Curated playlist
Film producers from California
- Orson WellesOrson Welles burned ten reels of his own Don Quixote film. He felt the 1969 Moon landings made its ending obsolete.
- George LucasGeorge Lucas turned down a higher directing fee for Star Wars. He asked for toy and merchandise rights instead.
- Dr. DreDr. Dre's G-funk had live musicians replay funk melodies instead of sampling them. It debuted on The Chronic.
- Louis B. MayerLouis B. Mayer pushed a junk cart as a boy, then became America's highest-paid man.
- Paul Thomas AndersonPaul Thomas Anderson, the American filmmaker known by his initials PTA, earned a C+ on his very first film school assignment. The task at New York University was simple: write a single page of screenplay. Anderson handed in a page from…
- Robert DuvallRobert Duvall died at his farm in Middleburg, Virginia, on the 15th of February 2026, at the age of 95. His wife, Luciana Pedraza, announced his death in a public statement. He had worked for seven decades, and on screen he rarely seemed…
- Clint EastwoodPresident Reagan quoted Clint Eastwood's line "Go ahead, make my day" to Congress.
- Jack L. WarnerJack Warner once rushed onstage at the Oscars and took a trophy that was not his. The prize was for Casablanca.
- James CameronJames Cameron dropped alone to the deepest point on Earth in 2012. He stayed more than three hours on the bottom.
- John WayneJohn Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison and got his new name from a dog.
- Tom HanksTom Hanks lost 35 pounds to play a dying lawyer in Philadelphia. He thinned his hair and learned to walk differently.
- Bruce LeeBruce Lee appeared in his first film as a baby. By 18, he had been in 20 films in Hong Kong.
- Irving ThalbergIrving Thalberg ran MGM's production, yet his name never appeared on screen while he lived.
- David FincherDirector David Fincher demanded 99 takes from Rooney Mara for a single scene in The Social Network.
- Francis Ford CoppolaMarlon Brando won the Godfather role only after a screen test and a reduced fee.
- Kathleen Kennedy (producer)Assistant Kathleen Kennedy was supposed to take notes but set her pencil down to pitch ideas.
- 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…
- Kendrick LamarKendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018, the first for a piece outside classical and jazz.
- Snoop DoggSnoop Dogg bought Death Row Records, the label that launched his career, in February 2022. It took nearly three decades.
- Robert Downey Jr.Robert Downey Jr. was too big an insurance risk to hire until Mel Gibson paid his insurance bond.
- John LasseterDisney fired John Lasseter in 1984 after he pitched a film blending hand-drawn art with computer backgrounds.
- Carl LaemmleCarl Laemmle paid to bring hundreds of Jews out of Nazi Germany.
- Ron HowardRon Howard, age five, had to cry while holding a toy turtle. Andy Griffith coached him through it in 1960.
- Pierce BrosnanPierce Brosnan once lost the part of James Bond because his television show was too popular to cancel. In 1986, NBC ended his detective series Remington Steele. Then the producers of the Bond films offered him the role of 007. News of the…
- James FrancoFor five weeks, James Franco spent twelve hours a day in a gully built as a film set, and he left it only to use the lavatory. Between takes he read books, including academic textbooks, just to keep busy. The American actor and filmmaker…
- John SingletonAt 24, John Singleton became the first African American nominated for the Best Director Oscar.
- Ben AffleckBen Affleck directed Argo, and for it he collected the Golden Globe, the Directors Guild Award and the BAFTA for Best Director without ever being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. No director had done that before him. The…
- 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…
- Donald GloverDonald Glover was voted most likely to write for The Simpsons. At 23 he landed a writing job on 30 Rock instead.
- Steve BannonSteve Bannon still earns money every time Seinfeld airs. His bank took a stake in five shows instead of a fee.
- Patty JenkinsPatty Jenkins was seven when her father, a fighter pilot, died. Soon after, a Superman movie caught her.
- Ice CubeIce Cube, born O'Shea Jackson, started writing raps in ninth grade because a friend challenged him in typewriting class. The friend, nicknamed Kiddo, lost the contest. The class was at George Washington Preparatory High School in Los…
- Kevin SpaceyLate in the 1995 thriller Se7en, Kevin Spacey walks into the story as the serial killer John Doe, and most of the audience had no idea he was coming. His name was missing from the opening credits. It was missing from the film's…
- Rob ReinerRob Reiner, the American filmmaker, actor and political activist, once joked about how firmly a sitcom nickname had attached itself to him. "I could win the Nobel Prize and they'd write 'Meathead wins the Nobel Prize.'" The remark came…
- Robert GreenfieldIn 1971, a 25-year-old reporter sat down with Keith Richards at a French Riviera villa.
- Brenda SongBrenda Song was six years old when she and her mother left Carmichael, California, for Los Angeles. The move was meant to support her acting career. The rest of the family followed two years later. Song had been born in that Sacramento…
- Drew BarrymoreDrew Barrymore was seven years old when she hosted Saturday Night Live on the 20th of November 1982, and nobody has hosted at a younger age since. The American actress went on to build a career that ran from child stardom to her own…