VFA recently heard of the death of early activist Vivien Leone, who was very active in the early Movement in New York City. Some of us remember her covering the Democratic convention in the1972 and recording the dialogue with the candidate, George McGovern, when some of us demanded that he include abortion rights in his program. Vivien's niece , Claudia Ganz, reports that Vivian tried to destroy all her records before she passed on. While we respect Vivien's disinterest in receiving credit for her accomplishments, we must record the history of the feminist movement in which she played an important role.
Born in Weehawken, NJ Vivien Leone graduated from Syracuse University as a music/voice major and married Italian mime Carlo Mazzone-Clementi in 1956. She lived in Rome for several years, divorced Carlo in 1966 and moved to New York City where she worked as a journalist and covered many early feminist events, including the 1970 Ladies Home Journal Sit In. The poetry editor of Aphra, the first feminist literary magazine, she contributed essays to numerous publications, including The Village Voice, The Progressive and Off Our Backs. She supported and collected art by female artists, including Suzanne Benton's sculpture of Susan B Anthony. Vivien is listed in "Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975.
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