(1903 – 1987) Pathbreaking writer and public servant. Although born near poverty she worked her way up through Vogue and Vanity Fair to marry Time magnate Henry Luce before producing her wonderfully catty play, The Women (1936), about gender and society In the 1940s, she became a congresswoman from Connecticut. Later, she became the first woman ambassador to a major European country serving in Italy between 1953 and 1957, perhaps as a nod to her highly publicized 1946 conversion to Catholicism. Luce continued to serve as advisor to Republican presidents for decades.