41. Helen Howes Vosoff

Helen Vosoff created several permanent venues for local artists. In the 1950s, she founded the South Shore Players Association, an organization supporting community-owned theaters south of Boston. At her theater, the South Shore Music Circus, performances were seen in a round instead of a traditional proscenium stage. A few years later, she met local artists Tom Lucas and McIvor Reddie, who were trying to sell their paintings on the Town Common. Cohasset's ocean vistas regularly attracted artists to the area. She was inspired by their sales challenges to establish the South Shore Arts Center and its Summer Arts Festival, where artists could display and sell. Vosoff was an elegant woman and never lost her composure. In 1967, she was pawed by a Barnum and Bailey Circus lion cub while on stage at the South Shore Music Circus. She continued with the ceremony, although it was clear that she was bleeding.