Ghost Army Legacy Project

George Nardiello

12/7/2020

George Nardiello was a fashin designer who married a countess and became the personal fashion designer of Marilyn Monroe.

George was born on January 28, 1922 in Manhattan, one of four sons. His father, Vincent Nardiello, was the doctor for the NY State Boxing Commission, and also treated injured hockey players for the NY Americans and the NY Rangers. (Dr. Nardiello was said to have sewn 233 miles of stitches into those hockey players, and one of them referred to him as the "fastest needle in the Old Northeast.")

A 1991 article in the Palm Beach Post reports that George grew up "in a sportingly cosmopolitan atmosphere." He attended several colleges, including Yale, before the war, dropping out of all of them. Seeing George's interest in design, his father was able to hook him up with Anthony Blotta, a New York fashion designer, who took him on as a fabric stretcher; the experience "amounted to a classic apprenticeship."

George registered for the draft on June 30, 1942, using the middle name of "Fox." ("Fox" was his mother's maiden name; later on in life he used the middle name of "Francis.") When he enlisted, he joined the 603rd, where he served in Company C. He served in Europe with the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops.

After the war, George took up his studies again, this time with a better idea of what he wanted in life. He graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York in 1948. Shortly after his graduation he and fellow Ghost Army veteran Bill Blass, Parsons '49, were among the winners of the prestigious Chicago Tribune American Fashion Competition Award. Nardiello and Blass would go on to see their designs among the winners almost every year through 1953. He and Blass would remain friends for the rest of their lives.

Nardiello made a reputation as a designer of cocktail and evening gowns, traveling to Europe four times a year for inspiration and personal renewal. Unlike Blass he did not pursue his own label, but worked for design labels Anthony Blotta, Kiki Hart, Cameo, and Rona.

In 1954, he married a woman he described as "very social, very grand, very beautiful," Italian contessa Marisa Pompei de Lassi. The Palm Beach Post article says that their daughter, Mia, their only child, was "the only baby in the fashion business who had her clothes made by Blass and Norman Norell."

In 1955, Nardiello became the designer for the personal wardrobe of Marilyn Monroe; they had been introduced by photographer Milton Greene; she was looking for a designer to create her "New Look." In Norman Mailer's 1973 biography of Marilyn, he quotes an interview in which she said that she liked Nardiello because he was "well-groomed and slim and fit into [his] clothes like a beautiful hand . . . inside a glove . . . [he] was so happy inside his suit. It was like the person within . . . also had a good suit which was their own skin." He maintained his "day job," and worked with Monroe on weekends.

Nardiello says that "she was very difficult to design for because she wanted everything to look like a slip. Everything had to be skin tight. You had to reinforce every seam or everything would break."

After several years, Monroe went back to Hollywood and that was the end of their relationship. (Though he was called to her side in 1962 when he was asked to sew her into the Jean Louis dress she wore to sing "Happy Birthday" at John F. Kennedy's birthday party at Madison Square Garden.)

Other stars who wore his signature gowns included Marlene Dietrich, Mitzi Gaynor, Rosalind Russell, and Jayne Mansfield.

George and Marisa divorced about 1973, and he says that the settlement nearly broke him. He continued to design his trademark long flowing evening gowns, and became sought after in Republican political circles. His gowns were part of the private collections hand picked by First Lady Pat Nixon and Lenore Romney (George's wife and Mitt's mother).

In about 1980, George met David Blank, and the two men developed a committed relationship that lasted for 25 years.

By 1985, George could see that "nobody wanted glamour anymore. . . . I had put 40 years in on Seventh Avenue, and I had some money in the bank. I thought to myself, 'Why am I spending all this money to live in New York when I don't enjoy it anymore?'" So he packed it in and moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, staying busy two days a week with a volunteer gig at a Pompano Beach thrift shop whose proceeds bought groceries for AIDS patients.

In 1991, he did his first designs in six years, working on two outfits for Marti Huizenga, wife of Florida Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga, to wear to her children's weddings.

In 2002, George moved to Palm Springs, CA. He died on December 10, 2005 after a long illness. (His partner, David Blank, had died earlier in the year.)

