Felicia Montealegre
Felicia Cohn Montealegre (born 6 February 1922, Chile – died 16 June 1978, East Hampton, New York) was a stage and television actress. From 1951 until her death, she was the wife of American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein.
Born to Roy Cohn, the head of the American Smelting and Refining Company (not to be confused with Roy Cohn, the aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy) in Santiago, Chile, Felicia Cohn Montealegre established herself in New York. She studied piano with Claudio Arrau and met composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein at a party Arrau gave in 1946. She and Bernstein became engaged to be married but this was broken off. Thereafter she had an affair of several years duration with Broadway and Hollywood actor Richard Hart. After Hart's death, she married Bernstein in 1951. They had three children, Jamie, Alexander and Nina.
Montealegre is heard speaking on two works that he conducted and recorded - his own Kaddish Symphony as well as a version of Debussy's Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien, which is partially performed in English.
She also appeared in several dramas during the Golden Age of Television, including a 1950 dramatization of Ibsen's A Doll's House on Kraft Television Theatre, in which she played Nora. Although Montealegre appeared on television, she made no feature films.
She starred in the 1976 Broadway play Poor Murderer.
Montealegre features prominently in Tom Wolfe's book Radical Chic.
