Willie Nelson, Country Music Sensation
Willie Nelson, country singer-songwriter, long-haired hippie and philanthropist, has had a prolific music career. He began playing when he was 10 years old and...
Napoleon Bonaparte, French Military Leader
Napoleon Bonaparte is known for being a highly ambitious military leader, leading France in conquests throughout the Middle East and Europe, but he was...
Franz Kafka, Author of “The Metamorphosis”
Living a life tortured by his own insecurity and lack of connection to the world around him, Franz Kafka found comfort in his writing,...
Gwendolyn Brooks, First African-American Pulitzer Prize Winner
Gwendolyn Brooks, renowned poet, was the author of many memorable works centered on the black experience in America and the issues of the Civil...
Jack Kerouac, Beat Author of “On the Road”
Jack Kerouac’s beatnik persona has reached near mythical levels. But the author of “On the Road” never enjoyed his celebrity status, and lived a...
Rainer Maria Rilke, Author of “Letters to a Young Poet”
Rainer Maria Rilke spent his life traveling the globe. Despite a variety of lovers and locales—Prague, Munich, Rome, Paris and Switzerland—Rilke remained alone, seeking...
Harry Houdini, Escape Artist Extraordinaire
During his short career, Harry Houdini’s “death-defying” feats astonished his audiences. People from all walks of life came to watch Houdini escape from shackles,...
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...
Tim Burton, Director and Animator
Tim Burton is a maverick auteur in a world where filmmakers are often relegated to pleasing Hollywood studios and producers. But his quirky and...
Chuck Yeager, American Pioneer of Flight
Driven by an unshakable sense of duty and a love of life in the air, Chuck Yeager has spent decades pushing the boundaries of...
