Curated playlist
American expatriates in France
- F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 believing his work was forgotten. The Great Gatsby later sold millions.
- Ernest HemingwayErnest Hemingway, only 18, carried Italian soldiers to safety despite being seriously wounded by mortar fire.
- T. S. EliotT. S. Eliot compared an evening sky to a patient on a surgical table.
- Wes AndersonWes Anderson has said his first ambition was to be a writer, not a director. He grew up making silent films.
- Gwyneth PaltrowGwyneth Paltrow won the lead in Emma with a perfect Texas accent. The director said it sold him.
- Langston HughesLangston Hughes's ashes rest beneath the floor of a Harlem research center.
- 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.
- Aaron CoplandComposer Aaron Copland planned one year of study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger but stayed three.
- Ken BurnsKen Burns was nearly nine when neighbors handed his family six twenty-dollar bills.
- George ClooneyIn 1977, a teenage George Clooney tried out for the Cincinnati Reds and did not make it past the first round of player cuts. No contract was offered. Clooney, an American actor and filmmaker, would go on to collect two Academy Awards, a…
- Joseph CampbellGeorge Lucas said Joseph Campbell's book helped shape Star Wars. They met only in 1984.
- Irvin McDowellIrvin McDowell told politicians his troops weren't ready, and they sent him to fight anyway.
- Lenny KravitzLenny Kravitz won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance four years in a row, from 1999 to 2002. That run broke the record for wins in the category. It also set a record for consecutive wins in one category by a male…
- George Peter Alexander HealyGeorge Healy did not pick up a paintbrush until he was sixteen. He later painted presidents, popes and kings.
- William Ordway PartridgeWilliam Ordway Partridge wrote a sonnet for the unveiling of one of his own statues. The sculpture was a bronze William Shakespeare in Lincoln Park, Chicago. It was dedicated on the 23rd of April 1894, the Bard's 330th birthday. A sculptor…
- Quincy JonesQuincy Jones taped a sign to the entrance of a recording studio in 1985, and it read "Check Your Ego at the Door." Behind that door waited most of the major American recording artists of the day. Jones needed every one of them to work as…
- Angela DavisAngela Davis was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, then acquitted by an all-white jury.