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Curated playlist

LGBTQ people from California

  • Kristen StewartKristen Stewart is an American actress and filmmaker who says she was never the child who dreamed of fame. She was not, in her words, the "I want to be famous, I want to be an actor" kid. Still, one small habit of celebrity came to her…
  • Fergie (singer)Fergie, born Stacy Ann Ferguson, sang on a song that held the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 straight weeks in 2009. That song, "I Gotta Feeling," stayed at number one longer than any other song that year. By then her records had…
  • Charles MansonOn the first day of testimony in his 1970 murder trial, Charles Manson arrived with an X carved into his forehead.
  • Tyler, the CreatorAt the age of seven, Tyler Gregory Okonma, known professionally as Tyler, the Creator, was already making albums that did not exist. He pulled the covers out of CD cases and made new ones for imaginary records, each with a tracklist and…
  • John CageJohn Cage once had a pianist play nothing for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Audience noise became the music.
  • Angelina JolieAngelina Jolie has appeared in films that grossed more than $6.9 billion worldwide, and Hollywood has named her its highest-paid actress several times. As a teenager, though, she took at-home courses on embalming because she hoped to…
  • Billie EilishBillie Eilish was 18 years old when she left the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020 holding all four of the ceremony's general field prizes. Only one person had done that before her, and no woman had. Not long before, she had been a…
  • ND StevensonA class assignment at art school became the webcomic Nimona. It later became a National Book Award finalist.
  • KeshaKesha's big break in 2009 came from walking into a recording session by accident.
  • Sally RideSally Ride quietly passed along the key clue to what caused the Challenger explosion.
  • 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…
  • Andrew CunananAndrew Cunanan killed five people in the space of three months in 1997. Four of them had been his friends, lovers, or strangers who simply owned something he wanted. The fifth was one of the most famous fashion designers in the world. For…
  • Billy PrestonBilly Preston got his name on a Beatles single. The 1969 "Get Back" was credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston."
  • Phoebe BridgersPhoebe Bridgers ended her Saturday Night Live performance by smashing her guitar on a fake stage monitor. Moments earlier she had played "Kyoto" and "I Know the End" for a national television audience. Bridgers was born in Pasadena,…
  • Jodie FosterJodie Foster was a teenager when she acted as a French interpreter at a press conference during the Cannes Film Festival. The film was Taxi Driver, which won the Palme d'Or that year, and the journalists in the room came away impressed. By…
  • 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…
  • Billie Jean KingBillie Jean King beat 55-year-old Bobby Riggs in straight sets in 1973. He had claimed women's tennis was too weak.

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