Curated playlist
1899 births
- Alfred HitchcockAt age five, Alfred Hitchcock was sent to a police station with a note and locked in a cell.
- Humphrey BogartHumphrey Bogart's ashes were buried with a small gold whistle from a bracelet he gave Lauren Bacall.
- Ernest HemingwayErnest Hemingway, only 18, carried Italian soldiers to safety despite being seriously wounded by mortar fire.
- Duke EllingtonDuke Ellington wrote his first piece while working as a soda jerk, before he could read music.
- Jorge Luis BorgesJorge Luis Borges directed Argentina's National Library while completely blind.
- Irving ThalbergIrving Thalberg ran MGM's production, yet his name never appeared on screen while he lived.
- Friedrich HayekThree days before the 1929 Wall Street crash, Friedrich Hayek wrote that no sudden collapse was expected.
- Lavrentiy BeriaLavrentiy Beria walked out on Stalin's paralyzed body and told everyone not to panic. No doctor came for twelve hours.
- Vladimir NabokovNovelist Vladimir Nabokov also named butterfly species, and later genetic research backed his theory.
- Lev KuleshovLev Kuleshov showed the same actor's face beside soup, a coffin and a woman. Audiences saw hunger, grief and desire.
- Al CaponeAl Capone always turned the left side of his face away from the camera. Three knife slashes had scarred that cheek, and he told people they were war wounds. The nickname they earned him, Scarface, was one he loathed. His closest friends…
- Wilfrid IsraelWilfrid Israel, an Anglo-German businessman, was the subject of a letter that Albert Einstein wrote in June 1943 to Israel's mother. Einstein knew she was gravely anxious about her son's fate. He told her he had never met a being so noble,…
- Bruce CattonBruce Catton grew up in Michigan listening to Civil War veterans, and their stories shaped his writing.
- D. P. Roy ChoudhurySculptor D. P. Roy Choudhury never opened his studios to a public exhibition in his lifetime.