Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries
Filterable archive covering centuries of intellectual, artistic, and moral contributions to the human story.
Jeret Peterson
(Jeret 'Speedy' Peterson)
Fearless American freestyle aerial skier nicknamed 'Speedy', who invented the breathtaking 'Hurricane' jump (three flips and five twists) to win Olympic silver at Vancouver 2010.
Michael Cacoyannis
(ฮฮนฯฮฌฮปฮทฯ ฮฮฑฮบฮฟฮณฮนฮฌฮฝฮฝฮทฯ)
Cypriot-Greek film director and theatrical visionary best known for his 1964 international classic Zorba the Greek and his acclaimed cinematic adaptations of Euripidean tragedies.
David Servan-Schreiber
(David Servan-Schreiber)
French neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and physician whose international bestsellers Healing Without Freud or Prozac and Anticancer pioneered integrative medicine and lifestyle oncology.
Amy Winehouse
(Amy Jade Winehouse)
Prodigious English singer and songwriter whose rich, expressive contralto and mix of soul, jazz, and R&B on Back to Black won five Grammy Awards and revived vintage soul music.
John Shalikashvili
(John Malchase David Shalikashvili)
General who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1993 to 1997, the first foreign-born person to hold America's highest military post, having risen from drafted private.
Lucian Freud
(Lucian Michael Freud)
British painter born in Germany, grandson of Sigmund Freud, widely acclaimed as one of the greatest figurative artists of the 20th century for his unsparing, intensely physical nudes and portraits.
Googie Withers
(Georgette Lizette Withers)
Beloved Anglo-Australian stage and film actress whose eight-decade career featured classics including Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, It Always Rains on Sunday, and Night and the City.
Roland Petit
(Roland Petit)
Legendary French choreographer and dancer who revitalized 20th-century ballet with theatrical energy, creating Le Jeune Homme et la Mort and directing the Ballet National de Marseille for 26 years.
Facundo Cabral
(Rodolfo Enrique Facundo Cabral)
Beloved Argentine singer-songwriter and philosopher whose 1970 song No soy de aquรญ ni soy de allรก became an international humanist anthem, designated a UNESCO World Messenger of Peace.
Mika Myllylรค
(Mika Kristian Myllylรค)
One of Finland's greatest cross-country skiers, who won Olympic gold in the 30 km classical at Nagano 1998 and claimed four gold medals at World Championships.
Cy Twombly
(Edwin Parker Twombly Jr.)
Master American abstract painter and sculptor whose large-scale calligraphic scribbles, graffiti-like marks, and poetic invocations of classical mythology redefined post-war contemporary art.
Otto von Habsburg
(Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius von Habsburg-Lothringen)
The last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary who renounced his claim to the imperial throne, fiercely opposed Hitler, and served as a Member of the European Parliament for two decades, co-organizing the 1989 Pan-European Picnic.
Anna Massey
(Anna Raymond Massey)
Acclaimed English actress who won the BAFTA TV Award for Hotel du Lac and starred in Michael Powell's Peeping Tom and Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy.
Peter Falk
(Peter Michael Falk)
Iconic American actor who gained global affection as the rumpled, deceptively brilliant police detective Lieutenant Columbo, and starred in independent classics for John Cassavetes.
Clarence Clemons
(Clarence Anicholas Clemons Jr.)
Towering American saxophonist known as 'The Big Man', whose soulful, soaring tenor sax solos formed the emotional heart of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band for four decades.
Frederick Chiluba
(Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba)
Second President of Zambia who led the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) to victory in 1991, peacefully ending Kenneth Kaunda's 27-year one-party rule.
Elena Bonner (ะะปะตะฝะฐ ะะตะพัะณะธะตะฒะฝะฐ ะะพะฝะฝัั)
Elena Bonner was a fearless Soviet pediatrician, World War II veteran, and premier human rights activist who co-founded the Moscow Helsinki Group in 1976 and served as the voice and international representative of her husband, Andrei Sakharov. Defying constant KGB surveillance, arrests, and internal exile in Gorky, she represented Soviet prisoners of conscience before the world community and accepted the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize on Sakharov's behalf.
Twins Seven-Seven
(Taiwo Olaniyi Oyewale Toshin Gbogunlorin)
Internationally renowned Nigerian painter and bandleader from the Osogbo Art School whose vivid mythological canvases brought Yoruba cosmology to global prominence.