Curated playlist
English people of Welsh descent
- Jude LawJude Law dropped out of school at 17 to become an actor. It led to an Oscar nomination for The Talented Mr. Ripley.
- John LennonJohn Lennon was ordered to leave the United States in 1973. His anti-war activities had alarmed President Nixon.
- Henry VIIIHenry VIII broke England from Rome after the pope would not annul his first marriage.
- Keira KnightleyKeira Knightley stood on a plank for two days and refused a stunt double.
- David CameronDavid Cameron's last words in the Commons were "I was the future once." He said them in July 2016.
- Keith RichardsKeith Richards, guitarist of the Rolling Stones, began his musical life by stretching toward an instrument he could not reach. His maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore "Gus" Dupree, toured Britain with a jazz big band called Gus Dupree…
- AdeleA friend posted Adele's three-song class demo on Myspace, and a record label phoned.
- Elizabeth IElizabeth I came to the throne as a declared bastard whose mother had been executed.
- Sacha Baron CohenSacha Baron Cohen spilled flour on Ryan Seacrest at the Oscars. He claimed it was Kim Jong-il's ashes.
- Julie ChristieJulie Christie turned down roles that won other actresses Oscar nominations. She also retreated to a farm in Wales.
- George EliotGeorge Eliot was a woman who lived openly with a married man. Mary Ann Evans shared a home with him from 1854 to 1878.
- Oliver CromwellOliver Cromwell scrawled the order to behead King Charles I himself when officers refused.
- Lady Jane GreyLady Jane Grey was queen of England for only nine days in July 1553. Her own Privy Council then turned on her.
- Allan WilliamsAllan Williams drove the Beatles to Hamburg in a Morris J2 van in August 1960. He was a Liverpool coffee-bar owner.
- 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…
- Gareth Edwards (filmmaker)Director Gareth Edwards made Monsters with two lead actors and a crew of five, using off-the-shelf equipment.
- Alan RickmanAlan Rickman almost turned down Die Hard. He took the villain role of Hans Gruber anyway.
- Mary Tudor, Queen of FranceMary Tudor secretly married Charles Brandon in Paris weeks after her husband, the King of France, died.
- Petula ClarkPetula Clark's photo was plastered on British Army tanks as a good-luck charm. She was a child singer during the Blitz.
- Lily AllenIn the months before her debut album, almost nobody outside her record label's A&R department knew who Lily Allen was. Even so, 500 limited edition 7-inch vinyl copies of her song "LDN" were rush-released, and they resold for as much as…
- John DeeJohn Dee, an English mathematician and astronomer, once sent a flying beetle soaring up to the palace of Jupiter. The stage was at Trinity College, Cambridge, and the play was Aristophanes's Peace. Dee built the effect from pulleys and…
- Diana Wynne JonesDiana Wynne Jones began writing mostly to keep her sanity. Her first book was a farce for adults, not a fantasy.
- Sean LennonSteve Jobs once brought Sean Lennon an early Macintosh for his ninth birthday.
- Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and SomersetHenry VIII's son was made a double duke at six years old. No illegitimate child had had one before.