T.I.M's Who's Who Of Interesting Departed People: A-Z

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• Ada Lovelace - (1815-1852). English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine. Because of this, she is often described as the world's first computer programmer.
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• ADAM SMITH - (1723-1780). Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Adam Smith is best known for two classic works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, usually abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. Smith is cited as the "father of modern economics".
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• ADAM WORTH - (1844-1902). American criminal. Scotland Yard detective. Nicknamed "the Napoleon of the criminal world", and he is commonly referred to as "the Napoleon of Crime." Sherlock Holmes' nemesis, Professor Moriarty?
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• Addison Mizner - (1872-1933). American resort architect whose Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival style interpretations left an indelible stamp on South Florida, where it continues to inspire architects and land developers. In the 1920s Mizner was the best-known and most-discussed living American architect. Mizner's first major Florida commission was the Everglades Club, a Spanish-mission-style convalescent retreat built in 1918, that became (and remains) a private club.
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• ADNAN KHASHOGGI - (1935-2017). Saudi Arabian businessman. He is also noted for his engagements with high society in both the Western and Arabic-speaking worlds, and for his involvement in the Iran–Contra and Lockheed bribery scandals. At a peak net worth of up to US$40 billion in the early 1980s, he was considered one of the richest men in the world. In the 1980s the Khashoggi family occupied one of the largest villa estates in Marbella, Spain, called Baraka, hosting lavish parties. These parties were legendary, and guests included film stars, politicians, and pop celebrities. Food was supplied by up to 6 resident chefs, and it is said that champagne was kept in specially cooled trailers parked in the vast grounds of the complex. In 1985, celebrity reporter Robin Leach declared a five day birthday party in Vienna that Khashoggi threw for his eldest son to be "the most extravagant event in European history", and in his heyday, Khashoggi spent US$250,000 a day to maintain his lifestyle. Khashoggi continues to live a quiet life in the Principality of Monaco.
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• ADOLF HITLER - (1889-1945). Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party. He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler was at the centre of Nazi Germany, World War II in Europe, and the Holocaust. Known as one of the most evil people in history.
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• AGATHA CHRISTIE - (1890-1976). English crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She is best remembered for the 66 detective novels. Her fictional protagonists are the elderly spinster Miss Jane Marple and Belgian detective Hercule Poirot
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• AL CAPONE - (1899-1947). American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently also became known as the "Capones," was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early 1920s to 1931. Despite his illegitimate occupation, Capone became a highly visible public figure. He made donations to various charitable endeavors using the money he made from his activities, and was viewed by many to be a "modern-day Robin Hood". Capone's public reputation was damaged in the wake of his supposed involvement in the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, when seven rival gang members were executed. See also: THE AL CAPONE METHOD.
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• ALAN TURING - (1912-1954). British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, giving a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence.
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• ALBERT CAMUS - (1913-1960). French-Algeria-born French Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism.
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• ALBERT EINSTEIN - (1879-1955). German-born theoretical physicist who developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics (alongside quantum mechanics). While best known for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc² (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation"), he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". The latter was pivotal in establishing quantum theory.
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• ALBERT KHAN - (1860-1940). French banker and philanthropist, known for initiating The Archives of the Planet, a vast photographical project. Spanning 22 years, it resulted in a collection of 72,000 colour photographs and 183,000 meters of film.
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• ALBERT SCHWEITZER - (1875-1965). German—and later French—theologian, musician, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary in Africa best known for his interpretive life of Jesus. He depicted Jesus as one who literally believed the end of the world was coming in his own lifetime and believed himself to be a world savior. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for his philosophy of "Reverence for Life", expressed in many ways, but most famously in founding and sustaining the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, now in Gabon, west central Africa (then French Equatorial Africa). As a music scholar and organist, he studied the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach.
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• Alessandro "Dado", Prince Ruspoli - (1924-2005). An occasional actor and a playboy and eccentric aristocrat, the 9th Principe di Cerveteri, 9th Marchese di Riano and 14th Conte di Vignanello, who is said to have inspired Federico Fellini in making his famous movie La Dolce Vita. Dado became known for his extravagant lifestyle in the 1950s and 60s. He was friends with Brigitte Bardot, Salvador Dalí, Truman Capote, Roger Vadim, Roman Polanski, Emmanuelle Arsan and many others.
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• ALFRED NOBEL - (1833-1896). Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer. He was the inventor of dynamite. Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments. Nobel held 350 different patents, dynamite being the most famous. He used his fortune to posthumously institute the Nobel Prizes.
• ALFRED SHAHEEN - (1922-2008). Inventor of the Hawaiian shirt.
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• ALY KHAN - (1911-1960). Aly Khan was a son of Aga Khan III, the head of the Ismaili Muslims, and the father of Aga Khan IV. A socialite, racehorse owner and jockey, he was the third husband of actress Rita Hayworth.
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• ANAÏS NIN - (1903-1977). American author born to Spanish-Cuban parents in France, where she was also raised. She spent some time in Spain and Cuba but lived most of her life in the United States where she became an established author. She published journals (which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death), novels, critical studies, essays, short stories, and erotica.
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• ANDRÉ MALRAUX - (1901-1976). French novelist, art theorist and Minister for Cultural Affairs. He was appointed by President Charles de Gaulle as Minister of Information (1945–1946) and subsequently as France's first Minister of Cultural Affairs during de Gaulle's presidency (1959–1969).
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• AndrÉ Meyer - (1898-1979). French-born American Wall Street investment banker. Called "the most creative financial genius of our time in the investment banking world" by David Rockefeller, became one of the most important people in American business with an influence that extended around the globe. Known as "The Picasso of Banking," he introduced innovative financing techniques to post-War American business. During the 1960s, Meyer was responsible for making Lazard Frères the top mergers and acquisitions (M&A) firm in the U.S. He put together prodigious deals through leveraged buyouts for companies such as International Telephone & Telegraph Company (ITT) who grew to become the ninth largest industrial corporation in the United States. André Meyer was an advisor to the Kennedy family and a lifelong friend and advisor to Jackie Onassis.

