Curated playlist

New York (state) Democrats

Donald TrumpDonald Trump was a millionaire in inflation-adjusted terms by age eight.
Humphrey BogartHumphrey Bogart's ashes were buried with a small gold whistle from a bracelet he gave Lauren Bacall.
Hillary ClintonAround 1961, a girl from the Chicago suburbs wrote a letter to NASA. Hillary Rodham, later known as Hillary Clinton, wanted to know what she could do to become an astronaut. The reply was blunt. Women were not being accepted into the…
Katharine HepburnKatharine Hepburn bought out her own studio contract after theater owners called her box office poison.
Bill ClintonBill Clinton was born three months after his father died in a car crash.
Robert F. KennedyRobert F. Kennedy won the California Democratic primary on the 5th of June 1968, and around midnight a gunman shot him. Kennedy died 25 hours later. The shooter was Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian who acted in retaliation for…
Chuck SchumerBob Dole once joked that the most dangerous place in Washington was between Charles Schumer and a television camera. Schumer, a Democrat from Brooklyn, has been a United States senator from New York since 1999. Along the way he has led his…
Ben StillerBen Stiller's films have grossed more than $2.6 billion in Canada and the United States, an average of $79 million per film. Behind that figure stands Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller, an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is known…
Judy GarlandMGM fired Judy Garland in 1950, and Bing Crosby invited her onto his radio show. The audience gave her an ovation.
Gwyneth PaltrowGwyneth Paltrow won the lead in Emma with a perfect Texas accent. The director said it sold him.
Alec BaldwinAlec Baldwin has hosted Saturday Night Live more often than anyone else in the show's history. As of 2017 he had done it 17 times, and the first came in 1990. Born Alexander Rae Baldwin III on the 3rd of April 1958, he has worked as a film…
Maggie GyllenhaalMaggie Gyllenhaal did not learn her own legal first name until 2013. The name on her birth certificate is Margalit, a Hebrew word that means pearl. She found this out when she took on her husband's surname, which turned the full name into…
Uma ThurmanUma Thurman and Quentin Tarantino once imagined a character from one image: a bride covered in blood. The two of them came up with it on the set of Pulp Fiction, long before anyone shot a frame of what became Kill Bill. That picture suits…
Bob IgerBob Iger began on television sets earning $150 a week and later ran Disney twice.
Ken BurnsKen Burns was nearly nine when neighbors handed his family six twenty-dollar bills.
John Francis HylanJohn Francis Hylan reached New York in 1887 with $3.50 and became its mayor.
Cyndi LauperCyndi Lauper wore almost a pound of necklaces to the Grammy Awards ceremony in 1985. The excess suited the woman wearing it. Lauper is an American singer, songwriter and actress, born on the 22nd of June 1953. She is known for eccentric…
Robert Downey Jr.Robert Downey Jr. was too big an insurance risk to hire until Mel Gibson paid his insurance bond.
Mark RuffaloMark Ruffalo has been nominated four times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which ties a record. Each nomination came for a different kind of man. Ruffalo is an American actor and producer, and the road to that record was…
Harvey WeinsteinHarvey Weinstein was thanked by name in 34 Academy Award acceptance speeches. That is as many times as God was thanked, and only Steven Spielberg, with 43 mentions, was thanked more often. The tally comes from an analysis of speeches made…
Caroline KennedyCaroline Kennedy was a small girl riding a pony named Macaroni when a news photograph of her became the seed of a pop song. The picture showed her circling the White House grounds. It inspired singer-songwriter Neil Diamond to write "Sweet…
Jack KirbyJack Kirby was drafted in 1943 and became a scout who drew reconnaissance maps in towns.
