Hungarian sculptor Isidore Konti emigrated to the United States in the early 1890s. He became known for creating large-scale sculptures for international expositions, such as the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
Konti had a “fatherly interest in the welfare of the young artists around him,” and,
…in 1908 and 1909, he hired a destitute young actor, Francis X. Bushman, to model and assist around the studio, later encouraging “Bushie” to travel with a performing company. Konti regularly sent Bushman’s young wife and children money to live on, as he did Bushman himself. Early in 1909, the Bushmans named their new baby daughter “Konti.”
Francis X. Bushman — who was named after the Catholic saint Francis Xavier — went on to become one of the biggest silent film stars of the 1910s. He was billed as “the Handsomest Man in the World” and known for his physique. (He was a Bernarr Macfadden follower.)
He and his wife Josephine had five children — Ralph, Josephine, Virginia, Lenore, and Bruce — and Lenore’s middle name was indeed Konti.
Lenore went on to appear in a handful of films during the 1920s and ’30s. (In the image above, she’s sitting beside John Wayne.)
Sources:
- Davis, Lon and Debra Davis. King of the Movies: Francis X. Bushman. BearManor Media, 2009.
- Francis X. Bushman – Britannica
- Isidore Konti – Wikipedia
- Lenore Bushman – IMDb
- “The Sculpture of Isidore Konti, 1862-1938.” Yonkers, NY: Hudson River Museum, 1974.
P.S. Exposition-related baby names we’ve talked about include Eulalia, Louisiana Purchase, and Louis Francis.