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• ANDREW CARNEGIE - (1835-1919). Scottish-American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. He was also one of the highest profile philanthropists of his era; his 1889 article "Wealth" (known more commonly - particularly in colloquial parlance - as "The Gospel of Wealth") remains a formative advisory text for those who aspire to lead philanthropic lives.
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• ANDY WARHOL - (1928-1987). American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is the largest museum in the United States dedicated to a single artist.
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• ANNE FRANK - (1929-1945). One of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her diary has been the basis for several plays and films. Born in the city of Frankfurt am Main in Weimar Germany, she lived most of her life in or near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Born a German national, Frank lost her citizenship in 1941. She gained international fame posthumously after her diary was published. It documents her experiences hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.
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• ANTENOR PATIÑO - (1896-1982). Bolivian tycoon - called "the King of Tin". With his fortune, amongst other things, he developed tourist destinations like Las Hadas, in Manzanillo, Mexico, (where the movie "10" starring actress Bo Derek was filmed) and Las Alamandas in Jalisco state, also in Mexico.
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• ANTONI GAUDÍ - (1852-1926). Spanish Catalan architect born in Reus, in the Catalonia region of Spain and leader of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works reflect his highly individual and distinctive style and are largely concentrated in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, notably his magnum opus, the Sagrada Família.
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• ARISTOTLE - (384 BC - 322 BC). Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing ethics, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics.
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• ARISTOTLE ONASSIS - (1904-1975). Commonly called Ari. Prominent Greek shipping magnate. Aka "The Golden Greek". Several months before John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Onassis befriended Jackie Kennedy, America’s queen. In the agony following JFK’s death, Jackie clung to Ari for friendship. In time, they become lovers. In 1968, the two married on Onassis’ privately owned island Skorpios. America reacted very badly. One newspaper’s headline implored, "Jackie, How Could You?" See also: ONASSIS'S 10 GOLDEN RULES FOR SUCCESS.
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• Arnold Rothstein - (1882-1928). Ncknamed "the Brain", was a Jewish-American racketeer, businessman and gambler who became a kingpin of the Jewish mob in New York. Rothstein was widely reputed to have organized corruption in professional athletics, including conspiring to fix the 1919 World Series. In the novel The Great Gatsby, Meyer Wolfsheim is a Jewish friend and mentor of Gatsby's, described as a gambler who fixed the World Series. Wolfsheim appears only twice in the novel, the second time refusing to attend Gatsby's funeral. He is a clear allusion to Arnold Rothstein. In the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, a fictionalized version of Rothstein is portrayed by Michael Stuhlbarg. Also, two episodes vaguely refer to Rothstein having indigestion and that laxatives were being administered into his food unbeknownst to him. No actual account states that he had stomach trouble.
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• ARTHUR C. CLARKE - (1917-2008). British science fiction writer, popularizer of space travel, futurist, and inventor. He is famous for his science fiction short stories and novels, including 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Clarke were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction. Clarke was also a science writer, who was both an ardent proponent of space travel and a futurist of uncanny ability. These, together with his science fiction writings, eventually earned him the moniker "prophet of the space age".
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• ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE - (1859-1930). Scottish physician and writer who is most noted for his fictional stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction. He is also known for writing the fictional adventures of a second character he invented, Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels. His main fictional protagonists are consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and John H. Watson, M.D., known as Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories consists of the 56 short stories & four novels.
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• Arthur Jones - (1926-2007). Was the founder of Nautilus, Inc. and MedX, Inc. and the inventor of the Nautilus exercise machines, including the Nautilus pullover, which was first sold in 1970. Jones was a pioneer in the field of physical exercise i.e. weight and strength training.
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• ARTHUR RIMBAUD - (1854-1891). French poet born in Charleville, Ardennes. As part of the decadent movement, he influenced modern literature, music, and arts, and prefigured surrealism. All of his poetry was written as a teenager; he gave up creative writing completely before he turned 20. His "genius, its flowering, explosion and sudden extinction, still astonishes".
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• ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER - (1788-1860). German philosopher best known for his book, The World as Will and Representation, in which he claimed that our world is driven by a continually dissatisfied will, continually seeking satisfaction. Influenced by Eastern thought, he maintained that the "truth was recognized by the sages of India"; consequently, his solutions to suffering were similar to those of Vedantic and Buddhist thinkers (i.e. asceticism); his faith in "transcendental ideality" led him to accept atheism and learn from Christian philosophy.
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• Auguste Escoffier - (1846-1935). French chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. He is a legendary figure among chefs and gourmets, and was one of the most important leaders in the development of modern French cuisine.
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• AXEL SPRINGER - (1912-1985). German journalist and the founder and owner of the Axel Springer AG publishing company founded in Hamburg in 1946. He published the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper, preceded by some magazines, including the popular radio and TV programm magazine Hörzu. In 1952, Springer started the publication of the tabloid Bild, becoming the daily newspaper for millions in Germany and an important influence on public opinion. He went on to launch and acquire a string of papers and magazines characterised by entertainment and conservative politics, Die Welt among others. The Axel Springer AG today is one of the major magazine, newspaper and online media companies in Europe with over 230 newspapers and magazines as well as more than 80 online offerings.
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• Axel Wenner-Gren - (1881-1961). Swedish entrepreneur and one of the wealthiest men in the world during the 1930s. "I'm so rich that I'm above the law", Wenner-Gren reportedly told FBI director J. Edgar Hoover when meeting in the Bahamas in 1936.
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• AYN RAND - (1905-1982). Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is most famous for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, Rand moved to the United States in 1926. In 1957, she published her best-known work, the novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward she turned to nonfiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own magazines and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982. Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism, and rejected ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed collectivism and statism as well as anarchism, instead supporting a minarchist limited government and laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights. In art, Rand promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, except for some Aristotelians and classical liberals. She has been a significant influence among libertarians and American conservatives.

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• BARBARA HUTTON - (1912-1979). American socialite, heiress and debutante, often dubbed "Poor Little Rich Girl" due to the fact that she was given a lavish and expensive debutante ball during the depression era and due to her troubled life. Heiress to the retail tycoon Frank W. Woolworth, she endured a disturbed childhood that made it hard for her to form relationships. Seven times married, she acquired several grand foreign titles, but was cynically exploited by many of her husbands. Although much envied for her possessions and her life of leisure, she remained deeply insecure, often taking refuge in drink, drugs and playboys. She ended her days almost bankrupt, owing to her naivete and compulsive generosity, her state worsened further by the death of her only son in an air crash.
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• BARBEY D'AUREVILLY - (1808-1889). French novelist and short story writer. He specialised in mystery tales that explored hidden motivation and hinted at evil without being explicitly concerned with anything supernatural. He had a decisive influence on writers such as Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Henry James and Marcel Proust.
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• BARON CORVO | FREDERICK ROLFE - (1860-1913). English writer, artist, photographer and eccentric.
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• BARON DE MONTESQUIEU - (1689-1755). French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Age of Enlightenment. He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, which is taken for granted in modern discussions of government and implemented in many constitutions throughout the world.
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• BARON DE RÉDÉ - (1922-2004). Prominent French banker, aristocratic aesthete, collector, socialite | social lion, and role as a host - notable for his Bal oriental, given on 5 December 1969. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1972.
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• BASIL ZAHAROFF - (1849-1936). International armaments dealer and financier. Reputedly one of the richest men in the world, he was described as a "merchant of death" and the "mystery man of Europe." Also known as the 'Armaments King'.
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• BEAU BRUMMELL - (1778-1840). Iconic figure in Regency England, the arbiter of men's fashion, and a friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV. He established the mode of dress for men that rejected overly ornate fashions for one of understated, but perfectly fitted and tailored clothing. This look was based on dark coats, full-length trousers rather than knee breeches and stockings, and above all immaculate shirt linen and an elaborately knotted cravat.
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• BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - (1706-1790). One of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass 'armonica'. He facilitated many civic organizations, including a fire department and a university.
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• BERNARD BERENSON - (1865-1959). American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. He was a major figure in pioneering art attribution and therefore establishing the market for paintings by the "Old Masters".
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• BERNARD BARUCH - (1870-1965). Sometimes referred to as "The Lone Wolf of Wall Street". American financier, stock investor, philanthropist, statesman, and political consultant. After his success in business, he devoted his time toward advising U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt on economic matters and became a philanthropist.
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• BERNARD CORNFELD - (1927-1995). Prominent businessman and international financier who sold investments in US mutual funds, and was tried and acquitted for orchestrating one of the most lucrative confidence games of his era. Biography: Do You Sincerely Want to Be Rich?
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• Berry Hall - (1860-1940). New York socialite and later an American expatriate in France during the Belle Époque and beyond. He was famous for his extravagantly refined look and was crowned "King of the Dudes" in the 1880s.
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• BERTRAND RUSSELL - (1872-1970). British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. His A History of Western Philosophy (1945) became a best-seller, and provided Russell with a steady income for the remainder of his life. In 1950 Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought."
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• Billy Hill - (1911-1984). One of the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in London from the 1920s through to the 1960s. He was a smuggler, operated protection rackets and used extreme violence. He project managed cash robberies and, in a clever scam, defrauded London High Society of millions at the card tables of John Aspinall's Clermont Club.
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• Boni de Castellane - (1867-1932). French nobleman known as a leading Belle Epoque tastemaker and the first husband of American railroad heiress Anna Gould, the daughter of Jay Gould. Anna obtained a civil divorce in 1906, after de Castellane had spent about $10 million of the money given to Anna by her father upon marriage.
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• BRUCE CHATWIN - (1940-1989). English novelist and travel writer. He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill (1982). Married and bisexual, he was one of the first prominent men in Britain known to have contracted HIV and died of AIDS, although he hid the facts of his illness. Bruce Chatwin and his notebooks: Interview to the wife Elizabeth.
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• BRUCE LEE - (1940-1973). Chinese American, martial artist, Hong Kong action film actor, martial arts instructor, and filmmaker. He is widely considered by commentators, critics, media and other martial artists to be one of the most influential martial artists of all time, and a pop culture icon of the 20th century. He is often credited with helping to change the way Asians were presented in American films.
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• Bunny Mellon - (1910-2014). American horticulturalist, gardener, philanthropist, and art collector. She designed and planted a number of significant gardens, including the White House Rose Garden, and assembled one of the largest collections of rare horticultural books. Mellon was the second wife of philanthropist and horse breeder Paul Mellon.

