Curated playlist

English people of Irish descent

Alfred HitchcockAt age five, Alfred Hitchcock was sent to a police station with a note and locked in a cell.
David BowieDavid Bowie died two days after releasing his final album. He planned Blackstar as a parting gift while privately dying.
John LennonJohn Lennon was ordered to leave the United States in 1973. His anti-war activities had alarmed President Nixon.
Charlie ChaplinCharlie Chaplin was in a workhouse twice before he turned nine. By 26 he was among the world's highest-paid people.
Kate WinsletKate Winslet pleaded for the part of Rose in James Cameron's Titanic while he still preferred Claire Danes and Gwyneth Paltrow. She told the director that she was Rose, and she could not see why he was seeing anyone else. The plea worked.…
Tom HardyTom Hardy put on 42 pounds to play the English prisoner Charles Bronson. Bronson sent him his shaved-off mustache.
Josh O'ConnorJosh O'Connor is an English actor, born on the 20th of May 1990, who once delivered more than 150 lambs while preparing for a single film role. He was not chasing a stunt. He was learning how a Yorkshire sheep farmer works, moves and…
Margaret ThatcherMargaret Thatcher kept a portrait of her chemistry tutor on the wall at 10 Downing Street.
Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney traded a trumpet for a guitar and wrote his first song on it. His father had given him the trumpet.
Peter O'ToolePeter O'Toole asked the Academy to wait when it offered him an honorary Oscar. He hoped to win the award outright.
Ed SheeranEd Sheeran bought a thirty-pound guitar two days after hearing Eric Clapton. He was eleven years old.
Kate BushKate Bush's second UK number one came 44 years after her first. That gap beat Tom Jones's record of 42 years.
Jimmy PageJimmy Page was thirteen when a television host asked what he planned to do with his life. His answer had nothing to do with music. The year was 1957, and the programme was All Your Own, a talent show on BBC1 hosted by Huw Wheldon. Page had…
Judi DenchJudi Dench won an Oscar for a role that lasted about eight minutes. She played Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love.
George HarrisonGeorge Harrison mortgaged his home to save Monty Python's Life of Brian. EMI Films had pulled its funding in 1978.
Daniel Day-LewisDaniel Day-Lewis collapsed sobbing during a 1989 Hamlet, in the scene where the ghost of Hamlet's father appears.
Robbie WilliamsRobbie Williams walked onto a stage at Knebworth on the 1st of August 2003 and faced a crowd of 125,000 people. He then did it again on the 2nd and the 3rd. Three consecutive nights, with that many people each time, made it the biggest…
Ralph FiennesRalph Fiennes has played a Nazi camp commandant, a dark wizard, a British spymaster and a flirtatious hotel concierge, and audiences have believed every one of them. Born in 1962, the English actor and director carries the full name Ralph…
Alan RickmanAlan Rickman almost turned down Die Hard. He took the villain role of Hans Gruber anyway.
Melanie CIn 1994, Melanie Jayne Chisholm, known as Melanie C, joined around 400 women answering an advertisement in The Stage magazine. The advertisement came from two managers hoping to form a new girl group. That group became the Spice Girls, and…
Tom HollandTom Holland, the English actor, has led films that together have grossed more than $9.9 billion worldwide, according to The Numbers. That total places him among the highest-grossing film actors of all time. In 2019 he appeared on the…
Zayn MalikZayn Malik was 17 years old and did not want to go to his X Factor audition in Manchester. On the morning of the tryout in 2010, nerves had won, and he wanted to stay in bed. His mother got him up and talked him into going. Years later he…
Alan TuringAlan Turing once chained his tea mug to a radiator pipe at Bletchley Park so it could not be stolen.
Pete BestPete Best's Beatles bandmates could not fire him themselves, so they asked their manager to.
Jimmy SavileJimmy Savile ended the last weekly edition of Top of the Pops on the 30th of July 2006 with the words 'It's number one, it's still Top of the Pops.' After the closing credits, he turned off the studio lights. Savile had been a fixture of…
Daniel RadcliffeDaniel Radcliffe, an English actor born on the 23rd of July 1989, played Harry Potter in all eight films of the series between 2001 and 2011. When he was around 14 or 15, he and his co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were offered the…
Hilary MantelHilary Mantel became the first woman to win the Booker Prize twice. Her winners were Wolf Hall and its sequel.
Sean LennonSteve Jobs once brought Sean Lennon an early Macintosh for his ninth birthday.
Annie BesantAnnie Besant went from a vicar's wife to president of the Indian National Congress. She was elected in 1917.
MorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey, known to the world as Morrissey, once led a tour of Manchester for the Oxford Road Show in 1985. Late in that tour he reached the secondary school he had attended. He described it in harsh terms and closed with a…
John KeeganJohn Keegan taught war for 26 years but never fired a shot in anger. Illness left the historian unfit for service.
Julian LennonJulian Lennon's nursery school painting inspired a Beatles song. It showed his classmate Lucy O'Donnell among stars.
Harry KaneArsenal's academy released Harry Kane at eight for being "a bit chubby". He became England's top goalscorer.
Roger PenroseRoger Penrose received half of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for showing that the formation of black holes is a robust prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity. The citation sounds like the summit of a single, tidy career.…