Curated category
American people of Irish descent
- F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald sold fewer than 23,000 copies of The Great Gatsby in its first year, and the novel posted tepid sales for the rest of his life.
- Barack ObamaBarack Obama was born on the 4th of August 1961 at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, making him the only person to become…
- Rupert MurdochRupert Murdoch kept a bust of Lenin in his rooms at Oxford. The young man from Melbourne who would one day own hundreds of newspapers, television channels…
- Henry JamesHenry James was born on the 15th of April 1843 at 21 Washington Place in Manhattan, into a family that would produce two other towering figures in American…
- Jim LovellJim Lovell flew to the Moon twice and never set foot on it. That distinction alone would make him one of the most unusual figures in the history of human…
- Meryl StreepMeryl Streep walked into a casting meeting with Dino De Laurentiis in 1976, hoping to audition for his King Kong remake.
- John SteinbeckJohn Steinbeck once stole bacon from a local produce market to survive. During the Great Depression, he and his first wife lived on fish and crabs he…
- Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando Jr. was born on the 3rd of April 1924 in Omaha, Nebraska, and by the time he died on the 1st of July 2004, he had remade what it means to act…
- James McDivittJames Alton McDivitt Jr. was born on the 10th of June 1929, in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he earned the rank of Tenderfoot…
- Harrison FordHarrison Ford was born on the 13th of July, 1942, at the Swedish Covenant Hospital in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago.
- Joan CrawfordJoan Crawford, born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, built one of the most tenacious careers in Hollywood history from a foundation of almost…
- Stephen ColbertStephen Colbert walked to the podium at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, stood a few yards from President George W.
- Raymond ChandlerRaymond Thornton Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959, having spent much of the intervening years doing almost everything except what he…
- Gwyneth PaltrowGwyneth Kate Paltrow was born on the 27th of September 1972 into a family already at home in Hollywood: her mother, Blythe Danner, was a stage and screen…
- Jack NicholsonJack Nicholson improvised a single line for a 1980 horror film, and it outlived almost everything else he ever filmed. "Here's Johnny!" was not in Stanley…
- Judy GarlandJudy Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm on the 10th of June 1922, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, to a family that lived and breathed performance.
- Roger EbertRoger Ebert typed his last blog post two days before he died on the 4th of April 2013, signing off with words that could have come from any of his 46 years…
- Clint EastwoodClinton Eastwood Jr. entered the world at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco on the 31st of May, 1930, weighing 11 pounds 6 ounces.
- John WayneMarion Robert Morrison weighed thirteen pounds when he was born at 224 South Second Street in Winterset, Iowa, on the 26th of May 1907.
- Larry BirdLarry Bird walked into the locker room at the inaugural Three-Point Shootout during the 1986 NBA All-Star Weekend and asked who was going to finish second.
- Jim MorrisonJim Morrison was found dead in a Paris bathtub on the morning of Saturday, the 3rd of July, 1971. He was 27 years old. No doctor had been called.
- Michael DouglasMichael Kirk Douglas was born on the 25th of September, 1944, into a household already saturated with Hollywood ambition.
- Lucille BallLucille Ball was born on the 6th of August, 1911, at 69 Stewart Avenue in Jamestown, New York, and by the time she died on the 26th of April, 1989, she had…
- Tom BradyTom Brady arrived at the New England Patriots' old Foxboro Stadium as a sixth-round draft pick, carrying a pizza box and wearing the look of someone who had…
- Eugene O'NeillEugene O'Neill died the same way he was born: in a hotel room. As he whispered his last words at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston on the 27th of November 1953…
- Muhammad AliMuhammad Ali walked into the ring on the 25th of February 1964, a 22-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, facing Sonny Liston, the menacing heavyweight…
- Mariah CareyMariah Carey walked into a music executive's party in December 1988 as an unknown backup singer and left without speaking to anyone important.
- Andrew JohnsonAndrew Johnson was acquitted in the United States Senate by a single vote. That vote, cast in May 1868, saved his presidency from becoming the first to end…
- Brian WilsonBrian Douglas Wilson was born on the 20th of June, 1942, in Inglewood, California, and by the age of two he could reproduce a melody after hearing only a few…
- John Francis HylanJohn Francis Hylan arrived in New York City in the winter of 1887 with $3.50 in his pocket, a few sets of clothes, and a $2 train ticket.
- Neil ArmstrongNeil Armstrong set his left boot on the lunar surface at 02:56 UTC on the 21st of July 1969, and said seven words that an estimated 530 million people heard…
- Alex JonesAlex Jones was born on the 11th of February 1974, in Dallas, Texas, and by the time he reached middle age, juries had ordered him to pay more than a billion…
- Bradley CooperBradley Charles Cooper was born on the 5th of January 1975, in Abington Township, Pennsylvania, a child who wanted to move to Japan and become a ninja.
- Robert Downey Jr.Robert Downey Jr. was born on the 4th of April 1965 in Manhattan, into a world already saturated with film sets and controlled substances.
- Walt DisneyWalt Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards won by an individual, with 22 wins from 59 nominations. Yet the man behind that record was, in private…
- Margaret MitchellMargaret Mitchell wrote exactly one published novel in her lifetime, and it sold a million copies in its first six months.
- Ron HowardRon Howard was five years old when he stood on a set holding a toy turtle, pretending it was dead. He had to cry. The director helping him through the scene…
- Joseph CampbellJoseph Campbell once told a packed lecture hall that if you follow your bliss, a track that has been there all the while will open up beneath your feet.
- Tony GilroyTony Gilroy was born in Manhattan on the 11th of September, 1956, into a household where storytelling was not a hobby but a profession. His father, Frank D.
- John StocktonJohn Stockton walked off the court for the last time on the 2nd of May 2003, not at a press conference surrounded by cameras and microphones, but through a…
- Steve BannonSteve Bannon sat aboard a luxury yacht off the coast of Connecticut on the 20th of August 2020, when federal agents arrived to arrest him.
- Mathew BradyMathew Brady once placed an advertisement in a New York newspaper that read, simply, "You cannot tell how soon it may be too late." He was selling portraits…
- George Peter Alexander HealyGeorge Peter Alexander Healy spent his days in his painting room. That is how he put it himself, in his autobiography published the year he died: "All my…
- Joseph Francis SheaJoseph Francis Shea was born on the 5th of September, 1925, in the Bronx borough of New York City. He grew up as the eldest son in a working-class Irish…
- James IrwinJames Benson Irwin told his mother, when he was about 12 years old, that he wanted to go to the Moon and might be the first person to do so.
- Timothy LearyTimothy Francis Leary was arrested 36 times between the 1960s and 1970s, a record that tells you something about how seriously the American establishment…
- Jimmy WalkerJames John Walker was born on the 19th of June 1881 in New York City. His father William H. Walker owned a lumberyard and served as a Democratic assemblyman…
- Landon DonovanLandon Donovan scored the only goal of the match in the dying seconds against Algeria at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, off a rebound from a Clint Dempsey attempt…
- John Patrick DigginsJohn Patrick Diggins declared, near the end of his life, "I am left of right and right of left." That phrase captures something essential about a man who…
- Deborah Ann WollDeborah Ann Woll was born on the 7th of February 1985 in Brooklyn, New York, and she has spent her career crossing boundaries that most performers would…