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• C. NORTHCOTE PARKINSON - (1909-1993). British naval historian and author of some sixty books, the most famous of which was his bestseller Parkinson's Law, which led him to be also considered as an important scholar within the field of public administration.
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• CARL GUSTAV JUNG - (1875-1961). Swiss psychotherapist and psychiatrist who founded analytical psychology. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of the extraverted and the introverted personality, archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, literature, and related fields.
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• CARL VON CLAUSEWITZ - (1780-1831). German-Prussian soldier and military theorist who stressed the "moral" (in modern terms, psychological) and political aspects of war. His most notable work, Vom Kriege (On War), was unfinished at his death.
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• Carlos de Beistegui - (1895-1970). Also known as Charles or Charlie de Beistegui, was an eccentric multi-millionaire aesthete, art collector and interior decorator and one of the most flamboyant characters of mid-20th century European life. Often referred to as "The Count of Monte Cristo". On September 3, 1951 Beistegui held a masked costume ball, which he called Le Bal Oriental, at the Palazzo Labia. It was one of the last truly spectacular events in the famous ballroom, and it was one of the largest and most lavish social events of the 20th century.
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• Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, 18th Duchess of Alba - (1926-2014). Possessor of more aristocratic titles than anyone else in the world. She was 14 times a Spanish grandee, five times a duchess, once a countess-duchess, 18 times a marchioness, 18 times a countess and once a viscountess. Named by Guinness World Records as the world's most titled person.
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• CECIL BEATON - (1904-1980). English fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer.
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• CECIL RHODES - (1853-1902). English businessman, mining magnate, and politician in South Africa. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers, which today markets 40% of the world's rough diamonds and at one time marketed 90%. An ardent believer in British colonialism, he was the founder of the southern African territory of Rhodesia, which was named after him in 1895.
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• Charles Alexander Munn - (1885-1981). "Mr. Palm Beach." Charles Munn is credited with introducing the Palm Beach men's dress code: a blue blazer, open sport shirt, and loafers or moccasins, preferably without socks. Besides imposing his style in clothes on Palm Beach, he began a tradition of sending out a Christmas card listing the names and phone number of Palm Beach's inner circle.
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• CHARLES DARWIN - (1809-1882). English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. in published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of transmutation of species.
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• CHARLES FREDERICK WORTH - (1825-1895). Widely considered the Father of Haute couture, was an English fashion designer of the 19th century, whose works were produced in Paris.
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• CHARLES LINDBERGH - (1902-1974). American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist. As a 25-year-old U.S. Air Mail pilot, Lindbergh emerged suddenly from virtual obscurity to instantaneous world fame as the result of his Orteig Prize-winning solo non-stop flight on May 20–21, 1927, made from Roosevelt Field located in Garden City on New York's Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France, a distance of nearly 3,600 statute miles (5,800 km), in the single-seat, single-engine purpose-built Ryan monoplane Spirit of St. Louis. As a result of this flight Lindbergh was the first person in history to be in New York one day and Paris the next.
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• CHARLES PONZI - (1882-1949). Italian businessman and con artist in the U.S. and Canada. Born in Italy, he became known in the early 1920s as a swindler in North America for his money making scheme. Charles Ponzi promised clients a 50% profit within 45 days, or 100% profit within 90 days, by buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the United States as a form of arbitrage. In reality, Ponzi was paying early investors using the investments of later investors. This type of scheme is now known as a "Ponzi scheme".
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• CHARLES SCHWAB - (1862-1939). American steel magnate. Under his leadership, Bethlehem Steel became the second largest steel maker in the United States, and one of the most important heavy manufacturers in the world.
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• CHRISTIAN DIOR - (1905-1957). French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior. He was a master at creating shapes and silhouettes; Dior is quoted as saying "I have designed flower women." His look employed fabrics lined predominantly with percale, boned, bustier-style bodices, hip padding, wasp-waisted corsets and petticoats that made his dresses flare out from the waist, giving his models a very curvaceous form. The "New Look" revolutionized women's dress and reestablished Paris as the center of the fashion world after World War II.
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• Christopher Gibbs - (1938-2018). British antiques dealer and collector who was also an influential figure in men's fashion and interior design in 1960s London. He has been credited with inventing Swinging London, and has been called the "King of Chelsea" and "London's most famous antiques dealer". The New York Times described him as a "man of infinite taste, judgment and experience, the one who introduced a whole generation to the distressed bohemian style of interior design."
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• CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD - (1904-1986). British novelist. The Berlin Stories is a book consisting of two short novels by Christopher Isherwood: Goodbye to Berlin and Mr Norris Changes Trains. It was published in 1945. The Berlin Stories was chosen as a Time 100 Best English-language novels of the 20th century. The two novellas are set in Berlin in 1931, just as Adolf Hitler was moving into power. Berlin is portrayed by Isherwood during this transition period of cafes and quaint avenues, grotesque nightlife and dreamers, and powerful mobs and millionaires. The character Sally Bowles is probably the best-known character from The Berlin Stories because of her later starring role in the Cabaret musical and film.
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• Claus von BÜlow - (1926-2019). British socialite of German and Danish ancestry. He was accused of the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von BÜlow (born Martha Sharp Crawford, 1931–2008) by administering an insulin overdose in 1980 which left her in a persistent vegetative state for the rest of her life, but his conviction in the first trial was reversed and he was found not guilty in both his retrials.
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• CLAUS VON STAUFFENBERG - (1907-1944). German army officer and aristocrat who was one of the leading members of the failed 20 July plot of 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler and remove the Nazi Party from power. Along with Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster, he was one of the central figures of the German Resistance movement within the Wehrmacht. For his involvement in the movement he was shot shortly after the failed attempt known as Operation Valkyrie.
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• CLIFFORD IRVING - (1930-2017). American investigative reporter and writer. He is known for a fake "autobiography" of Howard Hughes in the early 1970s.
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• Coco Chanel - (1883-1971). French fashion designer and businesswoman. She was the founder and namesake of the Chanel brand. Along with Paul Poiret, Chanel was credited in the post-World War I era with liberating women from the constraints of the "corseted silhouette" and popularizing a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing, realising her design aesthetic in jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
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• Conrad Hilton - (1887-1979). American hotelier and the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain.
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• Countess Dorothy di Frasso - (1900-1985). Notorious society-spy. The New-York born Dorothy Taylor married Count Carlo di Frasso, 30 years her senior, and was known in her lifetime to be a society scion with elaborate partes. As a "non-professional" resident of Hollywood, handed that town more dramatic shocks than any of its stars, among them the unexpected ending of her romantic friendship with Gary Cooper.

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• Dale Carnegie - (1888-1955). American writer, lecturer, and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills.
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• DANIEL K. LUDWIG - (1897-1992). US shipping magnate and billionaire. #1 on the first Forbes 400 Richest Americans list published in 1982. Even though he was one of the wealthiest men of his day, with operations spanning 23 countries, his name was little known. Throughout his business life, he maintained a low profile and ceased speaking to the press in the 1950s.
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• DIANE VREELAND - (1903-1989). Legendary fashion editor. She worked for the fashion magazines Harper's Bazaar and Vogue and as a special consultant at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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• DORIS DUKE - (1912-1993). American heiress, horticulturalist, art collector, and philanthropist. Daughter of an immensely rich tobacco tycoon, Duke was able to fund a life of global travel and wide-ranging interests. These extended across journalism, competition surfing, jazz piano, wildlife conservation, Oriental art and Hare Krishna. Much of her work centered on her father's estate at Hillsborough Township, New Jersey, where she created many elaborately-themed gardens, furnished with artifacts acquired on her world travels, including one of America's largest indoor botanical displays. She was also active in preserving more than eighty historic buildings in Newport, Rhode Island. Twice married and divorced, Duke enjoyed a colorful private life that was seldom out of the gossip-columns. Her philanthropic work continued into her old age, some of it unknown to the public during her lifetime, and her estimated $1.3 billion fortune was largely left to charity.
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• Douglas Engelbart - (1925-2013). American inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human–computer interaction, particularly while at his Augmentation Research Center Lab in SRI International, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to graphical user interfaces. The Mother of All Demos is a name given retrospectively to Douglas Engelbart's December 9, 1968, demonstration of experimental computer technologies that are now commonplace.
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• DUKE OF WINDSOR - (1894-1972). King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936. Edward became king when his father died in early 1936. He showed impatience with court protocol, and politicians were concerned by his apparent disregard for established constitutional conventions. Only months into his reign, he caused a constitutional crisis by proposing marriage to the American socialite Wallis Simpson, who had divorced her first husband and was seeking a divorce from her second. The prime ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominions opposed the marriage, arguing that the people would never accept a divorced woman with two living ex-husbands as queen. Choosing not to end his relationship with Simpson, Edward abdicated. After his abdication, he was given the title Duke of Windsor. He married Simpson in France on 3 June 1937, after her second divorce became final. Later that year, the couple toured Germany. During the Second World War, he was at first stationed with the British Military Mission to France but, after private accusations that he held Nazi sympathies, he was assigned to the Bahamas as the islands' Governor. After the war, he was never given another official appointment and spent the remainder of his life in retirement in France.

