Diplomats who wrote plays?

January 12, 2008 10:42 AM

Looking for examples of diplomats who were/are also involved in the performing arts.

I know that Machiavelli wrote plays, and playwright Clare Boothe Luce became an ambassador, but I am trying to find other examples of individuals, historical or contemporary, who were involved in both international relations and the performing arts. Any suggestions? Feel free to keep my parameters loose, if you think you have a good suggestion. (i.e., I also know that Winston Churchill painted landscapes. Though that would be a statesman involved in the plastic arts as opposed to a diplomat in the performing arts, I would still love to hear about such figures.)

posted by jrb223 to grab bag (35 comments total)

Don't know if it counts, but Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos seemed to be quite fond of karaoke.
posted by hermitosis at 10:47 AM on January 12, 2008

Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda and Miguel Ángel Asturias, all Nobel laureates in literature.
Neruda fled from South America on Asturias' passport, as they somewhat resembled each other.
posted by sushiwiththejury at 10:54 AM on January 12, 2008

Shirley Temple – child star and Ambassador to Ghana, but not at the same time.
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear at 10:55 AM on January 12, 2008

Shirley Temple Black
posted by bjgeiger at 10:56 AM on January 12, 2008

ohhhhhhh
posted by bjgeiger at 10:57 AM on January 12, 2008

Ronald Reagan?

Sonny Bono?
posted by matty at 10:58 AM on January 12, 2008

Vaclav Havel, depending on how you're defining "diplomat" (he was a president, not an ambassador).
posted by occhiblu at 11:05 AM on January 12, 2008

Condoleeza Rice plays piano.

Dominique de Villepin writes poetry.

And then there's Vaclav Havel, of course.
posted by dilettante at 11:15 AM on January 12, 2008

Sidney Poitier served as the Bahamian ambassador to Japan.
posted by iconomy at 11:15 AM on January 12, 2008

And that's what happens when you get distracted by Soviet writers that you can't quite remember!
posted by dilettante at 11:16 AM on January 12, 2008

Archibald MacLeish, who wrote drama as well as poetry, was an Assistant Secretary of State and represented America at the founding of UNESCO.
posted by Iridic at 11:16 AM on January 12, 2008

John Hay was a diplomat, author and poet.
posted by HiddenInput at 11:23 AM on January 12, 2008

In the spirit of loose parameters, there are scads of actors who act as diplomats in their roles as goodwill ambassadors for the United Nations. Angelina Jolie, Bono, Nicole Kidman et al.
posted by iconomy at 11:27 AM on January 12, 2008

(actors and musicians, I meant to say)
posted by iconomy at 11:28 AM on January 12, 2008

Condoleza Rice is an accomplished pianist, I believe. Wish she would have stuck with it.

King Frederick II of Prussia was (I believe) an accomplished musician who was a patron of J.S. Bach (I think).

From Wikipedia: "In 1747, Bach went to the court of Frederick II of Prussia in Potsdam, where the king played a theme for Bach and challenged him to improvise a fugue based on his theme. Bach improvised a three-part fugue on Frederick’s pianoforte, then a novelty, and later presented the king with a Musical Offering which consists of fugues, canons and a trio based on the "royal theme", nominated by the monarch. Its six-part fugue includes a slightly altered subject more suitable for extensive elaboration."
posted by sully75 at 11:47 AM on January 12, 2008

Ah, the governors general of Canada. Adrienne Clarkson was primarily a broadcast journalist but she also wrote fiction and non-fiction books. Michaelle Jean was a broadcaster and filmmaker.
posted by crazycanuck at 11:57 AM on January 12, 2008

Long before he was Pope John Paul II, Karol Józef Wojtyła was an actor, playwright, and poet.
posted by hot soup girl at 12:17 PM on January 12, 2008

Paul Claudel (1868-1955), poet, playwright, dreamer and diplomat.
posted by mi at 12:31 PM on January 12, 2008

