Curated playlist

American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent

Harrison FordHarrison Ford got Han Solo after reading lines for other actors' auditions. George Lucas slowly decided he wanted Ford.
Gwyneth PaltrowGwyneth Paltrow won the lead in Emma with a perfect Texas accent. The director said it sold him.
Michael DouglasMichael Douglas won a Best Picture Oscar before he was a star. He produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky wrote his first article at age 10, about the fall of Barcelona.
Allison ShearmurAllison Shearmur broke into Hollywood by winning a campus contest.
Linda McCartneyLinda McCartney was the first woman to put a photograph on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Richard FeynmanRichard Feynman's last words, spoken after a long coma, were "This dying is boring." The remark suited an American theoretical physicist who never lost his taste for blunt, irreverent honesty. He was a man who treated authority, ceremony…
Paul KrugmanPaul Krugman turned to economics because psychohistory was fiction. Asimov's novels inspired him.
Meyer LanskyShortly after The Godfather Part II reached theaters in 1974, Meyer Lansky picked up the telephone and called the actor Lee Strasberg. Strasberg had played Hyman Roth, a gangster based on Lansky, and had earned an Oscar nomination for it.…
Lee EastmanLee Eastman bought Buddy Holly's music catalogue for Paul McCartney. He had asked McCartney which artists he loved most.
Jonas SalkJonas Salk, the American virologist who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines, was once asked a simple question by the television personality Ed Murrow: who owns the patent? Salk answered, "Well, the people I would say.…
Harold BloomHarold Bloom argued that every poet struggles to escape the shadow of earlier poets.
Jeff GoldblumIn July 2018, a statue of Jeff Goldblum stood 25 feet tall beside London's Tower Bridge. It was a temporary installation, built to mark 25 years since the release of Jurassic Park. Goldblum, born Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum on the 22nd of…