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• EDGAR ALLAN POE - (1809-1849). American author, poet, editor, and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
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• Edward T. Stotesbury - (1849-1938). Prominent investment banker, a partner in Philadelphia's Drexel & Co. and its New York affiliate J. P. Morgan & Co. for over fifty-five years. On January 18, 1912, after having been a widower for thirty-some years, Stotesbury married widow Eva Roberts Cromwell. Built three palatial estates: Whitemarsh Hall outside Philadelphia, El Mirasol in Palm Beach, Florida by architect Addison Mizner (1919, demolished 1950s) and Wingwood House in Bar Harbor, Maine. Edward and Eva Stotesbury are characters in the Stephen Sondheim musical Road Show (2008).
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• Elisabeth of Austria - (1837-1898). The wife of Franz Joseph I, and therefore both Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. She also held the titles of Queen of Bohemia and Croatia, among others. From an early age, she was called Sisi by family and friends. Although Elisabeth had a limited (but significant) influence on Austro-Hungarian politics, she became an historical icon. The Empress is now thought to have been a non-conformist who abhorred conventional court protocol, as well as a free spirit, who valued an individual sense of freedom above anything else. Following the suicide of her son Rudolf, she withdrew from public life. She was murdered by an anarchist in Geneva, Switzerland in 1898. Elisabeth is the longest serving consort of Austria.
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• ELMYR DE HORY - (1906-1976). Hungarian-born painter and art forger who is said to have sold over a thousand forgeries to reputable art galleries all over the world. His forgeries garnered much celebrity from a Clifford Irving book, Fake, and from F for Fake (1974), a documentary essay film by Orson Welles.
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• ELSA MAXWELL - (1883-1963). American gossip columnist and author, songwriter, and professional hostess renowned for her parties for royalty and high society figures of her day. Maxwell is credited with the introduction of the scavenger hunt and treasure hunt for use as party games in the modern era.
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• Elsie de Wolfe - (1865-1950). Also known as Lady Mendl. rican actress, interior decorator, nominal author of the influential 1913 book The House in Good Taste, and a prominent figure in New York, Paris, and London society. According to The New Yorker, "Interior Design as a profession was invented by Elsie de Wolfe." During her married life, the press usually referred to her as Lady Mendl. She was born in New York and died in Versailles, France.
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• ELVIS PRESLEY - (1937-1977). American singer, musician and actor. One of the most important cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as the King of Rock and Roll or the King.
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• EMANUEL LASKER - (1868-1941). German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years (from 1894 to 1921). In his prime Lasker was one of the most dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of the strongest players ever.
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• EMILIO PUCCI - (1914-1992). Marquess of Barsento, was a Florentine Italian fashion designer and politician. He and his eponymous company are synonymous with geometric prints in a kaleidoscope of colours.
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• EMILY POST - (1872-1960). American author famous for writing on etiquette. Emily Post's name has become synonymous, at least in North America, with proper etiquette and manners. More than half a century after her death, her name is still used in titles of etiquette books.
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• ERNEST HEMINGWAY - (1899-1961). American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations.
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• ERROL FLYNN - (1909-1959). Australian actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films and his playboy lifestyle. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1942.
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• EVELYN WAUGH - (1903-1966). English writer of novels, biographies and travel books. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer. His best-known works include his early satires Decline and Fall (1928) and A Handful of Dust (1934), his novel Brideshead Revisited (1945) and his trilogy of Second World War novels collectively known as Sword of Honour (1952–61). Waugh is widely recognised as one of the great prose stylists of the 20th century.

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• F. SCOTT FITZGERALD - (1896-1940). American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night, and his most famous, The Great Gatsby.
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• Felix Yusupov - (1887-1967). Best known for participating in the assassination of Grigori Rasputin, the faith healer who was said to have influenced decisions of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna.
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• Francisco "Baby" Matarazzo Pignatari - (1917-1977). Brazilian industrialist and playboy.
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• Frank Sinatra - (1915-1998). American singer and film actor. Beginning his musical career in the swing era as the boy singer with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra found unprecedented success as a solo artist from the early to mid-1940s after being signed by Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the "bobby soxers", he released his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra in 1946. His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here to Eternity. He signed with Capitol Records in 1953 and released several critically lauded albums. Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records in 1961, toured internationally, was a founding member of the Rat Pack and fraternized with celebrities and statesmen, including John F. Kennedy. Sinatra is also one of the best-selling artists of all time, his albums having sold more than 150 million copies worldwide.
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• FRANZ KAFKA - (1883-1924). German-language writer of novels and short stories, regarded by critics as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century. Kafka strongly influenced genres such as existentialism. His works, such as "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle), are filled with the themes and archetypes of alienation, physical and psychological brutality, parent–child conflict, characters on a terrifying quest, labyrinths of bureaucracy, and mystical transformations.
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• FRIEDRICH AUGUST HAYEK - (1899-1992). Economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought.
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• FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE - (1844-1900). German philologist, philosopher, cultural critic, poet, and composer. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy, and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony, and aphorism. Nietzsche's key ideas include the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism, the Will to Power, the "death of God", the Übermensch, and eternal recurrence. Central to his philosophy is the idea of "life-affirmation", which involves questioning of any doctrine that drains one's expansive energies, however socially prevalent those ideas might be. His radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth has been the focus of extensive commentary and his influence remains substantial, particularly in the continental philosophical tradition comprising existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism.

