Curated playlist
American people of French-Canadian descent
- Jack KerouacJack Kerouac typed On the Road on a 120-foot roll of taped tracing paper. He finished the final draft in 20 days.
- 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.
- Angelina JolieAngelina Jolie has appeared in films that grossed more than $6.9 billion worldwide, and Hollywood has named her its highest-paid actress several times. As a teenager, though, she took at-home courses on embalming because she hoped to…
- Alanis MorissetteAlanis Morissette recorded a demo cassette in August 1989 and sent it to Geffen Records. The tape has never been heard. It was stolen, along with other records, in a burglary of the label's headquarters in October 1989. Whatever it held is…
- Jane FondaJane Fonda sat on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun during a 1972 visit to Hanoi, and a photograph of that moment outraged a large number of Americans. It earned her a nickname that has followed her for decades: Hanoi Jane. For many…
- Mark RuffaloMark Ruffalo has been nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which ties a record. Each nomination came for a different kind of man. Ruffalo is an American actor and producer, and the road to that record was…
- Elizabeth HolmesElizabeth Holmes was twenty-nine years past her first day at Stanford when Forbes named her the youngest and wealthiest self-made female billionaire in the United States. That was in 2015. The magazine based its judgment on a valuation of…
- Mark WahlbergMark Wahlberg was 13 years old when he became an original member of a boy band, and he quit after only a few months. The group carried on without him and became famous. Wahlberg took a very different road. He first became known as a rapper…
- Brendan FraserIn September 2022, the film The Whale premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, and the audience gave its star, Brendan Fraser, a standing ovation that lasted six minutes. Fraser is an American and Canadian actor, and that night…
- Jon FavreauJon Favreau named his company after the golem of Jewish folklore. It can protect or destroy, like technology.
- John C. FrémontJohn C. Frémont served just 175 days as a U.S. senator. He was in Washington for only twenty-one working days.
- Mario BataliMario Batali was roommates at Rutgers University with the actor James Gandolfini, years before either man was famous. Batali, born in 1960, became an American chef, writer and restaurateur whose name was once close to shorthand for Italian…