Curated playlist
20th-century American male writers
- Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein once spent his days examining patents for gravel sorters.
- Alfred HitchcockAt age five, Alfred Hitchcock was sent to a police station with a note and locked in a cell.
- Bob DylanAt a 1966 Manchester concert, Bob Dylan told his band to play loud after a heckler called him Judas.
- Stephen KingA minivan hit Stephen King on a Maine road in June 1999. A dog in the back distracted the driver.
- John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy spent hours in the water towing a burned crewman after a destroyer cut his boat in half.
- Mark TwainMark Twain predicted he would die with Halley's Comet, and he did. He died the day after it passed closest to the Sun.
- F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 believing his work was forgotten. The Great Gatsby later sold millions.
- Woody AllenWoody Allen failed a film production course at New York University, then went on to direct Annie Hall.
- Ernest HemingwayErnest Hemingway, only 18, carried Italian soldiers to safety despite being seriously wounded by mortar fire.
- Orson WellesOrson Welles burned ten reels of his own Don Quixote film. He felt the 1969 Moon landings made its ending obsolete.
- Barack ObamaObama rejected a plan to bomb a compound in Pakistan and sent Navy SEALs instead. The 2011 raid killed Osama bin Laden.
- Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg walked into Universal Studios without a pass, and the guard waved him in.
- Tennessee WilliamsTennessee Williams wanted to be sewn into a canvas sack and dropped into the sea.
- Adam SandlerAdam Sandler once made a Western comedy that critics almost universally panned. On the 6th of January 2016, Netflix announced that the film, The Ridiculous 6, had been watched more times in thirty days than any other movie in the service's…
- T. S. EliotT. S. Eliot compared an evening sky to a patient on a surgical table.
- James M. McPhersonHistorian James M. McPherson helped lobby against a Disney theme park near the Manassas battlefield.
- Martin Luther King Jr.Martin Luther King Jr. died at the age of 39, yet his autopsy showed the heart of a 60 year old, according to his biographer Taylor Branch. Branch attributed the damage to stress. The causes were many. King was jailed repeatedly, attacked…
- Quentin TarantinoQuentin Tarantino turned down Speed and Men in Black to write Pulp Fiction in Amsterdam.
- Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt was shot in the chest, then gave a 90-minute speech. It happened in Milwaukee in October 1912.
- Bruce SpringsteenBruce Springsteen threw the first acetate of his own album Born to Run into the swimming pool of his hotel in 1975. The record was being mastered while the band toured, and he was furious at what he heard. He briefly considered scrapping…
- H. P. LovecraftH. P. Lovecraft died in 1937 virtually unknown to readers. His monsters later became global touchstones.
- David LynchDavid Lynch began as a painter who just wanted his canvases to move. That wish led him to film.
- Henry JamesNovelist Henry James was hissed at when he took a bow on his play's opening night in 1895.
- Stanley KubrickAfter copycat crimes and death threats, Stanley Kubrick pulled A Clockwork Orange from release in the United Kingdom.
- Wes AndersonWes Anderson has said his first ambition was to be a writer, not a director. He grew up making silent films.
- George LucasGeorge Lucas turned down a higher directing fee for Star Wars. He asked for toy and merchandise rights instead.
- Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan has no smartphone and no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants.
- James StewartJames Stewart gave his Oscar to his father for the shop window.
- William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner never told his daughter he had won the Nobel Prize. She heard it when the principal called her in.
- Jon ParelesJon Pareles played the Harkness Tower carillon while still a Yale student. He also DJed and wrote for campus papers.
- Jack KerouacJack Kerouac typed On the Road on a 120-foot roll of taped tracing paper. He finished the final draft in 20 days.
- John SteinbeckJohn Steinbeck once stole bacon from a produce market to survive. He later won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature.
- Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the bombing of Dresden by hiding in an underground meat locker.
- Kirk DouglasKirk Douglas insisted on giving blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo an on-screen credit for Spartacus.
- Ron PaulRon Paul delivered the Tejano singer Selena as a baby. He was a Texas obstetrician before he ran for president.
- Andy WarholAndy Warhol was shot at his Factory studio in June 1968 by a writer who had appeared in his film.
- Dr. SeussAn education publisher dared Dr. Seuss to write a book children can't put down. The result was The Cat in the Hat.
- Stephen ColbertAt a 2006 dinner, Stephen Colbert roasted President Bush to a cold room. His show's ratings jumped 37% the next week.
- Raymond ChandlerRaymond Chandler sold his first story for $180 after losing his oil job at forty-four.
- Ben StillerBen Stiller's films have grossed more than $2.6 billion in Canada and the United States, an average of $79 million per film. Behind that figure stands Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller, an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is known…
- Robert MitchumRobert Mitchum, the American film actor and singer, gave critic Roger Ebert a picture that never faded. Ebert named him his favorite movie star and praised his "deep, laconic voice and his long face and those famous weary eyes." Ebert saw…
- Mel BrooksMel Brooks was 14 years old when he climbed onto a diving board at the Butler Lodge, a second-rate hotel in the Borscht Belt. He worked there as a pool-side tummler, an entertainer hired to keep the guests amused. On this day he wore a…
- Langston HughesLangston Hughes's ashes rest beneath the floor of a Harlem research center.
- Vernor VingeWhat happens when machines get smarter than the people who built them? Vernor Vinge kept asking.
- Roger EbertRoger Ebert typed his last blog post two days before he died. He signed off with "I'll see you at the movies."
- Paul Thomas AndersonPaul Thomas Anderson, the American filmmaker known by his initials PTA, earned a C+ on his very first film school assignment. The task at New York University was simple: write a single page of screenplay. Anderson handed in a page from…
- Elia KazanIn 1952, Elia Kazan gave a congressional committee the names of eight former colleagues.
- Saul BellowSaul Bellow learned he had entered the U.S. illegally as a child when he tried to enlist. He became a citizen in 1941.
- Jim MorrisonOn live TV in 1967, Jim Morrison sang a lyric censors had told him to change. Ed Sullivan then banned the Doors.
- Ezra PoundEzra Pound cut T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land by about half. Eliot called the edits proof of Pound's critical genius.