page_title: Ellen Stewart
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Ellen Stewart / Early life
caption_attribution_description: La Mama Theater by David Shankbone
context_page_description: Ellen Stewart was an American theatre director and producer and the founder of La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. During the 1950s she worked as a fashion designer for Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and Henri Bendel.
context_section_description: Ellen Stewart's place of birth is either Chicago, Illinois or Alexandria, Louisiana. This uncertainty stems from Stewart's reticence to reveal details of her early life. As an observer wrote, "Her history is somewhat difficult to sort out—indeed it takes on a legendary quality—since on different occasions she gives different versions of the same stories." Stewart said that her father was a tailor from Louisiana and her mother was a teacher, and that they divorced during her youth.
  Around 1939, Stewart may have become the second wife of Larry Lebanus Hovell (August 10, 1910 – October 1963), a Chicago waiter who was a native of Alexandria, Louisiana, though it is possible they never wed legally. They had one child, a son, Larry Lebanus Hovell, II (1940–1998).
caption: Billboard and entrance to La Mama Theater, photograph by David Shankbone
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