrs. Labouisse was a talented professional woman who used her many
skills to promote peace and development. While her husband headed
UNICEF, she played a very active role in the organization, traveling
with him to advocate for children and to provide support and
encouragement to UNICEF staff in remote and difficult locations. Her
energy and her commitment to the betterment of the world should serve as
an inspiration to us all.