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Artists Arshile Gorky ​ ​ Arshile Gorky (1904 – 1948) was an Armenian-American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. In 1915, the boy and his mother and three sisters escaped Lake Van and he travelled to the United States as a sixteen year old. He spent most his life as a national of the United States. Along with Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Gorky has been hailed as one of the most powerful American painters of the 20th century. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced in the Armenian Genocide. External Website

Actors Billy Connolly ​ ​ Billy Connolly (b. 1942), was born in Glasgow. When he was 3 and his sister, Florence, 4, their mother abandoned the children, living the children at home on their own. Neighbours heard the cries of the chilren and took them to an orphanage. At the time, the children's father, William Connolly, was serving with the Royal Air Force in Burma. Williams 2 unmarried sisters, Margaret and Mona, collected the children from the orphanage and and too them in. After the war, William Connolly moved in with his sisters and his children. He sexually abused his son, and Mona physically beat Billy on a daily basis. Billy left school at 15, eventually supporting himself through folk singing before he moved to comedy and became one of the most influential stand-up comedians of all time. He retired from comedy in 2018. As an actor, Billy Connolly has appeared in numerous films between 1993 and 2014 and he was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actor for Mrs Brown (1997). He has received numerous awards, including a BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award (2003) and honorary doctorates from the University of Glasgow (2001), Nottingham Trent University (2010) and Strathclyde (2017). In 2017, Billy Connolly was knighted “for services to entertainment and charity.” External Website

Actors Lesley Sharp ​ ​ Lesley Sharp (born 3 April 1960) is an English stage, film and television actress whose roles on British television include Clocking Off (2000–2001), Bob & Rose (2001) and Afterlife (2005–2006). She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the 1997 film The Full Monty. Sharp was born in Manchester, England, and was adopted at 6 weeks old by a Scottish couple—the Sharps. Born Karen Makinson, she was renamed Lesley Sharp upon her adoption at 6 weeks old. She grew up in Formby, which is north of Liverpool. She has an older sister. Sharp has stated that she started acting because, as a child, she felt "invisible" and did not "quite fit in".[3] She has said that her inspiration to act came from watching Dick Emery on television.[4] Sharp attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the class of 1982. She traced her birth mother over twenty years ago and discovered that she was the result of her mother's affair with a married man. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Orphans: A History Jeremy Seabrook 2018 Orphans have often been beneficiaries of charity and compassion--but society has also punished, abused and ill-treated them. Attitudes behind this maltreatment are rooted in ideas that those without parents are disruptive, malevolent, and in need of discipline. Drawing on historic documents, interviews and memoirs, Jeremy Seabrook charts history's changing and often loose definitions of "orphans," and explores their many "makers"--from natural or man-made catastrophes to the State, charity, and other social forces that have separated children, especially the poor, from their close kin.But this history is not only one of suffering: Orphans also reveals the uncounted millions taken in and loved by relatives, neighbors or strangers. Freed from constraints and driven by insecurity, many orphans--including Nelson Mandela, Marilyn Monroe and Steve Jobs--have led remarkable lives. External Website

Academic Articles Incarnations of the Orphan Nina Auerbach 1975 For decades Nina Auerbach's article on representations of the orphan was one of the few on the topic. She writes: "For it is an easy sentimental mistake to think of the orphan as fragile. He seems composed of alternate layers of glass and steel, and sends out sting rays at those who try to adopt him. He first appears in the eighteen century as a slyly potent underground figure...But even the Romantic waif is brimming with a certain equivocal energy...His solitude eneregizes him as a visionary artist, and silent schemer, his appearance of winsome fragility feeding into his pwoer of survival." Auerbach's analysis includes Moll Flanders, Jane Eyre, Becky Sharp, Healthcliff and Pip of Great Expectations External Website

Authors F Street urchins, sociopaths and degenerates: orphans of late-Victorian and Edwardian fiction ➝ Back to Top

Actors Frances McDormand ​ ​ McDormand was born Cynthia Ann Smith in Gibson City, Illinois. She was adopted at one and a half years of age by Noreen (Nickelson) and Vernon McDormand and renamed Frances Louise McDormand. Her adoptive mother was a nurse and receptionist while her adoptive father was a pastor; both were originally from Canada. McDormand has said that her biological mother, to whom she proudly referred, along with herself, as "white trash," may have been one of the parishioners at Vernon's church. She has a sister, Dorothy A. "Dot" McDormand, who is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister and chaplain,[4] as well as another sibling, both of whom were adopted by the McDormands, who had no biological children. McDormand is known for her portrayals of unique, quirky, and headstrong female characters, She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award. She is one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting." McDormand was educated at Bethany College and Yale University. She has starred in a number of films by the Coen brothers, including Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Burn After Reading (2008), and Hail, Caesar! (2016). For her portrayal of Marge Gunderson in Fargo, McDormand won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other film roles include Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005), all of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2011, she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for playing a troubled single mother in Good People. On television, McDormand played the titular protagonist in the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge (2014), which won her the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie. In 2020, she starred in and produced the acclaimed independent western drama film Nomadland and recently won a BAFTA, best actress for her portrayal as Fern. External Website

