An Affair with Beauty: The Mystique of Howard Chandler Christy

James Philip Head is an author and a law partner in Virginia. While a student at the University of Maryland, he discovered a gilt-edged folio of Charles Dana Gibson’s The Social Ladder in the stacks of the campus library, starting him on a journey to learn more about Gibson and the “illustrators of beauty.” He became captivated by the talent, fame, and subsequent obscurity of Howard Chandler Christy and began amassing the largest private collections of documents, photographs, and other material related to the artist. Over the years, he has interviewed Christy’s former models, family members, and others who knew him and ultimately engaged research assistants throughout the country to help him uncover the true, untold story of Christy and his wife, Nancy. He is a law partner with Williams Mullen, P.C., in Tysons Corner, Virginia, where he concentrates in estate planning and trust and estate litigation. He lives in Chantilly, Virginia, with his wife Rita, and daughter Christianna.

Pamela Almand, a former international 747 pilot for Delta Airlines, launched an unlikely second career after appearing in a national television spot for Tylenol in 1995. Several regional spots for Northwest Airlines followed, and she began narrating training and industry videos, built a professional recording studio, and launched the Captain’s Voice. Since then, Pamela has provided voice-over for major corporate clients worldwide, including Microsoft, Disney, Canadian Realtors, the United Nations, Zurich, International Red Cross, and the hotels and casinos of Monte Carlo. She is a SAG/AFTRA voice actor and audiobook narrator with multiple awards and nominations from the Audio Publishers Association’s Audie Awards, Society of Voice Arts and Sciences’ Voice Arts Awards, and AudioFile magazine’s Earphones Award. She lives in Atlantic Beach, Florida, with her husband, Amos.