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• GABRIELLE "COCO" CHANEL - (1883-1971). French fashion designer and founder of the Chanel brand. She was the only fashion designer to appear on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Along with Paul Poiret, Chanel was credited with liberating women from the constraints of the "corseted silhouette" and popularizing the acceptance of a sportive, casual chic as the feminine standard in the post-World War I era. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel's influence extended beyond couture clothing. Her design aesthetic was realized in jewelry, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product.
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• GENGHIS KHAN - (1162-1227). Founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his demise.
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• GEORGE BALANCHINE - (1904-1983). One of the 20th century's most prolific and famous choreographers. Styled as the father of American ballet, he co-founded the New York City Ballet and remained its balletmaster for more than 35 years. Balanchine was a choreographer known for his musicality; he expressed music with dance and worked extensively with leading composers of his time like Igor Stravinsky.
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• GEORGE HERBERT - (1593-1633). Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest. Herbert's poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognized as "a pivotal figure: enormously popular, deeply and broadly influential, and arguably the most skillful and important British devotional lyricist."
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• George Orwell - (1903-1950). English novelist and journalist. His work is marked by clarity, intelligence and wit, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and commitment to democratic socialism. Considered perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture, Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is best known for the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945), which together have sold more copies than any two books by any other 20th-century author.
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• GEORGE S. PATTON - (1885-1945). General in the United States Army best known for his command of the Seventh United States Army, and later the Third United States Army, in the European Theater of World War II. Patton's colorful image, hard-driving personality and success as a commander were at times overshadowed by his politically inept statements in the press. But his philosophy of leading from the front and his ability to inspire his troops with vulgarity-ridden speeches, such as a famous address to the Third Army, led to new leadership philosophies in the U.S. officer corps. His strong emphasis on rapid and aggressive offensive action led to new strategies in combined arms warfare. While Allied leaders held differing opinions on Patton, he was regarded highly by his opponents in the German High Command. A popular, award-winning biographical film released in 1970 helped transform Patton into an American folk hero.
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• Gerald & Sara Murphy - (1888-1964 & 1883-1975). Gerald Murphy was born in Boston to the family that owned the Mark Cross Company, sellers of fine leather goods. Sara was of the wealthy Wiborg family of Cincinnati, Ohio. Both wealthy, expatriate Americans who moved to the French Riviera in the early 20th century and who, with their generous hospitality and flair for parties, created a vibrant social circle, particularly in the 1920s, that included a great number of artists and writers of the "Lost Generation". Gerald had a brief but significant career as a painter. They were also the charmed couple who inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel Tender is the night.
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• GERTRUDE STEIN - (1874-1946). American art collector of seminal modernist paintings and an experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays, which eschewed the narrative, linear, and temporal conventions of 19th century literature. Moved to Paris in 1903, making France her home for the remainder of her life. For some forty years, the Stein home on the Left Bank of Paris would become a renowned Saturday evening gathering place for expatriate American artists and writers, and others noteworthy in the world of vanguard arts and letters. Entrée and membership in the Stein salon was a sought-after validation, signifying that Stein had recognized a talent worthy of inclusion into a rarefied group of gifted artists. Stein became combination mentor, critic, and guru to those who gathered around her. A self-defined "genius," she was described as an imposing figure with a commanding manner whose inordinate self-confidence could intimidate. Among her coterie she was referred to as “Le Stein” and with less laudatory deference as "The Presence." In 1933, Stein published the memoirs of her Paris years titled The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, which became a literary bestseller. The advent of this book elevated Stein from the relative obscurity of cult literary figure, into the light of mainstream attention.
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• GIACOMO CASANOVA - (1725-1798). Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, Histoire de ma vie (Story of My Life), is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century. He has become so famous for his often complicated and elaborate affairs with women that his name is now synonymous with "womanizer". He associated with European royalty, popes and cardinals, along with luminaries such as Voltaire, Goethe and Mozart. He spent his last years in Bohemia as a librarian in Count Waldstein's household, where he also wrote the story of his life.
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• GIANNI AGNELLI - (1921-2003). Italian industrialist and principal shareholder of Fiat and legendary Godfather of Style. As the head of Fiat, he controlled 4.4% of Italy's GDP, 3.1% of its industrial workforce, and 16.5% of its industrial investment in research. He was the richest man in modern Italian history. As a public figure, Agnelli was also known worldwide for his impeccable, slightly eccentric fashion sense, which has influenced both Italian and international men’s fashion. Agnelli was a noted playboy whose mistresses included the socialite Pamela Churchill Harriman and Jacqueline Kennedy. Though Agnelli continued to be involved with other women during his marriage, including the film star Anita Ekberg and the American fashion designer Jackie Rogers, the Agnellis remained married until his death of prostate cancer in 2003. He was universally considered to be a man of exquisite taste. He left his extraordinary paintings to the city of Turin in 2002.
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• GOTTLOB FREGE - (1848-1925). German mathematician, logician and philosopher. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern logic and made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for his writings on the philosophy of language and mathematics. While he was mainly ignored by the intellectual world when he published his writings, Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932) and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) introduced his work to later generations of logicians and philosophers.
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• Grigori Rasputin - (1869-1916). Russian mystic and advisor to the Romanovs, the Russian imperial family. He was not a monk, while he was never officially connected to the Orthodox Church, but considered a "strannik" (or pilgrim) wandering from cloister to cloister. He was regarded as a starets, an "elder", a title usually reserved for monk-confessors by those believing him to be a psychic and faith healer. Rasputin impressed many people with his knowledge and ability to explain the Bible in an uncomplicated way. In 1907 Rasputin was invited for the first time by Tsar Nicholas II and Alexandra as a healer for their only son, Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia. It is supposed he became an influential figure in the later years of the Tsar's reign, especially after September 1915. It has been argued that Rasputin helped to discredit the tsarist family, leading to the fall of the Romanov dynasty in February 1917. The Tsarina and her family saw Rasputin variously as a saintly mystic, visionary, healer and prophet but his enemies, as a debauched religious charlatan, heavily interested in sexual relations with his followers. There has been much uncertainty over Rasputin's life and influence, as accounts have often been based on dubious memoirs, hearsay and legend.
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• GUNTER SACHS - (1932-2011). German playboy, photographer, author, industrialist, art collector, and latterly head of an institute that researched claims of astrology. As a young man he became a sportsman, then gained international fame as a documentary film-maker and documentary photographer. He was interested in astrology and its connection with mathematics and statistics. A playboy in his early years, Sachs was romantically linked to the former Iranian queen Soraya Esfandiary. He married three times. His first wife, Anne-Marie Faure, died in 1958 during surgery. He courted his second wife, Brigitte Bardot, by flying over her villa on the French Riviera in a helicopter and dropping hundreds of roses. The couple were married on 14 July 1966 in Las Vegas; they divorced in 1969. His final marriage was to Swedish former model, Mirja Larsson, which lasted from 1969 until his death.

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• HADRIAN - (76-138). Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. He is also known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in most of his tastes. He was the third of the Five Good Emperors.
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• HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN - (1805-1875). Danish author and poet. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, Andersen is best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. They have inspired motion pictures, plays, ballets, and animated films.
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• HANS-HERMANN WEYER - (1938-2023). Aka "Der schöne Konsul." Graf von Yorck is a German trader in nobility and academics titles, and a flamboyant member of the international jet set.
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• HEDDA HOPPER - (1885-1966). One of America's best-known gossip columnists, notorious for feuding with her arch-rival Louella Parsons. She had been a middling actress of stage and screen for years before being offered the chance to write the column "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood" for the Los Angeles Times in 1938. In the McCarthy era she named suspected communists. Hopper continued to write gossip to the end, her work appearing in many magazines and later on radio.
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• HEDY LAMARR - (1913-2000). Austro-American actress and mathematician, celebrated for her great beauty, who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age." Mathematically talented, Lamarr and composer George Antheil invented an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary for wireless communication from the pre-computer age to the present day.
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• HENRI BERGSON - (1859-1941). French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.
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• HENRY CLAY FRICK - (1849-1919). American industrialist, financier, and art patron. He founded the H. C. Frick & Company coke manufacturing company, was chairman of the Carnegie Steel Company, and played a major role in the formation of the giant U.S. Steel steel manufacturing concern. He also financed the construction of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Company, and owned extensive real estate holdings in Pittsburgh and throughout the state of Pennsylvania. He later built the historic neoclassical Frick Mansion (now a landmark building in Manhattan) and at his death donated his extensive collection of old master paintings and fine furniture to create the celebrated Frick Collection and art museum.
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• Henry Flagler - (1830-1913). American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founder of what became the Florida East Coast Railway. He is known as the father of Miami, Florida, and founded the city of Palm Beach.
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• Herbert von Karajan - (1908-1989). Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years. Although his work was not universally admired, he is generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, and he was a dominant figure in European classical music from the 1960s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.
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• HERGÉ - (1907-1983). Georges Prosper Remi, known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian cartoonist. His best known and most substantial work is the 23 completed comic books in The Adventures of Tintin series, which he made from 1929 until his death in 1983. his works were executed in his distinct ligne claire drawing style. Hergé's works have been widely acclaimed for their clarity of draughtsmanship and meticulous, well-researched plots, and have been the source of a wide range of adaptations. He remains a strong influence on the comic book medium, particularly in Europe. He is a prominent national symbol in his native country, to the extent that he has been described as the "personification of Belgium".
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• Hetty Green - (1834-1916). Nicknamed "The Witch of Wall Street", was an American businesswoman and financier known as "the richest woman in America" during the Gilded Age. Known for both her wealth and her miserliness, she was the lone woman to amass a fortune when other major financiers were men.
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• Hiram Bingham - (1875-1956). Possible basis for the 'Indiana Jones' character. Academic, explorer, treasure hunter and politician from the United States. He made public the existence of the Quechua citadel of Machu Picchu in 1911 with the guidance of local indigenous farmers. Later, Bingham served as a member of the United States Senate.
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• HIRAM STEVENS MAXIM - (1840-1916). American-born inventor who emigrated to the United Kingdom at the age of forty-one, although he remained an American citizen until he became a naturalized British subject in 1900. He was the inventor of the Maxim Gun – the first portable, fully automatic machine gun – and an elaborate mousetrap. He laid a claim to inventing the lightbulb, and even experimented with powered flight, but his large aircraft designs were never successful. However, his "Captive Flying Machine" amusement ride, designed as a means by which to fund his research while generating public interest in flight, was highly successful.
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• HONORÉ DE BALZAC - (1799-1850). French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multifaceted characters, who are morally ambiguous.
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• HOWARD CARTER - (1874-1939). English archaeologist and Egyptologist, noted as a primary discoverer the tomb of 14th-century BC pharaoh Tutankhamun.
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• HOWARD HUGHES - (1905-1976). American business magnate, investor, aviator, aerospace engineer, film maker and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world. As a maverick film producer, Hughes gained prominence in Hollywood from the late 1920s, making big-budget and often controversial films like The Racket (1928), Hell's Angels (1930), Scarface (1932), and The Outlaw (1943). Hughes was one of the most influential aviators in history: he set multiple world air speed records, built the Hughes H-1 Racer and H-4 "Hercules" (better known to history as the "Spruce Goose" aircraft), and acquired and expanded Trans World Airlines, which later merged with American Airlines. Hughes is also remembered for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle in later life, caused in part by a worsening obsessive–compulsive disorder and chronic pain. His legacy is maintained through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
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• HUGH M. HEFNER - (1926-2017). American magazine publisher, founder, and chief creative officer of Playboy Enterprises.
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• Huguette Clark - (1906-2011). 104-year old mystery heiress. The youngest daughter of former United States Senator and industrialist William A. Clark, she lived a reclusive life after 1930 and her activities were virtually unknown to the public. Upon her death in 2011, Clark left behind a vast fortune, most of which was donated to charity.
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• HUMPHREY BOGART - (1899-1957). American actor and is widely regarded as an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema. During a film career of almost 30 years, he appeared in 75 feature films.

