Marlon Brando, Stage and Motion Picture Star
Arguably the greatest actor of his generation, Marlon Brando combined his talent for subtle emoting with a rejection of the traditional methods of approaching...
Sandra Day O’Connor, First Female Supreme Court Justice
Sandra Day O’Connor endured a great deal of gender-based prejudice before she became the first woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice. During...
Sidney Poitier, Pioneering African-American Actor
Sidney Poitier was the child of tomato farmers in the Bahamas. He moved to New York as a teenager and worked as a dishwasher...
Federico García Lorca, Spanish Poet and Playwright
Before the Spanish Civil War, scholars, literary figures and artists from all of Europe found a home in Spain, a nation of contrasts, diverse...
Joan Miró, Surrealist Painter and Abstract Artist
A man who worked in many styles and mediums, Joan Miró is regarded as one of Spain’s best abstract artists. He’s known for pushing...
Joseph Heller, Author of “Catch-22”
Brooklyn-born author Joseph Heller is best known for coining the phrase “Catch-22” in his tragicomic World War II novel of the same name.
Joseph Heller’s...
Jacques Cousteau, Deep Sea Pioneer
Jacques Cousteau is known for developing the aqualung, the one-man submarine and an underwater village off Sudan. While a measure of controversy surrounds his...
Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States
Early on, it hardly seemed as if Harry S. Truman—a farmer, an army captain in World War I and a haberdasher—was on track to...
Norman Lear, Television Writer and Producer of “All in the Family”
With four Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, accolades from the Writers Guild of America and a National Medal of Arts from President Clinton, Norman...
Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher
“Nietzsche’s actual thought is a…system, at the beginning of which stands the death of God…the ensuing nihilism, and at its end the self-surmounting of...