Author: Catherine Beyer Hurst, Noember 2020

Sources

1942 draft registration
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=2238&h=195377847&tid=&pid=&queryId=55cbcbc165b9447f6f0c96dd0a5f4a19&usePUB=true&_phsrc=GOU5&_phstart=successSource

1948 Chicago Tribune article with a photo of one of his dress designs
https://www.newspapers.com/image/370347747/?terms=george%2Bf%2Bnardiello

1949 Chicago Tribune article re win in fashion competition (along with Bill Blass)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/370887454/?terms=george%2Bf%2Bnardiello

1953 Chicago Tribune article about his preliminary win in a fashion competition
https://www.newspapers.com/image/371268525/?terms=george%2Bf%2Bnardiello

1954 marriage license index
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=61406&h=4149512&tid=&pid=&queryId=05e0d4e15c1f4eeed301be3a1e8ffab2&usePUB=true&_phsrc=GOU14&_phstart=successSource

1955 Dorothy Kilgallen column describing his work with Marilyn Monroe
https://www.newspapers.com/image/587124556/?terms=george%2Bf%2Bnardiello

1991 article in The Palm Beach Post (FL) about his designs for Marilyn Monroe (and other biographical details)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/132747609

2005 obituary in Desert Sun (Palm Springs CA)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/193897231/?article=589adccc-87af-44de-98d9-117f84dbf640&focus=0.47548681,0.60996956,0.9529935,0.9716249&xid=3355&_ga=2.114496647.1891739893.1605381966-1455753296.1605042556

2005 Social Security death record
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=3693&h=76769271&tid=&pid=&queryId=05e0d4e15c1f4eeed301be3a1e8ffab2&usePUB=true&_phsrc=HqY1&_phstart=successSource

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John "Jack" Swift Anderegg, Jr.

10/7/2020

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John Anderegg went from MIT to the Army back to MIT, and on to a career as an entrepreneur and engineer.

Anderegg was was born in 1924 in Philadelphia He grew up in Colonia, NJ. His father had served in the American Expeditionary Forces in France in WW1, immediately after his graduation from Cornell, and his grandfather, born in Switzerland, had been a professor at Oberlin.

He attended MIT but did not finish his degree before leaving to join the Army.

He served in the 3133rd Signal Company Special, which operated as an independent sonic deception unit in Italy in 1945.

When he came home from Europe he used the GI Bill to study shorthand for a year at a secretarial school so he could take better and more complete notes when he returned to MIT! Graduated from MIT in 1949.

He was an "intuitive mechanic," a traveling salesman for American Wire, an engineer with Draper Labs, and an open wheel auto racing enthusiast. Later in life he also studied blacksmithing in North Carolina.

In 1955 he was one of the founders of Dynamics Research Corp, a technology/management consulting firm in Massachusetts, primarily serving the Department of Defense, and other government agencies). He served as President and Chairman from 1955-1986.

He married Hope Ingersoll in 1959 and they had 3 children. They lived primarily in Carlisle, Massachusetts, and he was active in Republican politics.

After her death he married Frances Garland, and retired with her to Buzzards Bay. He died at home on August 5, 2015.

Author: Catherine Beyer Hurst, August 2020

Sources:
This obituary provides most of the detail in the above biography.
https://www.capenews.net/bourne/obituaries/john-s-anderegg-jr/article_04d25efc-3f8e-11e5-b825-bf2b84c3d503.html

Draft Registration:(https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=2238&h=301832600&tid=&pid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=bdi2&_phstart=successSource

The following link contains an excerpt from a document published in 1985 by the US Govt Printing Office entitled Climate for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the United States: A Silicon Valley perspective Jack Anderegg is quoted extensively when he appeared before Congress' Joint Economic Committee.

https://books.google.com/books?id=vR0mIifsWc8C&pg=PA227&lpg=PA227&dq=john+s+anderegg+jr&source=bl&ots=R52bOsdf2B&sig=ACfU3U0tEMZPc_KpP-G4-OXjIbWECEA1rg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjZ68nngf3oAhWTlXIEHaSJChsQ6AEwCHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=john%20s%20anderegg%20jr&f=false

This Boston Globe article from 1968 provides some detail about the performance of his company at that time.https://www.newspapers.com/image/434394256/?terms=john%2Bs%2Banderegg%2Bjr

1949 MIT yearbook photo
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=1265&h=469317981&tid=&pid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Yvr12&_phstart=successSource

Photo later in life
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/john-anderegg-obituary?pid=175455469

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PFC Claude Dern, 603rd

8/15/2020

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Claude Joseph Leon Dern was born on March 4, 1906 in Désertines, France, a small town in northwest France, about 40 miles from the coast. His parents had been raised by nuns in an orphanage. The family was poor.