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• IAN FLEMING - (1908-1964). English author, journalist and naval intelligence officer, best known for his James Bond series of spy novels.
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• Igor Cassini - (1915-2002). "King of society gossip." American syndicated gossip columnist for the Hearst newspaper chain. He was the second journalist to write the Cholly Knickerbocker column.
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• ISAAC NEWTON - (1643-1727). English physicist and mathematician who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for most of classical mechanics. Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. It also demonstrated that the motion of objects on the Earth and that of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos. Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum.
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• IVAR BRYCE - (1906-1985). Author IAN FLEMING named his James Bond character’s CIA agent friend after Ivar Bryce’s middle name, Felix. His surname was named after another of Fleming’s friends, Tommy Leiter. Ivar Bryce was born in 1906. His father had made a fortune trading guano, the phosphate-rich deposit of fish-eating seabirds which had been widely used as a natural fertilizer. His mother was a painter and a published author of detective novels. In 1917 Bryce met Ian Fleming and his brothers on a beach in Cornwall. Bryce was sent to Eton College where he resumed his friendship with Fleming. Here the friendship flourished. During the Second World War Bryce worked for William Stephenson, the head of British Security Coordination(BSC), a unit that was based in New York City. This group also included Roald Dahl, David Ogilvy and Ian Fleming and were colloquially known as ‘The Irregulars‘ after Arthur Conan Doyle’s Baker Street Irregulars. Bryce was based in Jamaica (his wife Sheila, owned Bellevue, one of the most important houses on the island), during the Second World War, where he ran dangerous missions into Latin America. Ian Fleming, who was personal assistant to Admiral John Godfrey, the director of naval intelligence, visited Bryce in 1941. Fleming told him that: “When we have won this blasted war, I am going to live in Jamaica. Just live in Jamaica and lap it up, and swim in the sea and write books.” In 1945 Bryce helped Fleming find a house and twelve acres of land just outside of Oracabessa. It included a strip of white sand on a lovely part of the coast. Fleming decided to call the house, Goldeneye, after his wartime project in Spain, Operation Goldeneye. Their former boss, William Stephenson, also had a house on the island overlooking Montego Bay. In 1950 Bryce married Josephine Hartford. Her grandfather, George Huntington Hartford, was the founder of theGreat Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. Josephine was the daughter of Princess Guido Pignatelli and Edward V. Hartford, who was an inventor and president of the Hartford Shock Absorber Company. This incredible amount of wealth, meant that Bryce enjoyed living in many homes including at Black Hole Hollow Farm in Vermont where Ian Fleming would spend summers hiking and dreaming up plots for his next Bond adventure.
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• IVAR KREUGER - (1880-1932). Swedish civil engineer, financier, entrepreneur and industrialist. In 1908 Kreuger co-founded the construction company Kreuger & Toll Byggnads AB which specialized in new building techniques. By aggressive investments and innovative financial instruments he built a global match and financial empire. Between the two world wars, he negotiated match monopolies with European and Central and South American governments, and finally controlled between two thirds and three quarters of the worldwide match production, and became known as the "Match King". His financial empire collapsed during the Great Depression, and in March 1932, he was found dead in the bedroom of his flat in Paris.

