Curated playlist
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
- Stanley KubrickAfter copycat crimes and death threats, Stanley Kubrick pulled A Clockwork Orange from release in the United Kingdom.
- Ben StillerBen Stiller's films have grossed more than $2.6 billion in Canada and the United States, an average of $79 million per film. Behind that figure stands Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller, an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is known…
- Mel BrooksMel Brooks was 14 years old when he climbed onto a diving board at the Butler Lodge, a second-rate hotel in the Borscht Belt. He worked there as a pool-side tummler, an entertainer hired to keep the guests amused. On this day he wore a…
- Gwyneth PaltrowGwyneth Paltrow won the lead in Emma with a perfect Texas accent. The director said it sold him.
- Jack L. WarnerJack Warner once rushed onstage at the Oscars and took a trophy that was not his. The prize was for Casablanca.
- Natalie PortmanNatalie Portman turned down a $2,000,000 prize in 2018. She skipped the Genesis Prize ceremony, and it was canceled.
- Seymour DrescherHistorian Seymour Drescher argued Britain ended the slave trade while it was still profitable.
- Jake GyllenhaalJake Gyllenhaal, the American actor born on the 19th of December 1980, came close to playing two of the best-known superheroes in film. In 2003 he auditioned for Batman Begins and nearly won the part, which went to Christian Bale. A year…
- Arthur MillerArthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman in less than six weeks. He finished the first act in less than a day.
- Jennifer ConnellyJennifer Connelly was eleven years old when she walked into an audition for the director Sergio Leone and tried to pass as a ballerina. She had never taken a ballet lesson. She simply imitated what she imagined a dancer would do. Leone was…
- Paul NewmanAt the 1995 24 Hours of Daytona, Paul Newman was 70 years and eight days old, and his team won its class. That made him the oldest driver to date on a winning team in a major sanctioned race. Newman was best known as a film star, and he…
- 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…
- Harvey WeinsteinHarvey Weinstein was thanked by name in 34 Academy Award acceptance speeches. That is as many times as God was thanked, and only Steven Spielberg, with 43 mentions, was thanked more often. The tally comes from an analysis of speeches made…
- J. J. AbramsJ. J. Abrams wrote his first film score at age 16 for a horror movie. The 1982 low-budget film was called Nightbeast.
- Neil DiamondNeil Diamond, born on the 24th of January 1941, once stretched his food budget to just 35 cents a day. Decades later, the American singer-songwriter had sold more than 56.5 million records in the United States alone. That total places him…
- Paul SamuelsonPaul Samuelson said he was born as an economist at age sixteen. It happened in a 1932 Chicago lecture on Malthus.
- Janet YellenJanet Yellen is the only person to have led the Fed, the White House economic advisers and the Treasury.
- Damon LindelofBefore writing professionally, Lost creator Damon Lindelof read other people's screenplays for film studios.
- Barbra StreisandBarbra Streisand once filed a lawsuit that sent a crowd of strangers to look at a single photograph. In 2003 she claimed that a website documenting coastal erosion had invaded her privacy. Among its more than 12,000 images, one happened to…
- Jack RubyAt 11:21 on Sunday morning, the 24th of November 1963, Jack Ruby stepped out of a crowd of reporters in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters. Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, was holding a revolver. A few feet away stood Lee Harvey…
- Jack BlackJack Black is an American actor, comedian, singer and musician, and in 2025 he attached his name to the shortest song ever to reach the Billboard Hot 100. "Steve's Lava Chicken", from A Minecraft Movie, lasts just 34 seconds. It edged out…
- Bernie MadoffBernie Madoff told his own sons in December 2008 that the fund he ran was "just one big lie." Bernard Lawrence Madoff was an American financier, born in 1938, who had once served as chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange. He admitted to…
- David BenioffDavid Benioff was a club bouncer and a high school wrestling coach before Game of Thrones. He later co-ran the show.
- Sam AltmanSam Altman was fired as OpenAI's CEO in November 2023. Most of the staff threatened to quit, and he returned.
- Saul ZaentzSaul Zaentz won three Best Picture Oscars, a feat almost no one else in Hollywood has matched.
- I. J. GoodAlan Turing once stopped speaking to a codebreaker for napping on the floor.
- Judea PearlJudea Pearl gave computers a way to reason when facts are incomplete.
- Danny ElfmanDanny Elfman retired his rock band Oingo Boingo on Halloween night in 1995, after five sold-out concerts at the Universal Amphitheatre. The band had made him a name in Los Angeles new wave. Yet the career waiting for him afterward was…