Alan Greenspan attended Julliard and was an accomplished jazz clarinetist before U-turning into the dismal science.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 12:38 PM on January 12, 2008

Not exactly a playwrite, but Michaelle Jean, the current governor general of Canada, did her undergrad in lit, taught Italian, got a MA in comparative lit, was an award-winning reporter, filmmaker, and broadcaster, and has made several films, including the award-winning Haïti dans tous nos rêves ("Haiti in All Our Dreams")
posted by porpoise at 2:06 PM on January 12, 2008

Charles Aznavour is/was an Ambassador for Armenia.
posted by selton at 2:06 PM on January 12, 2008

George W. Bush was a cheerleader. Does that count?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:16 PM on January 12, 2008

Jacques Maritain was a theologian/philosopher who did signifigant work in aesthetics, was French ambassador to the Holy See, and helped draft the UN Universal Decleration on Human Rights according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
posted by Jahaza at 2:23 PM on January 12, 2008

Vinicius de Moraes, who co-wrote The Girl From Ipanema (among many others).
posted by micayetoca at 2:31 PM on January 12, 2008

In 1378, Richard II sent Chaucer as an envoy/secret dispatch to the Visconti and to Sir John Hawkwood, English Man-at Arms/Soldier for Hire, in Milan. It is on the person of John Hawkwood that Chaucer based his Knight's Character. The Knight, based on his description/dress and appearance, looks exactly like a soldier for hire/mercenary would have looked in the fourteenth century.

Nevill Coghill writes "The King soon began to employ his beloved valet on important missions abroad. The details of most of these are not known, but appear to have been of a civilian and commercial nature"
posted by ersatz at 4:14 PM on January 12, 2008

Peter Jay was a reporter on British television in the early 1970s at LWT, and was later made the UK's ambassador to the United States.

Coincidentally, his father-in-law was the Prime Minister at the time of his appointment.
posted by genghis at 4:19 PM on January 12, 2008

Louis McHenry Howe,
one of the closest advisors to FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt, was a playwright.
if you find any of his plays, please let me know.
I'm dying to read his stuff
posted by mer2113 at 4:28 PM on January 12, 2008

The great Egyptian artist Mahmoud Reda is a world-famous dancer, choreographer, and soloist. He is an Egyptian Olympic Gold Medalist. In Egypt from 1982-1990 he served as Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Culture. He was in many popular Egyptian films (see link below). In my opinion, he has done more for middle eastern dance than any other dancer out there anywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mahmoud+reda+films
posted by mamaraks at 9:08 PM on January 12, 2008

This may not count, as it's only by marriage, but ballerina Margot Fonteyn was a diplomat's wife: she was married to a Panamanian diplomat to London.
posted by Violet Hour at 10:17 PM on January 12, 2008

Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Polish pianist, composer, diplomat and politician, and the third Prime Minister of Poland.
posted by ChromeDome at 10:17 PM on January 12, 2008

John Milton handled foreign correspondence for the English Commonwealth during the Interregnum. Not quite a playwright, but knocked out the odd masque like Comus.
posted by Abiezer at 10:58 PM on January 12, 2008

Thank you hive mind! I consider each one of these a best answer, just so you know. If anyone has any others, please keep them coming. (And as a side note, I wasn't expecting this, but find it totally fascinating that so many musicians, and specifically pianists, are gracing this list)
posted by jrb223 at 11:45 PM on January 12, 2008

Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada turned Consul General to Los Angeles, wrote a play in collaboration with her partner Hershey Felder.
posted by loiseau at 7:27 AM on January 13, 2008

Dramatist Christopher Marlowe is hypothesized to have been a spy.
posted by Jahaza at 4:46 PM on January 13, 2008

Anni Sinnemäki, one-time member of the Finnish band Ultra Bra, is a member of the Finnish parliament.
posted by A Kingdom for a Donkey at 7:15 PM on January 13, 2008