Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jun 21, 2025 | 3 comments

The storied cartoonist was born 122 years ago…

By PETER BOSCH

Al Hirschfeld (born June 21, 1903 in St. Louis) was the preeminent theater caricaturist for The New York Times for many decades, as well as illustrating movie posters, TV Guide covers (dozens of them), and much more — including U.S. postage stamps. In his lovely, curved line style, he was able to capture the looks of many celebrities with sheer perfection.

After he and his wife (former actress Dolly Haas) in 1945 had a baby girl named Nina, he would regularly include her name somewhere in his drawings. It could be in a lampshade, in a curl of hair, in anything! When a new Hirschfeld drawing would appear in the Times’ Arts section on a Sunday morning, people would scour it trying to find the “Nina” — and in some cases multiple “Nina”s. But at least one frustrated reader wrote to the newspaper to say a person could never be sure to find them all. In acknowledgment, in 1960, Hirschfeld started adding a number after his signature to indicate how many Ninas there were.

Richard Kiley as Don Quixote in the Broadway revival of the musical, Man of La Mancha, 1977.

Now, it’s your turn. Here are 13 Hirschfeld drawings with the number of Ninas usually indicated. Can you find them all? Even if you can’t, enjoy the artwork of Al Hirschfeld! (Images © The Al Hirschfeld Foundation.)

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1. Starting you off easy, there are two Ninas in this drawing of Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn in the Broadway play, Becket (1960).

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2. And another two in this Camelot drawing during the pre-Broadway tryout in Boston in 1960. The cast from left to right are Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet, and Roddy McDowall.

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3. You can find three Ninas in this illustration of the 1965 movie, What’s New Pussycat? Included in the cast here are Paula Prentiss, Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, and Ursula Andress.

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4. 1966’s Broadway musical It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s Superman has three NInas. That’s Bob Holiday as the Man of Steel.

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5. Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli in the movie, Cabaret (1972).

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6. Though not numbered, this 1974 Hirschfeld TV Guide cover of Sonny and Cher contains two Ninas.

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7. Artwork for this August 1976 cover of Peter Falk as Columbo has one easily-spotted “Nina.”

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8. Five can be discovered in this drawing of the Broadway musical, Barnum (1980), with Jim Dale in the starring role and in the lower right corner you can see Glenn Close as Barnum’s wife.

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9. Broadway’s supreme composer and lyricist, Stephen Sondheim.

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10.  Into the Woods (1987) with Joanna Gleason, Robert Westenberg, Bernadette Peters, Tom Aldredge, Barbara Byrne, and Chip Zien.

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11. Old joke – Tourist: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” New Yorker answer: “Practice.” To celebrate Carnegie Hall’s 100^th Anniversary in 1991, Hirschfeld drew some of the talents who have played there, including Benny Goodman, Maria Callas, Van Cliburn, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, and Judy Garland.

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12. A duck’s best friend, there are three NINAs in this image of Carl Barks from 1999.

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13. The last time that Hirschfeld drew himself was in November 2002. Though he didn’t sign and number it, there are at least six NINAs here for you to find.

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The great Al Hirschfeld lived until the age of 99. He died Jan. 20, 2003. In his honor, The Martin Beck Theatre in New York City was renamed The Al Hirschfeld Theatre on June 21, 2003, which would have been his 100th birthday.

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MORE

— THE SPIRIT AT 85: An Anniversary Tribute to WILL EISNER’S Enduring Legacy. Click here.

— When JOE SIMON AND JACK KIRBY First Teamed Up — 85 YEARS AGO. Click here.

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13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page, was published by TwoMorrows. (You can buy it here.) A sequel, American Movie Comic Books: 1930s-1970s — From the Silver Screen to the Printed Page, is due in 2025. (You can pre-order here.) Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.