Paul Flato

Paul Edmund Flato , was a popular American jeweler, based in New York City from the 1920s to the early 1940s. Considered the first celebrity jeweler, he was well known for important jewelry, and as an early proponent of whimsical pieces. His long list of movie star clients included Greta Garbo, Mae West, Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford, Doris Duke, Ginger Rogers, Carmen Miranda, Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, and Gloria Vanderbiltmany of whom wore his pieces on screen.

Paul Edmond Flato was born in 1900 in Shiner, Texas, son of prominent Texas cattleman Rudolph, and Julia Burow Flato, a German immigrant. He died on July 17, 1999 having returned to Texas late in life, and received full column obituary in the New York Times. He was said to have become interested in jewelry at the age of ten, watching nomadic Gypsies make silverwire items for sale. He grew up in a town founded by his westward pioneering greatgrandparents, earlier German immigrants who purchased Mexican land. After attending the University of Texas at Austin, he moved to New York in the early 1920s to start medical school. But due to his fathers financial issues at the time, he instead became a watch salesman.

Source: Wikipedia