Tom Ford, Fashion Designer and Director
The American designer Tom Ford made his mark as the head designer of Gucci, transforming the brand in the late 1990s from a passé...
Nadine Gordimer, 1991 Winner of Nobel Prize in Literature
Writer Nadine Gordimer has devoted her life to fighting for the rights and health of the less fortunate and oppressed. She won the Nobel...
James P. Johnson, Jazz Pianist
The 1920s were a dynamic time in American history. Flappers tested the limits of fashion. Bootleg liquor fought prohibition. In music, the era became...
Nat King Cole, Singer and Jazz Pioneer
Nat King Cole’s musical upbringing forged a career that would delve the nuances of the jazz trio and fashion a more subtle approach to...
Walt Whitman, “America’s Poet”
Walt Whitman helped transform the literary scene in the United States during the 19th century, becoming one of the most influential poets of his...
Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s “Dear Leader”
Kim Jong Il assumed power a few years after his father suffered a heart attack. The dictator had a reputation as a somewhat erratic...
Truman Capote, Investigative Journalist and Author
Writer Truman Capote emerged from the small town of Monroeville, Alabama, to become one of the most visible writers of the 1950s and ’60s....
Ursula K. Le Guin, Writer
Novelist, poet and translator Ursula Le Guin is best known for creating worlds of fantasy and of the far future, but that is only...
Gregory Peck, Cinema’s Unflappable Leading Man
Placed in Hollywood’s limelight by a mix of hard work and simple good luck, Gregory Peck was known for a blend of honesty, strength...
John Foster Dulles, Former Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles was hailed as a “master craftsman” of foreign policy. Decades before his work as secretary of state under President Dwight Eisenhower,...