Carole KingCarole King wrote or co-wrote 118 songs that reached the Billboard Hot 100 during the second half of the 20th century. Another 61 of her songs reached the UK charts. From 1962 to 2005, no woman had more success as a songwriter on the UK…
Michael BloombergMichael Bloomberg was on the ballot in New York City's Republican mayoral primary when voting opened on the morning of the 11th of September 2001. Later that day, officials postponed the primary because of the attacks on the city. The…
Iman (model)On the 7th of June 2010, the Somali-American model and actress Iman accepted a lifetime achievement award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. The prize was called Fashion Icon, and it is reserved for "an individual whose…
Jon HammJon Hamm was once judged too handsome for the role that made him famous. Alan Taylor and Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, first thought exactly that when they considered the American actor from St. Louis, Missouri. The part was Don…
Janet YellenJanet Yellen is the only person to have led the Fed, the White House economic advisers and the Treasury.
Carly SimonCarly Simon, an American singer, songwriter and author, recorded a line that strangers still sing back at her: "You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you." Listeners have argued about the target of that accusation ever since.…
James TaylorJames Taylor, the American singer-songwriter and guitarist, was the last act on the bill at the Newport Folk Festival on the 20th of July 1969. Thousands of fans had stayed through the rain just to hear him. He got through only 15 minutes.…
Barbra StreisandBarbra Streisand once filed a lawsuit that sent a crowd of strangers to look at a single photograph. In 2003 she claimed that a website documenting coastal erosion had invaded her privacy. Among its more than 12,000 images, one happened to…
Roy CohnThe AIDS Memorial Quilt panel made for Roy Cohn is plain white, and it carries four words. His name is lettered in black. Bully is red, Coward is yellow, and Victim is blue. His tombstone in Union Field Cemetery in Queens, New York, offers…
Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov coined the word "robotics" in a 1941 story, thinking it was just a natural term.
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…
Charlie RoseCharlie Rose, an American journalist born on the 5th of January 1942, hosted a talk show under his own name for 26 years, from 1991 to 2017. He was its executive producer as well as its host, and the program became known for its stature…
Marc AnthonyMarc Anthony sang at the 2013 Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Citi Field, and the loudest reaction online had nothing to do with his voice. Some viewers wrongly decided the singer was Mexican, and a small social media controversy…
Mary J. BligeMary J. Blige has won nine Grammy Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award, and in 2024 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Admirers call her the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, and also the Queen of R&B. Her career raises a few…
Jamie DimonIn November 1998, Sandy Weill asked Jamie Dimon to resign from Citigroup. Dimon was forty-two and had no plan.
Franz SigelGerman immigrant soldiers cheered "I'm going to fight mit Sigel" for a general who kept disappointing.
Chevy ChaseChevy Chase opened a television career with a boast aimed squarely at the audience: "I'm Chevy Chase… and you're not." That one line made the American comedian, actor and writer a household name in the mid-1970s. It also announced a…
Olivia WildeOlivia Wilde was 19 years old in 2003 when she married in secret on a school bus, with only a pair of witnesses present. The ceremony took place in Washington, Virginia. She said later that the bus was the one place where the couple could…
Aaron SorkinAaron Sorkin, born in Manhattan on the 9th of June 1961, discovered his calling by accident. One weekend he was house-sitting for a friend, found a typewriter, and started typing. Years later he described the feeling as "a phenomenal…
Alexandria Ocasio-CortezAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez, known widely as AOC, won a Democratic primary in New York's 14th congressional district on the 26th of June 2018. She collected 15,897 votes to 11,761 for Joe Crowley, a ten-term incumbent who chaired the…
Daniel Patrick MoynihanDaniel Patrick Moynihan once shined shoes in Penn Station, which now has a train hall named for him.
Vince LombardiVince Lombardi, the football coach, once dreamed of becoming a priest. He attended Mass every day of his adult life.
Emmy RossumEmmanuelle Grey Rossum was seven years old when she sang "Happy Birthday" in all 12 keys for a stranger. The stranger was Elena Doria, director of the Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus, and the performance earned the girl a place in the…
Alan DershowitzAlan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer and law professor, and by his own account his career began as a joke at the expense of his teachers. He later recalled that they steered him toward work that "requires a big mouth and no…
Sarah PaulsonSarah Paulson once described her mother's first days in New York City in a few blunt lines. "My mom was 27 years old when we moved. She didn't know a single person in New York City. She got a job at Sardi's Restaurant." The girl who…