Margaret Hamilton may refer to:
Margaret Brainard Hamilton (December 9, 1902 – May 16, 1985) was an American film character actress best known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's classic film The Wizard of Oz (1939).
A former schoolteacher, she worked as a character actress in films for seven years before she was offered the role that defined her public image. The Wicked Witch of the West was eventually ranked No. 4 in the American Film Institute's 2003 list of the 50 Best Movie Villains of All Time, making her the top-ranking female villain. In later years, Hamilton made frequent cameo appearances on television sitcoms and commercials. She also gained recognition for her work as an advocate of causes designed to benefit children and animals, and retained a lifelong commitment to public education.
Early life
Hamilton was born to Walter J. Hamilton, and his wife, Jennie (née Adams), in Cleveland, Ohio, and was the youngest of four children. She later attended Hathaway Brown School, while the school was located at 1945 East 93rd Street in Cleveland. Drawn to the theater at an early age, Hamilton made her stage debut in 1923. Hamilton also practiced her craft doing children's theater while she was a Junior League of Cleveland member. She later moved to Painesville, Ohio. Before she turned to acting exclusively, her parents insisted that she attend Wheelock College in Boston, which she did, later becoming a kindergarten teacher.
Margaret Heafield Hamilton (born August 17, 1936) is a computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner. She was Director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for the Apollo space program. In 1986, she became the founder and CEO of Hamilton Technologies, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company was developed around the Universal Systems Language based on her paradigm of Development Before the Fact (DBTF) for systems and software design.
Hamilton has published over 130 papers, proceedings, and reports concerned with the 60 projects and six major programs in which she has been involved.
Early life
Margaret Heafield was born to Kenneth Heafield and Ruth Esther Heafield (née Partington). She graduated from Hancock High School in 1954, and earned a B.A. in mathematics with a minor in philosophy from Earlham College in 1958. After graduation, she briefly taught high school mathematics and French while her husband finished earning his undergraduate degree. She moved to Boston, Massachusetts, with the intention of doing graduate study in abstract mathematics at Brandeis University. In 1960 she took an interim position at MIT to develop software for predicting weather on the LGP-30 and the PDP-1 computers (at Marvin Minsky's Project MAC) for professor Edward Norton Lorenz in the meteorology department. At that time, computer science and software engineering were not yet disciplines; instead, programmers learned on the job with hands-on experience.
Margaret Dawn Hamilton AM (1941–) is an Australian children’s literature publisher. She received the Dromkeen Medal and Nan Chauncy Award in 2004.
Her book company, Margaret Hamilton Books, was an imprint of Scholastic Australia from 1996 to 2001.
Hamilton has served as National President of the Children’s Book Council of Australia (1990–1992). Now a National Board Member of the CBCA.