Academic Articles Interrogating ‘poor outcomes’ and disrupted care in children’s fiction Kirsty Capes 2018 The Ethical Dilemmas of Researching and Representing ‘Refugee Lives’ Hari Reed, University of East Anglia ‘A Week in April’: The Lived Experience of Big Flame Activists in the Kirkby Rent Strike 19…A common trope of children’s fiction is the representation of child protagonists as victims of some form of disrupted parenting. Disproportionately, child protagonists across the children’s canon are orphans; in foster care or other kinds of institutional care such as boarding schools; living with inadequate, neglectful or otherwise insufficient parents; or raised by relatives. Research shows that ‘problem children’ – those who are victims of disrupted parenting – are more susceptible to what is frequently termed as ‘poor outcomes’ in adulthood. These can range from addiction issues to criminal behaviour and time in prison, to mental health problems including depression. Children’s fiction informs and amplifies this narrative of ‘problem children’ being destined for failure in later life, through its representations of children in care, orphans and so on. This slippage between public consciousness and popular culture creates a cultural hegemony whereby children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds are conditioned from a young age – through children’s fiction and other mediums – to believe that they are abject or extraneous to societal structures. Drawing on 20th and 21st century children’s fiction, from Francis Hodgson Burnett to J K Rowling, Roald Dahl to Lemony Snicket, C S Lewis to Jacqueline Wilson, this paper will demonstrate how children’s fiction serves to ‘other’ child readers from disrupted parenting situations. Using contemporary Marxist-feminist literary theory and socio-political contexts, the paper will also demonstrate the undeniable correlation between working-class narratives and representations of disrupted care in children’s fiction. External Website

Academic Articles A perspective from the periphery: Re-imagining regional North Queensland women's stories using historical fiction Louise Henry 2019 In this article, Louise Henry, a PhD candidate at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia is considering the ethics of writing a novel about her grandmother. Louise is writing a historical fiction novel about her grandmother who was born in North Queensland in 1913, made a ward of the state 5 years later and then spent time in both the Townsville Orphanage and foster homes during 1920s. "Writing about family members throws up ethical challenges around representation and the use of family familes that are not directly my own" says Louise in the attached article. External Website

Actors Jack Nicholson ​ ​ John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) in Neptune City, New Jersey. He is an American actor and filmmaker whose career has spanned more than 60 years. His mother, a showgirl, June Frances Nicholson was only seventeen years old and unmarried, her parents agreed to raise Nicholson as their own child without revealing his true parentage, and June would act as his sister. In 1974, Time magazine researchers learned, and informed Nicholson, that his "sister", June, was actually his mother, and his other "sister", Lorraine, was really his aunt. By this time, both his mother and grandmother had died (in 1963 and 1970, respectively). On finding out, Nicholson said it was "a pretty dramatic event, but it wasn't what I'd call traumatizing ... I was pretty well psychologically formed". Nicholson is known for having played a wide range of starring or supporting roles, including comedy, romance, and darkly comic portrayals of anti-heroes and villainous characters. In many of his films, he played the "eternal outsider, the sardonic drifter", someone who rebels against the social structure. Nicholson's 12 Academy Award nominations make him the most nominated male actor in the Academy's history. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and As Good as It Gets (1997), and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Terms of Endearment (1983). He has won six Golden Globe Awards and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, at 57, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. External Website

Actors James McAvoy ​ ​ Scottish actor, James McAvoy (b. 1979), who was born in Glasgow, was in kinship care as a child. James was about 7 years of age when he went to live with grandparents. His parents had recently separated and his mother thought her son would be better off with her parents, Mary and James. His grandparents were important role models for James with him crediting his grandmother for his courage and self-confidence. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Orphans of the Living: Growing Up in Care in Twentieth-Century Australia Joanna Penglase 2012 In August 2004, Parliamentary senators wept as they presented Forgotten Australians, the report from the Senate Inquiry into the treatment of children in care. Half a million children grew up in care in twentieth-century Australia, and most often these children lived with daily brutal physical and emotional abuse in the sterile environment of an institution. Drawing on interviews, submissions to the Senate Inquiry, and her own experience, Joanna Penglase describes, for the first time, the experience from the perspective of the survivors. With tenderness, compassion and intellect, Penglase begins to unravel the seemingly inexplicable: how and why did this happen. She looks not only at the profound personal costs to these children, but the huge social and economic costs of these past policies. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters The Scars Remain: A Long History of Forgotten Australians and Children's Institutions Nell Musgrove 2013 The Scars Remain presents the long history of placing Australian children in institutions, putting a human face on child welfare systems which have, over the course of more than two hundred years, touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of children as well as their families and friends. It explains how institutions which claimed to care for children could do greater harm than good, and challenges the mythology of egalitarianism which often shapes Australian histories. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Orphans of Empire. The fate of London's foundlings Helen Berry 2019 Orphans of Empire tells the story of what happened to the thousands of children who were raised at the London Foundling Hospital, established by Thomas Coram in 1739 and which became the most famous charity in Georgian England. Through extensive archival research, Helen Berry tells previously untold stories of what happened to former foundlings, and of the work they were engaged in during the Industrial Revolution. Included are extracts from George King's autobiography, the only surviving first-hand account written by an 18th century Foundling Hospital child. External Website