Claude recalled in an interview later in life that, although both of his parents were born in France, his father's parents had been born in Germany and he remembered the family being called "Boche" during World War I.

Claude's granddaughter says that he left school at 10 to become a cowherd, and then left home at the age of 18 to seek his fortune. He served as a private in the French army for two years during this period in his life. While working as a waiter in the south of France, he met the Goodmans, a couple from Dorset, Vermont, and they encouraged him to visit them. He emigrated to the US in October, 1929 and went to Dorset, and the Goodmans took him in. He was to remain in Dorset for most of the rest of his life.

Two years after arriving, he opened a French restaurant in Dorset, the Lafayette, which he owned and operated until 1936. He had married Olive Harwood in 1935, and their daughter, Suzanne, was born in 1936. In 1937, the couple divorced.

Claude took his oath as a US citizen on September 1, 1938, in Rutland, Vermont. According to an article in the local paper, he changed his name from Claude Leon Joseph Durn to Claude Dern.

He also took up painting in Vermont. In France he had had no ambition to be a painter, nor any art lessons. But over the years in Dorset, before the war, he commuted to New York City to take classes at the Art Students League and Grand Central Art School (which closed in 1944); according to his army enlistment form, he accumulated a college degree. An example of his residence in this period--in April, 1940, he was living as a lodger in Manhattan, presumably taking courses. In October, 1940, when he registered for the draft, he was back in Dorset.

While in New York, there were four exhibits of his work at different galleries, including a 1941 exhibit at the Vendome Art Galleries in Manhattan.

Also during 1941 he was teaching drawing and portrait classes at the Mid-Vermont Artists Studio in Rutland, and he held his first one-man show at the Bennington Museum of Arts that year.

On December 27, 1941, he married Dr. Elizabeth Byrnes, an endocrinologist and pathologist, in her home town of East Orange, New Jersey. They moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where she had accepted a teaching job at the University of Wisconsin.

Claude enlisted in the Army on September 1, 1942 in Rutland, Vermont. He stated at that time that he had four years of college, was a commercial artist and a US citizen.

He served in Company D of the 603rd Camouflage Engineers, but evidence suggests he did not go to Europe with the 23rd Headquarters Troops. His granddaughter says he served in Wisconsin. His obituary and a couple of other articles say that he was in the 603rd and also worked in Army Intelligence as a Staff Sergeant.

He was hospitalized for tuberculosis (reinfection--chronic or arrested) in a military hospital (no record of where the hospital was) in March 1944, released from the hospital that same year, and released from the army on January 21, 1945.

After the war he and Elizabeth moved back to New Jersey, along with their son, Claude Garrett, who had been born in December, 1943. Claude took a job teaching at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, and taught adult classes at Columbia High School. He also ran a private art school in Maplewood, New Jersey. Their second son, Robert John, was born in New Jersey in September, 1948. While they spent summers in Dorset, Vermont, he remained a New Jersey schoolteacher until 1954, when his wife retired from her medical work and they resettled in Dorset permanently.

Once back in Vermont, Claude did a considerable amount of painting, and spent time as a dairy farmer, a strawberry farmer (he was known as the "Dorset Strawberry King"), and an "interior and exterior decorating contractor". He also was involved in politics for some years. He and his wife both threw themselves into local organizations and causes.

In the art world, he was known for watercolors and oils, and primarily for portraits, though he also painted landscapes and still lifes. He held a number of one-man shows--in newspaper articles I found shows at in Taylor Park, New Jersey in 1952, at the Southern Vermont Art Center in 1953, at the Kellogg--Hubbard Library in Montpelier in 1960, at the Chaffee Gallery in Rutland in 1973, and at the Dorset Library in 1975. He won awards from the Allied Artists of America, the New Jersey Watercolor Society, and the Vermont Art Guild. His art has also been exhibited in Mexico, Canada, and France. At the time of his death, his paintings graced the US Embassy in France, the French Embassy in the US, and the Vermont State House, along with a variety of museums, corporations, and private collections.

