Curated playlist
Activists from California
- Katy PerryKaty Perry grew up in a home where the word "luck" was banned. Her pastor mother said it reminded her of Lucifer.
- Harrison FordHarrison Ford got Han Solo after reading lines for other actors' auditions. George Lucas slowly decided he wanted Ford.
- Brie LarsonBrie Larson's 2005 album Finally Out of P.E. sold only 3,500 copies. She later won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
- Jamie Lee CurtisJamie Lee Curtis accepted a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 78th Venice International Film Festival in September 2021, and she did not sound like a person winding down. "I feel so alive, like I'm this 14-year-old person just…
- Bryan CranstonIn 1968, a 12-year-old Bryan Cranston was riding horses with his cousin at Spahn Ranch when he met Charles Manson. About a year later, Manson ordered the Tate-LaBianca murders. Cranston grew up to become an American actor and filmmaker…
- Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Schwarzenegger broke into a locked gym on weekends as a teenager. He later became California's governor.
- Upton SinclairUpton Sinclair aimed his novel The Jungle at the public's heart and hit its stomach instead. Meat sales fell by half.
- Ben AffleckBen Affleck directed Argo, and for it he collected the Golden Globe, the Directors Guild Award and the BAFTA for Best Director without ever being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. No director had done that before him. The…
- Eddie VedderEddie Vedder was born Edward Louis Severson III on the 23rd of December 1964 in Evanston, Illinois. The surname the world knows him by was not the one he was born with. He grew up to become the lead vocalist, primary lyricist and one of…
- Ice-TIce-T got his stage name when friends heard him recite novels by Iceberg Slim.
- Michael J. FoxMichael J. Fox once worked two months of days that began with rehearsals at 10 a.m. and ended with filming at 2:30 the next morning. Those were the hours of 1985. By day he rehearsed the sitcom Family Ties. By night he rushed to the set of…
- Cornel WestYale punished Cornel West for a protest arrest by canceling his 1987 spring leave. He then commuted to Paris to teach.