Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries
Filterable archive covering centuries of intellectual, artistic, and moral contributions to the human story.
Ron Springs
(Ronald Jerome Springs)
Dynamic Dallas Cowboys running back who played eight NFL seasons and whose extraordinary friendship with teammate Everson Walls inspired millions when Walls donated a kidney to save him.
Snooky Young
(Eugene Edward Young)
Master American big band lead trumpeter celebrated for his powerful tone, impeccable plunger-mute technique, and decades of trumpet leadership with Count Basie and The Tonight Show Band.
Wouter Weylandt
(Wouter Weylandt)
Belgian professional road bicycle racer who won sprint stages at the Vuelta a Espaรฑa and Giro d'Italia, remembered for his competitive spirit and the retirement of bib number 108.
Seve Ballesteros
(Severiano Ballesteros Sota)
Charismatic Spanish golfing genius who won five Major championships (three Open Championships, two Masters) and single-handedly transformed European golf into a global superpower.
Willard Boyle
(Willard Sterling Boyle)
Canadian physicist who co-invented the Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) sensor at Bell Labs, winning the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics and enabling the digital imaging revolution.
Jackie Cooper
(John Cooper Jr.)
American actor and director who made history at age nine as the youngest nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Skippy, and later played Daily Planet editor Perry White in Superman.
Ernesto Sabato
(Ernesto Sabato)
Towering Argentine novelist and moral authority who wrote The Tunnel and On Heroes and Tombs, and led the landmark CONADEP investigation Nunca Mรกs into military junta disappearances.
Gonzalo Rojas
(Gonzalo Rojas Pizarro)
One of Chile's greatest 20th-century poets, Cervantes Prize laureate, whose intense, rhythmic, and erotic verse explored mortality, love, and political exile.
Marie-France Pisier
(Marie-France Pisier)
Elegant French actress, screenwriter, and director discovered by Franรงois Truffaut as Colette in the Antoine Doinel cycle, who won consecutive Cรฉsar Awards for Cousin Cousine and Barocco.
Mikhail Kozakov
(ะะธั
ะฐะธะป ะะธั
ะฐะนะปะพะฒะธั ะะพะทะฐะบะพะฒ)
Versatile Soviet-Russian and Israeli actor, theater director, and filmmaker who directed the beloved comedy classic The Pokrovsky Gate and was renowned for masterful recitations of Russian poetry.
Allan Blakeney
(Allan Blakeney)
Rhodes Scholar premier of Saskatchewan whose masterful state-led economic model nationalized potash and oil, and who secured provincial resource rights in the 1982 Constitution.
Trevor Bannister
(Trevor Gordon Bannister)
English comedic actor beloved worldwide as the cheekily insubordinate junior menswear salesman Mr. Dick Lucas in the iconic BBC sitcom Are You Being Served?.
William Lipscomb
(William Nunn Lipscomb Jr.)
Eminent American chemist awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his groundbreaking structural and theoretical studies of borane chemical bonding.
Sidney Lumet
(Sidney Lumet)
Master American film director of gritty urban morality tales, who directed cinematic milestones including 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and The Verdict.
Ange-Fรฉlix Patassรฉ
(Ange-Felix Patasse)
First democratically elected President of the Central African Republic (1993โ2003) following multiparty elections, having previously served as an agronomist and Prime Minister.
Baruch Samuel Blumberg
(Baruch Samuel Blumberg)
American medical scientist who discovered the Hepatitis B virus, developed its diagnostic screening test, and invented the Hepatitis B vaccine, winning the 1976 Nobel Prize.
Manning Marable
(William Manning Marable)
Distinguished American historian and Columbia University professor who founded the Institute for Research in African-American Studies and won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his definitive biography of Malcolm X.
Farley Granger
(Farley Earle Granger II)
Handsome American Hollywood leading man best remembered for his starring roles in two of Alfred Hitchcock's classic thrillers: Rope (1948) and Strangers on a Train (1951).