He became active in town and state politics shortly after coming back to Dorset. He was elected town "lister" (related to assessment) for four years, also serving as the first VP of the Vermont Listers Association in 1959. In 1958, he ran successfully as a Republican for the state legislature. (Interestingly enough, he won both the Republican and Democratic primaries that year; he received 4 votes in the Democratic primary, but that was enough!)

He said at one point (in reference to his strawberry farm) that he was "planting strawberries...and cultivating voters." In the 1958 election he wrote to both Charles de Gaulle and Brigitte Bardot to ask them to come to Vermont to campaign for him; no record that they did so, but these tidbits were picked up in dozens of newspaper articles.

He spent one term in the state legislature (1959-1960) where he sponsored bills to bring parimutuel horse racing to Vermont, and to liberalize the Sunday liquor laws in the state.

He lost his attempt to garner the Republican nomination for the US House of Representatives in 1960, and switched his allegiance to the Democratic party in 1961. He also ran unsuccessfully for the state senate in 1964 and 1974.

He was elected at least twice as a Justice of the Peace during the 1960s and early 1970s, and also served as a member of the Dorset School Board in the mid-70s.

He explained his involvement in politics in a 1974 article: "I've done about everything a man can do in the course of his life. . . . Life has been good to me, so I owe it to this state and country to do what I can."

In the community he had become active in the Dorset Players (a local theatrical group) when he moved to Dorset in 1929, and remained involved with that organization for decades, serving for a time as President. He was a Cub Scout den chief in 1956, and a Trustee of the Historical Society in 1977. He also served as President of the Fish and Game Club, President of the PTA, and Commander of the Dorset American Legion Post.

His wife, who had given up her medical career when they moved to Dorset, also became active in the community. She was active in the Dorset Players, the PTA, and her church, and was a school bus driver and a hockey coach. When her sons got older she took some medical refresher courses in preparation for returning to medicine, and and "Dr. Betty" became the only doctor with a medical practice in Dorset in 1961. She served as a beloved town fixture for 11 years until her retirement.

Claude died of Alzheimer's disease at the Vermont Veterans Home on March 30, 1995.

A Note About His Sons

His older son followed in his parents' footsteps, with an eclectic and interesting life.

Claude Garrett Dern, according to a remembrance by Patrick White after his death in 2018, was a "logger, trucker, surveyor, author, electrician, poet, country store owner, talking-bear owner . . . , natural-born educator. And character."

Claude was perhaps most recognizable through his television series, “Vermont Forests,” which was produced for 10 years through CAT-TV, a public access TV service in southern Vermont. The series started in 1996 as a 15-minute show, was a half-hour long by the second episode, and eventually became a one-hour show running monthly.

Patrick concludes: "Like any good Renaissance man, Claude was also an author. In addition to titles such as A Flatlanders Guide: How to be Accepted in Vermont, he wrote a whole series of 'one-a-night' mystery books set in towns throughout southern Vermont. And when the Internet came around, Claude created an online site called “Beartown News,” where he was listed as editor, typesetter, and janitor, while Bruin [his talking bear] was 'cub reporter.' He also had a radio show of the same name."

The Derns' younger son, Robert John, was a CPA, and also an LGBTQ and AIDS awareness activist in the San Francisco area. He was diagnosed HIV positive in 1984, and lived with the disease for 32 years, staying active in his profession while many of his close friends, and eventually his former partner, died of the disease. He died in 2017.

