Curated playlist
20th-century English LGBTQ people
- David BowieDavid Bowie died two days after releasing his final album. He planned Blackstar as a parting gift while privately dying.
- Ian McKellenIan McKellen came out as gay on BBC radio in 1988, while Parliament weighed Section 28.
- Virginia WoolfVirginia Woolf's father let her read whatever she liked in his vast library.
- George MichaelGeorge Michael refused to appear in his own music videos, so five supermodels lip-synced in his place.
- Alec GuinnessAlec Guinness privately called Star Wars "fairy-tale rubbish" in letters to friends.
- Arthur C. ClarkeArthur C. Clarke never patented his satellite idea. He called a patent "a licence to be sued."
- Clive BarkerUnhappy with how others filmed his screenplays, Clive Barker directed Hellraiser himself. It opened in 1987.
- Kray twinsThe Kray twins were convicted of murder in 1969, yet crowds of thousands lined up to applaud when Reggie Kray was buried at Chingford Mount Cemetery in October 2000. Ronald and Reginald Kray were identical brothers from Haggerston in East…
- Alan TuringAlan Turing once chained his tea mug to a radiator pipe at Bletchley Park so it could not be stolen.
- Brian EpsteinBrian Epstein never signed the contract that made him the Beatles' manager. He said they could tear it up.
- MorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey, known to the world as Morrissey, once led a tour of Manchester for the Oxford Road Show in 1985. Late in that tour he reached the secondary school he had attended. He described it in harsh terms and closed with a…
- Jane Ellen HarrisonA lecture on Athenian gravestones in Glasgow drew 1,600 people. The speaker was classicist Jane Ellen Harrison.
- John Maynard KeynesAt Bretton Woods in 1944, Keynes proposed a world currency called the bancor, and the United States rejected it.
- Simon CallowSimon Callow's acting career began with a fan letter to Laurence Olivier. Olivier wrote back with a box-office job.