| Ève Curie | |
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 Ève Curie on the cover of Time magazine (1940) |
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| Born | Ève Curie December 6, 1904 Paris, France |
| Died | October 22, 2007 (aged 102) New York City, NY, U.S. |
| Occupation | Journalist, pianist |
| Nationality | French-American, of Polish descent |
| Citizenship | France (1904-2007) U.S. (1958-2007) |
| Alma mater | Collège Sévigné |
| Notable work(s) | Madame Curie Journey Among Warriors |
| Spouse(s) | Henry Richardson Labouisse, Jr. (1954-1987) (widowed) |
| Relative(s) | Marie Curie (mother), Pierre Curie (father), Irène Joliot-Curie (sister) |
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 younger daughter of Marie 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. She worked as a journalist; she was also the author of her mother's biography Madame Curie and the 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.
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Ève Curie was born in Paris on December 6, 1904. She was the younger daughter of the couple of 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, which was a very traumatic experience for Ève's mother, Marie Curie and her daughters were supported for some time by their father-in-law Eugène Curie. When he died soon afterwards in 1910, Marie Curie was forced to bring up her daughters herself and with the help of governesses. Even though Ève confessed later that as a child she had suffered from lack of sufficient attention of her mother and that only later, in her teens, she developed a stronger emotional bond to her[1], Marie took great care for the education and development of interests of 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; already as a child she displayed a talent especially for music.
Marie Curie also took care of the physical development of the girls. Whatever the weather, they went on long walks, rode on bikes, went swimming in summer, and in the garden of their house in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, Marie had gymnastics equipment installed. Ève and Irène also learned sewing, gardening and cooking.
Marie's both daughters, although they were French nationals (Ève became later an American citizen), and their first language was French, were aware of their Polish origin and spoke Polish. In 1911 they visited with her mother's country, Poland, which was then under Russian rule. The main purpose of the visit was the meeting with Bronisława Skłodowska, Marie's sister, who was staying in sanatorium at that time; however, during their visit to Poland, they also rode horses and hiked in the mountains.[2]
In 1921 the 16-year old Ève set off on her first journey across the Atlantic Ocean; in spring that year 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. Shining at parties and joyous Ève was then even dubbed by the press "the girl with radium eyes"[3]. During the trip Ève and Irène also acted as her mother's "bodyguards" – Marie, usually focused on research work and preferring simple life did not always feel comfortable, facing the homage paid to her. During the visit to the United States, Marie, Irène and Ève met President Warren G. Harding in Washington, D.C., saw the [[Niagara Falls] and then went by train to see the Grand Canyon, where they went on a ride on mules. They returned to Paris in June 1921.
Ève, like earlier her sister Irène, graduated from Collège Sévigné in Paris, where she obtained two bachelor degrees in Science and Philosophy in 1925. All the time, she also improved her pianist skills and gave her first piano concert in Paris in 1925. Later, she performed on stage many times, giving concerts in the French capital, in the provinces of France and in Belgium.
After Irène had married Frédéric Joliot in 1926, Ève stayed with her mother in Paris, taking care of her and accompanying her on trips around France, to Italy, Belgium, Switzerland. In 1932, they also accompanied President of Czechoslovakia Tomáš Masaryk on his trip to Spain.
Ève, even though she loved her mother, had a quite different personality from her (and from her sister Irène). She was not interested in science, preferring 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, loved shining at parties. However, both Ève and Irène nursed her mother with devotion till her death – Marie, ill with aplastic anemia, caused probably by her long-term exposure to radium, died on July 4, 1934[2].
After Marie Curie's death, Ève decided to give voice to her love to her, 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, published in 1937 simultaneously in France, Britain, Italy, Spain, the United States and other countries.
The biography became highly popular already at the moment of its publication; in many countres (including the US) it was a bestseller. In 1937 the book won the National Book Award for Fiction, and in 1943 it was screened by the Hollywood company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (originally, the principal part was to have been played by Greta Garbo, eventually Marie Curie was personated by Greer Garson).
On the other hand, especially in later times, 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, a married man and a father of four, with whom she established a relationship after Pierre's death, which 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 the French scientific circles and the gutter press.
Ève was 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[2].
After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Ève Curie was appointed by the novelist and playwright Jean Giraudoux, who had become the French Information Commissioner (Commissaire général à l'information) in the same year, head of the feminine division in his office. After Germany had invaded France, Ève left Paris on June 11, 1940, and after the surrender of France she fled with other refugees on board an overcrowded and strafed by German aircraft ship to England. There she joined the Free French Forces of General Charles de Gaulle and started her active fight against Nazism, which resulted in depriving her of French nationality by the Vichy France government in May 1941 and confiscating her property that she had left in France.
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 New York Herald Tribune. In 1940 she met Eleanor Roosevelt in 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 British or organized the Polish Army in the Soviet Union. Curie' 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, it did not win the prize, which went to Ernest Taylor Pyle, also for war reporting.)[2]
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, in which 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 (War Cross) for her services.
After the liberation of France Ève Curie first worked as a co-editor of the daily newspaper Paris-Presse in the years 1944-1949, but she was also active in the political sphere. She was responsible for example for women's affairs in de Gaulle's government; and in 1948 she, along with other prominent European intellectuals, supported the establishment of the state of Israel, appealing to the United Nations for recognition of the state. 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.
In 1965, Ève's husband gave up his job in the US administration 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, received the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to his organization.[4]
After her husband's death in 1987, Ève lived in New York City. She had no own children out of her marriage with Henry Labouisse; she was only visited by her stepdaughter Anne Peretz, Labouisse's only daughter, born out of his first marriage.
In December 2004, Ève Curie' one hundredth birthday was celebrated. 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 decorated for her work in UNICEF with the highest French order – the French Legion. She thanked 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. [5]
She sometimes said about herself jokingly that she brought shame on here family. "There were five Nobel Prizes in my family," she joked, "two for my mother, one for my father, one for sister and brother-in-law and one for my husband. Only I was not successful…".[6]
Ève Curie died in her sleep on 22 October 2007 in her residence in Sutton Place, 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. [7]
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