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Beatrice Wood, Vegetarian, Centenarian, 105 yrs old She was the inspiration for the #1 movie TITANIC
March 15, 1998 | By ROBERTA SMITH The New York Times

Beatrice Wood, a ceramic artist known as much for her irreverent quips, beauty, bohemian lifestyle and famous lovers as for her luminous luster-glaze chalices, and who inspired at least two movie characters, died on Thursday at her home in Ojai, Calif. She celebrated her 105th birthday on March 3. Ms. Wood, an independent woman inclined to say whatever was on her mind, famously attributed her longevity to ``chocolate and young men'' and just as memorably titled her 1985 autobiography I Shock Myself. In fact she was a lifelong Vegetarian who neither smoked nor drank and who remained clear-minded -- enough to begin using the computer at age 90 and beyond. In 1993, she was the subject of a documentary, Beatrice Wood, the Mama of Dada, directed by Diandra Douglas. More recently, she inspired the 101-year-old character of Rose in he movie Titanic, directed by James Cameron, a neighbor in Ojai. Until two years ago, she worked at the potter's wheel every day, following a strict daily regimen in a studio that was listed under ``Places of Interest'' in Ojai. A member of the Theosophy movement since 1923, she had moved to Ojai in 1948 to be near its leader, the Indian sage Krishnamurti. For the last four decades of her life, she dressed exclusively in bright Indian saris and wore large amounts of silver-and-turquoise jewelry, even when throwing pots, with her thick, hip-length gray hair twisted into braids or a bun. She was born in San Francisco and reared in New York, and demonstrated an early affinity for art and nonconformity, much to the dismay of her wealthy parents. She once said that she was 23 before she got free of her mother and her lady's maid, but she was allowed to go, chaperoned, to Paris when she was 18, where she studied painting at the Academie Julien and acting at the Comedie Francaise.

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