Curated playlist
American expatriates in England
- Simon KinbergSimon Kinberg plays a banker in his own script for Mr. & Mrs. Smith. He began that screenplay as a film school thesis.
- Marvin GayeMotown boss Berry Gordy refused to release Marvin Gaye's What's Going On.
- Gwyneth PaltrowGwyneth Paltrow won the lead in Emma with a perfect Texas accent. The director said it sold him.
- Judy GarlandMGM fired Judy Garland in 1950, and Bing Crosby invited her onto his radio show. The audience gave her an ovation.
- Johnny DeppJohnny Depp, the American actor, musician and filmmaker, saw his film Jeanne du Barry open the 2023 Cannes Film Festival to a standing ovation that lasted seven minutes. Playing King Louis XV, he was acting in French for the first time.…
- Ezra PoundEzra Pound cut T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land by about half. Eliot called the edits proof of Pound's critical genius.
- Terrence MalickAfter Days of Heaven, director Terrence Malick moved to Paris and stayed out of public view for roughly two decades.
- Robert Downey Jr.Robert Downey Jr. was too big an insurance risk to hire until Mel Gibson paid his insurance bond.
- Stanley TucciStanley Tucci Jr. gave a college classmate a nickname that the man has carried ever since. The classmate was Irving Rhames, and the nickname was Ving. Tucci handed it over while the two of them studied acting together at a state university…
- John KrasinskiJohn Krasinski hosted a livestreamed prom on the 17th of April 2020. It was meant for high schoolers whose real proms had been cancelled, and 210,000 viewers tuned in. Live performances came from Billie Eilish, Finneas, the Jonas Brothers…
- Nicole ScherzingerIn August 2003, Nicole Scherzinger walked into the Arista Records office in New York carrying a demo CD of songs she had written herself. She was performing under her Hawaiian family name, Nicole Kea, and she wanted a solo recording…
- Scott BessentScott Bessent won Senate confirmation as United States secretary of the treasury on the 27th of January 2025, by a vote of 68-29. On that same day, a man carrying several Molotov cocktails and a knife, who intended to murder him, was…
- Delano AmesDelano Ames created a husband-and-wife pair of amateur detectives in 1948.
- Olivia HarrisonOlivia Harrison fought off an armed intruder with a fireplace poker and a heavy table lamp. It happened in 1999.
- George SteinerGeorge Steiner was born Francis George Steiner on the 23rd of April 1929. He was a literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist and educator, and he is described as both French and American. Harriet Harvey-Wood, a former literature…