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• J. PAUL GETTY - (1892-1976). Anglo-American industrialist. He founded the Getty Oil Company, and in 1957 Fortune magazine named him the richest living American, whilst the 1966 Guinness Book of Records named him as the world's richest private citizen, worth an estimated $1.2 billion (approximately $8.5 billion in 2012). At his death, he was worth more than $2 billion (approximately $8.1 billion in 2012). Getty was an avid collector of art and antiquities; his collection formed the basis of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California, and over $661 million (approximately $2.7 billion in 2012) of his estate was left to the museum after his death. He established the J. Paul Getty Trust in 1953. The trust is the world's wealthiest art institution, and operates the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Foundation, the Getty Research Institute, and the Getty Conservation Institute.
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• JACK KEROUAC - (1922-1969). American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and travel. Kerouac became an underground celebrity and, with other beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements.
• JACK THE RIPPER - the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888.
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• Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis - (1929-1994). Wife of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and First Lady of the United States during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Five years later she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis; they remained married until his death in 1975. For the final two decades of her life, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis had a career as a book editor. She is remembered for her contributions to the arts and preservation of historic architecture, her style, elegance, and grace. A fashion icon, her famous pink Chanel suit has become a symbol of her husband's assassination and one of the lasting images of the 1960s.
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• Jacques de Bascher - (1951–1989). "The man who fuelled the rivalry between former friends Karl Lagerfeld & Yves Saint Laurent by having a love affair with both of them and the reason Karl Lagerfeld suffered from a broken heart for years."
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• JAMES BOSWELL - (1740-1795). Lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson, which the modern Johnsonian critic Harold Bloom has claimed is the greatest biography written in the English language.
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• JAMES BUCHANAN DUKE - (1856-1925). U.S. tobacco and electric power industrialist best known for the introduction of modern cigarette manufacture and marketing, and his involvement with Duke University. Father of Doris.
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• JAMES FISK - (1835-1872). Known variously as "Big Jim," "Diamond Jim," and "Jubilee Jim" – was an American stockbroker and corporate executive who has been referred to as one of the "robber barons" of the Gilded Age.
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• James Goldsmith - (1933-1997). Anglo-French billionaire financier and tycoon. was the inspiration for the character of the corporate raider Sir Larry Wildman in Oliver Stone's Wall Street.
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• James Gordon Bennett, Jr. - (1841-1918). Publisher of the New York Herald, founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett, Sr. Among his many sports-related accomplishments he organized both the first polo match and the first tennis match in the United States, and he personally won the first trans-oceanic yacht race. He sponsored explorers including Henry Morton Stanley's trip to Africa to find David Livingstone. Like many of his social class, indulged in the "good life": yachts, opulent private railroad cars, and lavish mansions. He was the youngest Commodore ever of the New York Yacht Club.
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• JAY GOULD - (1836-1892). Leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has long been vilified as an archetypal robber baron, whose successes made him the ninth richest American in history. Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American CEO of all time. Some modern historians working from primary sources have discounted various myths about him.
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• J. D. Salinger - (1919-2010). American writer who won acclaim early in life. He led a very private life for more than a half-century. He published his final original work in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980. In 1951, his novel The Catcher in the Rye was an immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, especially among adolescent readers. The novel remains widely read and controversial, around 250,000 copies are sold each year with total sales of more than 65 million books..
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• JEAN COCTEAU - (1889-1963). French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker.
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• JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU - (1712-1778). Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th-century. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological, and educational thought.
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• JEAN-PAUL SARTRE - (1905-1980). French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. His work has also influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature and refused it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution".
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• Jesse Lauriston Livermore - (1877-1940). American investor. He also was one of the few people who did well in the crash of 1929. "The game of speculation is the most uniformly fascinating game in the world. But it is not a game for the stupid, the mentally lazy, the person of inferior emotional balance, or the get-rich-quick adventurer. They will die poor." - Jesse Livermore, 1940. The book Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by Edwin Lefèvre, reflects on many of those lessons, and is in effect a financial memoir of Livermore (a pseudonym is used) starting with the bucket shop days and ending in the 1920s before the crash. The book, which Lefèvre dedicated to Livermore, has an avid following in the investment community, and is still in print.
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• Jesus - (c. 5 BC - c. 30 AD). Also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth, is the central figure of Christianity, whom the teachings of most Christian denominations hold to be the Son of God. Christians believe Jesus to be the awaited Messiah of the Old Testament and refer to him as Jesus Christ or simply Christ, a name that is also used by non-Christians.
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• Jimmy Donahue - (1915-1966). Heir to the Woolworth estate and a noted New York gay socialite. Although openly acknowledged as gay, Donahue claimed he had a four year affair with Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, the wife of the Duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII. 'She married a King, but screwed a queen,' the Count Kurt Von Reventlow, Barbara Hutton second husband, was heard to sourly observe of the Duchess's affair with the homosexual Jimmy. In the end, wiser counsels prevailed - and Jimmy was getting bored anyway. There was a row, Jimmy kicked her on the shin, drawing blood, and finally the tiny Duke gathered up enough courage to shout: 'We've had enough of you, Jimmy. Get out!' Jimmy walked. It meant goodbye to a large slice of the high-life for the Windsors. For during the length of the affair, Woolworth money had bankrolled the couple - who caved in to the onslaught of money, gifts, holidays, cars, foreign travel and jewellery which Jimmy and his mother Jessie showered on them.
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• John Aspinall - (1926-2000). British zoo owner and gambling club host. From middle class beginnings he used gambling to move to the centre of British high society in the 1960s. Founded the Clermont Club in London's Mayfair in 1962.
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• JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER - (1839-1937). World's first US$-billionaire. Net worth in today's money: US$340 billion. American industrialist and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, he founded Standard Oil Company and aggressively ran it until he officially retired in 1897.
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• JOHN DELOREAN - (1925-2005). American engineer and executive in the U.S. automobile industry, most notably with General Motors, and founder of the DeLorean Motor Company. He was best known for developing the Pontiac GTO muscle car, the Pontiac Firebird, Pontiac Grand Prix, Chevrolet Vega, and the DeLorean DMC-12 sports car, which was later featured in the 1985 film Back to the Future, and for his high profile 1982 arrest on charges of drug trafficking. The alleged drug trafficking was supposedly an attempt to raise funds for his struggling company, which declared bankruptcy that same year. He successfully defended himself against the drug trafficking charges, showing that his alleged involvement was a result of entrapment by federal agents.
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• JOHN EDGAR HOOVER - (1895-1972). The first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972 at age 77. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. Late in life and after his death Hoover became a controversial figure, as evidence of his secretive actions became known. His critics have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI. He used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders, and to collect evidence using illegal methods. Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was in a position to intimidate and threaten sitting Presidents.
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• JOHN F. KENNEDY - (1917-1963). Often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his death in 1963. Since the 1960s information concerning Kennedy's private life has come to light. Details of Kennedy's health problems in which he struggled have become better known, especially since the 1990s. Although initially kept secret from the general public, reports of Kennedy's philandering have garnered much press. Kennedy ranks highly in public opinion ratings of U.S. presidents.
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• John Gotti - (1940-2002). Italian-American mobster who became the Boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. At the time of Gotti's takeover the Gambino family was regarded as the most powerful American mafia family, with an annual income of $500 million. In the book Underboss, Gravano estimated that Gotti himself had an annual income of not less than $5 million during his years as boss, and more likely between $10 and $12 million. The American media dubbed Gotti "The Teflon Don" in reference to the failure of any charges to "stick." On December 11, 1990, FBI agents and New York City detectives raided the Ravenite Social Club, arresting Gotti, Gravano and Frank Locascio. Gotti was charged, in this new racketeering case, with five murders, conspiracy to murder, loansharking, illegal gambling, obstruction of justice, bribery and tax evasion. On April 2, 1992, after only 14 hours of deliberation, the jury found Gotti guilty on all charges of the indictment. James Fox, director of the New York City FBI, announced at a press conference, "The Teflon is gone. The don is covered with Velcro, and all the charges stuck." On June 23, 1992, Glasser sentenced both defendants to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and a $250,000 fine.
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• JOHN KEATS - (1795-1821). English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work only having been in publication for four years before his death. The poetry of Keats is characterised by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analysed in English literature.
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• JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH - (1908-2006). Canadian and later, U.S. economist, public official and diplomat, and a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 2000s, during which time Galbraith fulfilled the role of public intellectual. In macro-economical terms he was a Keynesian and an institutionalist. Galbraith was a long-time Harvard faculty member and as a professor of economics stayed with Harvard University for half a century. He was a prolific author and wrote four dozen books, including several novels, and published over a thousand articles and essays on various subjects. Among his most famous works was a popular trilogy on economics, American Capitalism (1952), The Affluent Society (1958), and The New Industrial State (1967).
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• JOHN LAW - (1671-1729). Scottish economist who believed that money was only a means of exchange that did not constitute wealth in itself and that national wealth depended on trade. He was appointed Controller General of Finances of France under King Louis XV. In 1716 Law established the Banque Générale in France, a private bank, but three-quarters of the capital consisted of government bills and government-accepted notes, effectively making it the first central bank of the nation. He was responsible for the Mississippi Bubble and a chaotic economic collapse in France. Law was a gambler and a brilliant mental calculator. He was known to win card games by mentally calculating the odds. He originated economic ideas such as "The Scarcity Theory of Value" and the "Real bills doctrine". Law’s views held that money creation will stimulate the economy, that paper money is preferable to metallic money which should be banned, and that shares are a superior form of money since they pay dividends.
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• JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES - (1883-1946). British economist whose ideas have fundamentally affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, and informed the economic policies of governments. He built on and greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles, and is widely considered to be one of the founders of modern macroeconomics and the most influential economist of the 20th century. His ideas are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, and its various offshoots.
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• JOHN PEMBERTON - (1831-1888). Confederate veteran and an American pharmacist, and is best known for being the inventor of Coca-Cola. In April 1865, Colonel John Pemberton of the Confederate Army was wounded in the Battle of Columbus, Georgia. He was slashed across his chest and like many wounded veterans became addicted to morphine which he used to ease the pain. He was a pharmacist and as such searched for a cure to counteract this addiction. He began experimenting with coca and coca wines, eventually creating his own version of Vin Mariani, containing kola nut and damiana, which he called Pemberton's French Wine Coca.
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• JOHN RUSKIN - (1819-1900). Leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and ornamentation.
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• John Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford - (1917-2002). British peer and writer. Self-styled pioneer of "stately home" showmanship. Russell was the first Duke of Bedford to open Woburn Abbey up to the public, a move that alienated him from many of his peers. "I do not relish the scorn of the peerage, but it is better to be looked down on than overlooked." Author of Book of Snobs and How to Run a Stately Home.
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• JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE - (1749-1832). German writer, artist, and politician. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, and more than 10,000 letters written by him are extant, as are nearly 3,000 drawings. A literary celebrity by the age of 25, Goethe was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Carl August in 1782 after first taking up residence there in November of 1775 following the success of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. He was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. Faust is Goethe's most famous work and considered by many to be one of the greatest works of German literature. Goethe completed a preliminary version of Part One in 1806. oethe finished writing Faust Part Two in 1831. In contrast to Faust Part One, the focus here is no longer on the soul of Faust, which has been sold to the devil, but rather on social phenomena such as psychology, history and politics, in addition to mystical and philosophical topics. The second part formed the principal occupation of Goethe's last years. It appeared only posthumously in 1832.
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• JOSÉ LUIS DE VILLALONGA - (1920-2007). Spanish nobleman, playboy, wastrel, author, fortune-hunter and bit-part actor who appeared briefly with Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
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• JOSEPH DUVEEN - (1869-1939). British art dealer, considered one of the world's leading art dealers due to his good eye, sharpened by his reliance on Bernard Berenson, and skilled salesmanship. His success is famously attributed to noticing that "Europe has a great deal of art, and America has a great deal of money." He made his fortune by buying works of art from declining European aristocrats and selling them to the millionaires of the United States. Duveen's clients included Henry Clay Frick, William Randolph Hearst, Henry E. Huntington, J.P. Morgan, Samuel H. Kress, Andrew Mellon, John D. Rockefeller, and a Canadian Frank Porter Wood. The works that Duveen shipped across the Atlantic remain the core collections of many of the United States' most famous museums.
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• JULIUS CAESAR - (100 BC - 44 BC). Roman general, statesman, Consul and notable author of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. After assuming control of government, Caesar began a program of social and governmental reforms, including the creation of the Julian calendar. He centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator in perpetuity". But the underlying political conflicts had not been resolved, and on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus. A new series of civil wars broke out, and the constitutional government of the Republic was never restored. Caesar's adopted heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to sole power, and the era of the Roman Empire began. Much of Caesar's life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns, and from other contemporary sources, mainly the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. The later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also major sources. Caesar is deemed to be one of the greatest military commanders in history.
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• JURIJ MOSKVITIN - (1938-2005). Danish classical pianist, composer, philosopher, mathematician and bohème.

