Warren Beatty

Warren Beatty began as a standard young heartthrob, making a splash opposite Natalie Wood in 1961's Splendor in the Grass. But he morphed into something more complicated, playing handsome ... more

Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon is most famous for his 1978 album, Excitable Boy, and for hard-rocking, darkly funny tunes like "Werewolves of London," "Lawyers, Guns and Money" and "Roland the Headless Thompson ... more

Wendy Carlos

Keyboardist and composer Wendy Carlos is a pioneer in electronic music, known popularly for her "switched-on" renditions of the music of classical composers. ... more

Baha'u'llah

In 1844, Syyid Ali-Muhammad broke from mainstream Islam, called himself the Bab ("the gate") and prophesied the coming of a man who would be the ... more

Alain Robbe-Grillet

Alain Robbe-Grillet is the founder of the movement known as Nouveau Roman ("new novel"), which was part of the French New Wave in literature and film in the 1950s. Because his novels and ... more

Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen's screen persona -- blue-eyed cool on the outside, rebellious turmoil on the inside -- made him a box-office smash throughout the 1960s ... more

Catherine O'Hara

Catherine O'Hara was part of the comedy group Second City in Toronto in the early 1970s. She was one of the original founders (along with John Candy and others) of the ... more

Yasmeen Ghauri

Raven-haired and aristocratic, Yasmeen Ghauri has appeared in ad campaigns for Givenchy, Hermes, Versace and other high-end fashion houses. ... more

James Buchanan

James Buchanan was the last American president born in the 18th century, and his term (1857-61) was the last before the Civil War. Buchanan came to the presidency after a distinguished public career: ... more

Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash was an American poet whose verse was light, whimsical and often nonsensical. One of his best-known poems, "Reflections on Ice-Breaking," goes ... more

Emily Brontë

Brontë died at age 30, leaving the now-legendary Wuthering Heights as her only novel. Little is known about Emily's life; she was a member of the famed Brontë clan, which included ... more

Charles Atlas

For much of the 20th century Charles Atlas was America's most famous muscle man. Atlas immigrated from Italy as a boy, and in his teens he built up his ... more

Charlize Theron

Born in South Africa, Charlize Theron was a ballerina and model until a knee injury ended her dance career. She moved to Hollywood and began acting, first grabbing attention in the ... more

Jessica Lynch

On 3 April 2003, The Washington Post reported the dramatic rescue of a prisoner of war: U.S. Army Private Jessica Lynch, a 19 year-old supply clerk assigned to the 507th Ordnance ... more

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupéry was a French aviator and the author of the children's fable The Little Prince (1943). A veteran of France's air service (1921-23), he spent most of ... more

William Gibson

William Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer took the science fiction world by storm, winning the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards for best novel. The book ... more

Ashley Dupré

Ashley Dupré was the prostitute who was hired by New York Governor Eliot Spitzer in 2008, sparking a political scandal. ... more

Leighton Meester

Leighton Meester begain playing Blair, the haughty and not-so-nice frenemy, on the TV show Gossip Girl in 2007. Gossip Girl was based on the the popular book series about privileged ... more

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt was one of America's richest men in the second half of the 19th century. He started in business when he was 16 years old -- he borrowed money, bought a boat and started as a ... more

Alan Turing

Alan Turing was a mathematician who in 1937 suggested a theoretical machine, since called a Turing Machine, that became the basis of modern computing. ... more