Skip to content
Curated playlist

21st-century English philanthropists

  • Andrew Lloyd WebberAndrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera closed on Broadway in 2023 after 13,981 performances.
  • Kate WinsletKate Winslet pleaded for the part of Rose in James Cameron's Titanic while he still preferred Claire Danes and Gwyneth Paltrow. She told the director that she was Rose, and she could not see why he was seeing anyone else. The plea worked.…
  • George MichaelGeorge Michael refused to appear in his own music videos, so five supermodels lip-synced in his place.
  • Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney traded a trumpet for a guitar and wrote his first song on it. His father had given him the trumpet.
  • Peter GabrielOn the 19th of June 1971, Peter Gabriel took a running jump off a stage and expected the audience to catch him. They moved aside instead. He landed on the floor and broke his ankle, then performed the next several Genesis shows with a…
  • Melanie CIn 1994, Melanie Jayne Chisholm, known as Melanie C, joined around 400 women answering an advertisement in The Stage magazine. The advertisement came from two managers hoping to form a new girl group. That group became the Spice Girls, and…
  • Daniel RadcliffeDaniel Radcliffe, an English actor born on the 23rd of July 1989, played Harry Potter in all eight films of the series between 2001 and 2011. When he was around 14 or 15, he and his co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were offered the…
  • Richard BransonRichard Branson, born on the 18th of July 1950 in Blackheath, London, left school at sixteen with a prediction ringing in his ears. On his last day, his headmaster, Robert Drayson, told him he would either end up in prison or become a…
  • Emilia ClarkeEmilia Clarke could not say her own name in February 2011. A ruptured brain aneurysm had left her with aphasia.
  • Marcus RashfordMarcus Rashford got his chance at Manchester United because somebody else got hurt. On the 25th of February 2016, thirteen United players were out injured. Then Anthony Martial was injured in the warm-up for a Europa League tie against the…

Queue