Stan Laurel, Comic Actor, Writer and Director
Known for his antics alongside fellow funnyman Oliver Hardy, comedian Stan Laurel had a unique identity and story all his own.
Stan Laurel’s Early Days
Stan...
Werner Herzog, Eccentric Filmmaker
Renowned German documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog focuses on the eccentric, the original and the fascinating in people and stories, reflecting his own inner nature....
Francis Scott Key, Author of “The Star-Spangled Banner”
Francis Scott Key was a Federalist, a lawyer, attorney general of Washington, D.C., a husband and the father of 11 children. An ancestor and...
Miriam Makeba, Singer and Anti-Apartheid Activist
Miriam Makeba, widely known as “Mama Africa,” was exiled from her home of South Africa for her revolutionary words and songs, but was widely...
Shigeru Miyamoto, Father of Modern Video Games
Beginning with the seminal arcade game Donkey Kong nearly three decades ago, Nintendo’s chief game developer and the father of modern video games, Shigeru...
Hans Christian Andersen, Poet and Author of Fairy Tales
Fairy tales may seem to have existed since the beginning of storytelling, but Hans Christian Andersen is the acknowledged father of the modern form....
Saul Bellow, American Novelist
“The backbone of 20th-century American literature”—this was novelist Philip Roth’s assessment of Saul Bellow. His struggle with modernism, his Jewish upbringing, his feelings of...
Charles Horace Mayo of the Mayo Clinic
A member of one of the most well-known families in medicine, Charles Horace Mayo was introduced to the medical profession at an early age....
Erik Erikson, German Psychologist
German psychoanalyst Erik Erikson is best known for his groundbreaking theories about the psychosocial stages of development, for coining the term “identity crisis,” and...
Dave Brubeck, American Jazz Pianist
One of America’s most revered and respected jazz and classical pianists and composers, Dave Brubeck had a prolific career spanning six decades of performing...
