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Curated playlist

American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent

  • Bob DylanAt a 1966 Manchester concert, Bob Dylan told his band to play loud after a heckler called him Judas.
  • Woody AllenWoody Allen failed a film production course at New York University, then went on to direct Annie Hall.
  • George GershwinGeorge Gershwin's last words were "Fred Astaire." He collapsed at age 38 while working on a film score.
  • Saul BellowSaul Bellow learned he had entered the U.S. illegally as a child when he tried to enlist. He became a citizen in 1941.
  • Aaron CoplandComposer Aaron Copland planned one year of study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger but stayed three.
  • Sean PennIn Kyiv in November 2022, Sean Penn handed an Oscar statuette to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "This is for you. It's just a symbolic silly thing...When you win, bring it back to Malibu." That was the whole speech. Penn is an…
  • Robert Downey Jr.Robert Downey Jr. was too big an insurance risk to hire until Mel Gibson paid his insurance bond.
  • Pink (singer)Pink, the American singer and songwriter born Alecia Beth Moore, once walked out to sing the US national anthem before Super Bowl LII while fighting influenza. For her it was the fulfilment of a childhood dream. As a girl in 1991, she had…
  • Jordan BelfortJordan Ross Belfort is an American former stockbroker who spent 22 months in prison for fraud. He is also the author of a memoir that became a major film. For years he ran a brokerage that defrauded its own customers. Then he helped the…
  • Daniel KahnemanDaniel Kahneman won the 2002 economics Nobel without ever taking an economics course.
  • Stephen GreenblattStephen Greenblatt was stunned when universities sought experts in "New Historicism," a phrase he coined.
  • John McCarthy (computer scientist)John McCarthy coined the term "artificial intelligence" in the summer of 1956. He also created the language Lisp.

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