William H. Masters was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 27, 1915. He graduated from Hamilton College in Clinton, New York in 1938. He received his medical degree from the University of Rochester Medical School and decided to dedicate himself to studying the physiology of sex in humans. In 1947, he joined the faculty of the Washington University School of Medicine and became an authority on hormone-replacement therapy for aging women. In 1954, he began the research into human sexuality and hired Virginia E. Johnson as his assistant in 1957. Together they wrote numerous books about sex including Human Sexual Response, Human Sexual Inadequacy, The Pleasure Bond: A New Look at Sexuality and… Commitment, Human Sexuality, Masters and Johnson on Sex and Human Loving, Homosexuality in Perspective, and Crisis: Heterosexual Behavior in the Age of AIDS. He died on February 16, 2001 at the age of 85
Virginia E. Johnson was born Mary Virginia Eshelman in Springfield, Missouri on February 11, 1925. An accomplished pianist and mezzo-soprano, she performed country music under the name Virginia Gibson on a Springfield radio station. She studied psychology at Drury College in Springfield and music at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music. She also was a business writer for The St. Louis Daily Record. She started working with Dr. William H. Masters as his assistant in 1957. She later became his research associate and co-author. Together they wrote numerous books about sex including Human Sexual Response, Human Sexual Inadequacy, The Pleasure Bond: A New Look at Sexuality and Commitment, Human… Sexuality, Masters and Johnson on Sex and Human Loving, Homosexuality in Perspective, and Crisis: Heterosexual Behavior in the Age of AIDS. She died on July 24, 2013 at the age of 88.