Author: Catherine Beyer Hurst, August 2020
Sources:

1929 emigration
https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/49977729/person/20271700613/facts?_phsrc=nTx1&_phstart=successSource

1937 Vermont divorce record
https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8954/images/31394_203773-00346?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&queryId=47337f294161db7435c2e865b6d39f25&usePUB=true&_phsrc=nTx19&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.172057955.1989205010.1596823373-977700585.1590688964&pId=900145471

1938 article in Rutland Daily Herald re his naturalization
https://www.newspapers.com/image/533740540/?terms=claude%2Bdern

April 1940 census
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=2442&h=11161099&tid=&pid=&queryId=47337f294161db7435c2e865b6d39f25&usePUB=true&_phsrc=nTx10&_phstart=successSource

October 1940 draft card
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=2238&h=269553732&tid=&pid=&queryId=47337f294161db7435c2e865b6d39f25&usePUB=true&_phsrc=nTx4&_phstart=successSource

1941 marriage record
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=61253&h=991454995&tid=&pid=&queryId=47337f294161db7435c2e865b6d39f25&usePUB=true&_phsrc=nTx23&_phstart=successSource

1941 article in Bennington Evening Banner about his life and art
https://www.newspapers.com/image/546148463/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1941 article in Rutland Daily Herald about his first one-man show
https://www.newspapers.com/image/533796556/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1942 article in Rutland Daily Herald about his marriage; mentions move to Wisconsin
https://www.newspapers.com/image/534076095/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1942 enlistment record
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=8939&h=4538892&tid=&pid=&queryId=47337f294161db7435c2e865b6d39f25&usePUB=true&_phsrc=nTx5&_phstart=successSource

1944 military hospitalization record
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=61817&h=14953688&tid=&pid=&queryId=d7012c261a20aecaf14fede7b7115f98&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Fhe13&_phstart=successSource

1949 article in Rutland Daily Herald with biographical details about his time in New Jersey
https://www.newspapers.com/image/534242561/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1958 article in Bennington Banner re running for Town Rep (contains biographical details including mention of the 603rd)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/78802682/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1958 article in Bennington Evening Banner re his winning election as Town Representative
https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6651/images/NEWS-VT-BE_EV_BA.1958_09_10-0010?treeid=&personid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=nTx20&_phstart=successSource&pId=502573066

1959 article in Rutland Daily Herald, includes a lot of biography
https://www.newspapers.com/image/534225456/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1960 article in the Times Argus (Barre VT) re art exhibit
https://www.newspapers.com/image/659572745/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1960 article in The River News and Twin State News-Times with strawberry info
https://www.newspapers.com/image/658759208/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1964 article in the Bennington Banner which contains numerous biographical details
https://www.newspapers.com/image/63110453/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1970 article in Bennington Banner re his re-election as JP
https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/51101/images/News-VE-BE_BA-1970_11_05-0006?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&queryId=f8fe05ef84d33f67d789e98f16c16f5b&usePUB=true&_phsrc=nTx41&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=508924934

1971 article in Bennington Banner re his wife's retirement as town doctor
https://www.newspapers.com/image/546821167/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1974 article in Bennington Banner re his running for state senate; includes biographical details
https://www.newspapers.com/image/546833697/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1993 article in Rutland Daily Herald about an art auction of 200 of his works (contains biographical details)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/534856652/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1995 letter to the editor about him in Bennington Banner (a few weeks before his death)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/546962178/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1995 Obituary in Bennington Banner
https://www.newspapers.com/image/546863780/?terms=claude%2Bdern

1995 Vermont death record
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=1607&h=349662&tid=&pid=&queryId=47337f294161db7435c2e865b6d39f25&usePUB=true&_phsrc=nTx7&_phstart=successSource

1995 Social Security Death Record
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=3693&h=15229793&tid=&pid=&queryId=47337f294161db7435c2e865b6d39f25&usePUB=true&_phsrc=nTx13&_phstart=successSource

1995 VA Death Record
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=2441&h=12759719&tid=&pid=&queryId=47337f294161db7435c2e865b6d39f25&usePUB=true&_phsrc=nTx16&_phstart=successSource

2017 son Robert obituary
https://www.kua.org/news-detail?pk=960888

2018 a remembrance of his son Claude Jr.
https://northernwoodlands.org/editors_blog/article/claude-dern

2018 son Claude Jr. obituary
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/manchesterjournal/obituary.aspx?n=claude-g-dern&pid=189419951&fhid=12410

Biography by his granddaughter (NOTE: Full text only readable on Fridays)
https://www.askart.com/artist/Claude_Dern/102174/Claude_Dern.aspx

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George Nardiello

John "Jack" Swift Anderegg, Jr.

PFC Claude Dern, 603rd

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