Curated playlist
English emigrants to the United States
- Alfred HitchcockAt age five, Alfred Hitchcock was sent to a police station with a note and locked in a cell.
- Simon KinbergSimon Kinberg plays a banker in his own script for Mr. & Mrs. Smith. He began that screenplay as a film school thesis.
- John LennonJohn Lennon was ordered to leave the United States in 1973. His anti-war activities had alarmed President Nixon.
- Christian BaleChristian Bale once lived on black coffee, an apple and a can of tuna each day. The English actor began that regimen with nothing but cigarettes and whiskey. By the end he had lost 63 lb and weighed 121 lb. The script for the psychological…
- Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan has no smartphone and no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants.
- Ian BryceIan Bryce began as a production assistant on Return of the Jedi in 1983.
- Rachel WeiszRachel Weisz first made headlines in 1984 by saying no. She was a teenage model who had started working at the age of 14, and she turned down an offer to star in King David opposite Richard Gere. The British actress, born on the 7th of…
- W. H. AudenW. H. Auden died hours after reading his poems aloud in a Vienna hotel.
- Daniel CraigIn 2021, the English actor Daniel Craig was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It sits at 7007 Hollywood Boulevard, an address that winks at the code number 007. Two days later his final film as that famous spy opened in the…
- Aldous HuxleyAldous Huxley died the same day as John F. Kennedy, and almost nobody noticed. C. S. Lewis died that afternoon too.
- Paul DiracPaul Dirac's 1928 equation predicted antimatter, and the positron appeared in 1932.
- Oliver Hart (economist)Economist Oliver Hart was called as a government expert witness in two tax cases.
- Emily BluntEmily Blunt is a British actress who earned an extraordinary compliment from Meryl Streep after the two worked together. Streep called her "the best young actress I've worked with in some time, perhaps ever". Praise like that can weigh…
- Millie Bobby BrownIn 2018, Time magazine placed Millie Bobby Brown on its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Nobody younger had ever appeared on it. That same year she became the youngest person ever appointed a UNICEF Goodwill…
- Boston CorbettThe soldier credited with shooting John Wilkes Booth later escaped an asylum and vanished.
- Samuel SlaterSamuel Slater carried Britain's secret textile mill designs to America in his head. British law banned exporting them.
- I. J. GoodAlan Turing once stopped speaking to a codebreaker for napping on the floor.
- Stuart J. RussellStuart Russell called the AGI race "a race towards the edge of a cliff." He wrote it in January 2025.
- Gary WhittaGary Whitta once stayed on camera for 24 hours straight. In October 2011 he co-hosted a live-streamed edition of the show This is Only a Test with Tested creators Will Smith and Norman Chan. The marathon raised over $50,000 for Child's…
- Alan WattsAlan Watts resigned as an Episcopal priest in August 1950. He later became a leading voice of Zen in America.