Mildred Albert

Mildred Elizabeth Albert (née Levine; January 14, 1905 – August 26, 1991) was an American Broadway performer, fashion commentator, modeling agency director, fashion show producer, radio and television personality, and society columnist. Born in Russia as the youngest of four children of Thomas Levine and Elizabeth Sugarman Levine, she immigrated to the United States with her Jewish family at three months of age following pogroms, and the family settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Her father worked in construction and real estate development in Brookline.

Albert graduated from the Sargent School of Physical Education in 1926 and subsequently taught gym at Somerville High School. In 1928 she married James Albert, a Harvard-educated attorney, and the couple had two daughters and one son, residing on Beacon Hill with a summer house in Beverly Farms. Her husband coined her nickname "Mighty Atom," drawing on her initials M.A. and her high-energy personality. Following her marriage, Albert taught dance, art, and literature at the Florence Street Settlement House in Boston, and also taught posture at Massachusetts General Hospital while giving private lessons in poise and etiquette.

In 1934 Albert appeared on Broadway in the play Within the Gates. She went on to build a multifaceted career in the fashion industry. In 1936 she founded the Academie Moderne finishing school in her Beacon Hill home, offering instruction in poise, proper walking, and good diction, as well as cultural visits to museums and ballet performances. The school later relocated with the Albert family to 35 Commonwealth Avenue, where ownership of the property was transferred from the Alberts to the Academie Moderne in 1942. Together with Francis and Muriel Williams Hart, Albert co-founded Hart Model Agency and Promotions, Inc. in 1944 to train women for modeling careers, also operating out of her Commonwealth Avenue home. Both institutions continued at that address into the 1980s, and the family itself resided there until 1967.

As director of the modeling agency, Albert developed new formats for fashion presentations, including around-the-pool fashion shows, luncheon fashion shows, and the first cocktail fashion shows. She cultivated industry relationships by hosting a weekly luncheon and fashion show at a local hotel that drew between 500 and 600 attendees, and she attracted prominent designers to Boston through cocktail parties at her home. Over the course of her career she produced thousands of fashion shows, among them a show marking the 100th anniversary of the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers and the Million Dollar Back Bay Fashion Show. She scripted, produced, and commentated on the thrice-daily fashion shows at the New England Pavilion during the 1964 New York World's Fair, reported on the first White House fashion show in 1968, and served as a coordinator for the Miss Massachusetts beauty pageants during the 1970s. Albert also staged charity fashion shows benefiting the March of Dimes, UNICEF, DuPont, Celanese, the United States Rubber Company, and other organizations. She made monthly visits to design studios and shows in New York City and traveled to Europe twice yearly to interview designers and report on fashion trends, earning her the title of Boston's "First Lady of Fashion."

Albert was also a prominent radio and television personality. In the late 1930s she hosted the weekly radio program "Youthful Loveliness" on WEEI, and in the 1960s and 1970s she hosted "Fashion As I See It" on WCRB. During the 1950s she joined the CBS New England lecture circuit, speaking on the topic "Gracious Living," and began appearing on television programs devoted to fashion and beauty. In the 1980s she joined CBS's Good Day program as a fashion-show reporter, conducting interviews with designers including Geoffrey Beene, Bill Blass, Pierre Cardin, Coco Chanel, Oscar de la Renta, Christian Dior, Norman Hartnell, Halston, Anne Klein, Ralph Lauren, Emilio Pucci, Simonetta, and Pauline Trigere in cities including Paris, London, Rome, New York, and Boston. From 1981 to 1991 she wrote a society column for Tab newspapers covering fashion shows and charity benefits.

In 1981 Albert sold both the Academie Moderne and Hart Model Agency, continuing as dean emeritus of the former and consultant at the latter. She remained active on the Boston fashion scene into her eighties, inaugurating a Saturday-afternoon luncheon and fashion show at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston in 1985 that she continued to run until shortly before her death. Seven hundred guests attended her 82nd birthday celebration, at which Calvin Klein, Bill Blass, and Oscar de la Renta sent recorded tributes.

Among the honors Albert received were the 1975 Fashion Show Consultant of the Year Award from the March of Dimes, the State of Israel Bonds 35th Anniversary Award in 1983, a proclamation from Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis on October 29, 1986, and a declaration by Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn of April 19, 1990, as "Mildred Albert Day," which also named her Boston's "official grand dame." She had earlier served as a board member of the Hebrew Teachers College in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, during the 1920s and 1930s.

Albert died in Boston on August 26, 1991, at the age of 86. Her funeral was held at Temple Israel, and she was buried at Sharon Memorial Park in Sharon, Massachusetts. The Mildred Levine Albert Papers, covering the years 1910 to 1991, are preserved at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College.