Actors Eartha Kitt ​ ​ Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer, actress, dancer, voice actress, comedienne, activist, author, and songwriter known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Baby", both of which reached the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the world". Earth Kitt was rejected by her mother as a small girl and sent to live first in foster care and then with an aunt. Kitt began her career in 1942 and appeared in the 1945 original Broadway theatre production of the musical Carib Song. In the early 1950s, she had six US Top 30 hits, including "Uska Dara" and "I Want to Be Evil". She starred as Catwoman in the third and final season of the television series Batman in 1967. In 1968, her career in the U.S. deteriorated after she made anti-Vietnam War statements at a White House luncheon. Ten years later, she made a successful return to Broadway in the 1978 original production of the musical Timbuktu! Kitt wrote three autobiographies.Kitt found a new generation of fans through her roles in the Disney films The Emperor's New Groove (2000), in which she voiced the villainous Yzma. External Website

Artists Louise Allen (artist) ​ ​ From an early age, Louise Allen was adopted into a family who from the beginning said they didn’t want her. Louise absolutely believes, that like smiling, 'being creative' helps us feel grounded and happy. Louise has made art all her life. I have an innate and human need to make, to experiment and see what happens. I draw a lot, it grounds me and makes me look, really look. A documentary was recently made about her life 'It started here'. Her first book Thrown Away Child reveals the abuse and neglect she and a fellow adopted child suffered at the hands of their adopted mother Barbara. Ten years ago, Louise and her family became a fostering family. They have looked after over twenty children, some have stayed long term. External Website

Actors Nina Mae McKinney ​ ​ African American actor, Nina Mae McKinney (1912-1967), was in kinship care as a child. Nina Mae McKinney was born Nannie Mayme McKenna in Lancaster, South Carolina to Georgia Crawford McKinney and Napolian McKenna. From the time she was a small child, Nina’s great aunt Carrie Sanders raised Nina until the child was 13 and joined her mother in New York. She worked internationally during the 1930s and in the postwar period in theatre, film and television, after getting her start on Broadway and in Hollywood. Dubbed "The Black Garbo" in Europe because of her striking beauty, McKinney was one of the first African-American film stars in the United States, as well as one of the first African Americans to appear on British television. External Website

Actors Michael Caine ​ ​ Sir Michael Caine, (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite Jr., 14 March 1933) is an English actor, producer, and author who has appeared in more than 130 films in a career spanning over 60 years. He is considered a British film icon. Known for his cockney accent, Caine was born in south-east London and evacuated during World War II. When his mother discovered his being ill treated in foster care, she took him back to London immediately. Michael Caine made his breakthrough in the 1960s with starring roles in British films, including Zulu (1964), The Ipcress File (1965), Alfie (1966), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, The Italian Job (1969), and Battle of Britain (1969). He achieved some of his greatest critical success in the 1980s, with Educating Rita (1983), earning him the BAFTA and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. As of February 2017, films which he has starred in have grossed over $3.5 billion domestically and over $7.8 billion worldwide. Caine is ranked as the twentieth-highest-grossing box office star.Caine is one of only two actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s. External Website

Authors L UK Child Migration to Australia, 1945-1970: A Study in Policy Failure ➝ Back to Top

Academic Articles Foster Focus Mag Foster Focus Mag 2021 Foster Focus is a monthly magazine dealing exclusively and entirely with the Foster Care Industry. The core of the magazine are seven monthly featured sections, Anonymous Faces, Ask a Pro, Editor’s Notes, Family Adventures, Guest Speaker, What Do They DO? A nonprofit profile, Alumni Perspectives and Lawmakers. These sections coupled with cover stories and coverage of events focused on foster care will, in fact make for the most in depth view of the Foster Care Industry ever published. Accomplished doctors, attorneys and psychiatrists and New York Times bestselling authors make up the writing staff for Foster Focus they add credibility and project a sense of understanding to our readers. A range of stories and subjects are covered, highlights include; interviews with Country star Jimmy Wayne and from the NFL's New Orleans Saints Jimmy Graham & Actress Nia Vardolas, exclusive stories by Dr. John DeGarmo, Rhonda Sciortino, FCAA CEO Adam Robe and Casey Family Programs CEO William Bell. External Website