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• KAREN BLIXEN - (1885-1962). Danish author also known by her pen name Isak Dinesen. She also wrote under the pen names Osceola and Pierre Andrézel. Blixen wrote works in Danish, French, and English. Blixen is best known for Out of Africa, her account of living in Kenya, and one of her stories, Babette's Feast, both of which have been adapted into highly acclaimed, Academy Award-winning motion pictures. Prior to the release of the first film, she was noted for her Seven Gothic Tales, for which she is also known in Denmark.
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• KARL MARX - (1818-1883). German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. Marx's work in economics laid the basis for the current understanding of labour and its relation to capital, and has influenced much of subsequent economic thought. He published numerous books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital (1867–1894).
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• KARL POPPER - - (1902-1994). Austro-British philosopher and professor at the London School of Economics. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century. He also wrote extensively on social and political philosophy. In 1992, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy for "symbolising the open spirit of the 20th century" and for his "enormous influence on the formation of the modern intellectual climate". George Soros' mentor.
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• KIM PHILBY - (1912-1988). High-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a double agent before defecting to the Soviet Union. He served as both an NKVD and KGB operative. In 1963, Philby was revealed to be a member of the spy ring now known as the THE CAMBRIDGE FIVE, the other members of which were Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and another unidentified individual. Of the five, Philby is believed to have been most successful in providing secret information to the Soviet Union. His activities were moderated only by Joseph Stalin's fears that he was secretly on Britain's side.
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• Klemens von Metternich - (1773-1859). Politician and statesman of Rhenish extraction and one of the most important diplomats of his era, serving as the Austrian Empire's Foreign Minister from 1809 and Chancellor from 1821 until the liberal revolutions of 1848 forced his resignation. A traditional conservative, Metternich was keen to maintain the balance of power, in particular by resisting Russian territorial ambitions in Central Europe and lands belonging to the Ottoman Empire. He disliked liberalism and worked to prevent the breakup of the Austrian empire, for example, by crushing nationalist revolts in Austrian north Italy and the German states.
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• KNUT HAMSUN - (1859-1952). Norwegian author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to the subject, perspective and environment. He published more than 20 novels, a collection of poetry, some short stories and plays, a travelogue, and some essays. The young Hamsun objected to realism and naturalism. He argued that the main object of modern literature should be the intricacies of the human mind, that writers should describe the "whisper of blood, and the pleading of bone marrow". Hamsun is considered the "leader of the Neo-Romantic revolt at the turn of the [20th] century", with works such as Hunger (1890), Mysteries (1892), Pan (1894), and Victoria (1898).

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• LENNY BRUCE - (1925-1966). American stand-up comedian, social critic and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-style and critical form of comedy which integrated politics, religion and sex.
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• LEONARDO DA VINCI - (1452-1519). Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time.
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• LIBERACE - (1919-1987). American pianist and vocalist. In a career that spanned four decades of concerts, recordings, motion pictures, television, and endorsements, Liberace became world-famous. During the 1950s–1970s he was the highest-paid entertainer in the world and embraced a lifestyle of flamboyant excess both on and off stage.
• Lily Safra, Star-Crossed Socialite & Philanthropist, Dies at 87 - "Lily Safra, a Brazilian-born socialite and philanthropist who led a star-filled, star-crossed life with enough jet-setting ups and tragedy-filled downs to fill a dozen Danielle Steel novels, including the bizarre death of her fourth husband, the banker Edmond J. Safra, died on July 9 at her home in Geneva. She was 87."
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• LOUELLA PARSONS - (1881-1972). The first American movie columnist. She was retained by William Randolph Hearst, possibly because she had praised Hearst's mistress Marion Davies, and her columns were read by 20 million people in 400 newspapers worldwide. Parsons possessed an uncanny gift for sensing scandal, and her dramatic scoops could make or break an actor's career. She remained the unchallenged Queen of Hollywood until the arrival of Hedda Hopper, who displayed similar talents, and with whom she feuded viciously for years.
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• Ludwig II of Bavaria - (1845-1886). King of Bavaria from 1864 until shortly before his death. Ludwig is best known as an eccentric whose legacy is intertwined with the history of art and architecture. He commissioned the construction of two extravagant palaces and a castle, the most famous being Neuschwanstein, and was a devoted patron of the composer Richard Wagner.
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• LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN - (1889-1951). Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1939 till 1947 Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge. He published few works in his lifetime, including one book review, one article, a children's dictionary, and the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921). His father Karl Wittgenstein was one of the richest men in Europe, the second wealthiest family in Austria-Hungary, behind only the Rothschilds.

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• MADAME CLAUDE - (1923-2015). Fernande Grudet - the most famous French procurer. In the 1960s she was the head of a French network of call girls who worked especially for dignitaries and civil servants and famous for her high-profile client list.
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• Marcel Proust - (1871-1922). French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past). It was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. Begun in 1909, À la recherche du temps perdu consists of seven volumes totaling around 3,200 pages (about 4,300 in The Modern Library's translation) and featuring more than 2,000 characters. Graham Greene called Proust the "greatest novelist of the 20th century", and W. Somerset Maugham called the novel the "greatest fiction to date". Proust died before he was able to complete his revision of the drafts and proofs of the final volumes, the last three of which were published posthumously and edited by his brother, Robert.
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• Marie of Romania - (1875-1938). The last Queen consort of Romania as the wife of King Ferdinand I. Even before her ascension as queen, Marie had succeeded in establishing her public image as that of "one of the best-looking and richest princesses in Europe". She was known primarily for her talent in horse-riding, writing, painting, sculpting, dancing and for her beauty.
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• Marjorie Merriweather Post - (1887-1973). Cereal heiress, socialite, and philanthropist who built Mar-A-Lago wife of E.F. Hutton. She was the wealthiest woman in the United States.
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• Mark Birley - (1930-2007). Supreme arbiter of aristocratic London nightlife & founder of Annabel's at Berkeley Square in 1963.

• MARK LOMBARDI - (1951-2000). American neo-conceptual artist who specialized in drawings that document alleged financial and political frauds by power brokers, and in general "the uses and abuses of power".
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• MARTHA GRAHAM - (1894-1991). American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on the modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture. She danced and choreographed for over seventy years. Graham was the first dancer ever to perform at the White House, travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and receive the highest civilian award of the USA: the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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• MARTIN HEIDEGGER - (1889-1976). German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being". His best known book, Being and Time, is considered one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century. In it and later works, Heidegger maintained that our way of questioning defines our nature. He argued that philosophy, Western Civilization's chief way of questioning, had lost sight of the being it sought. Finding ourselves "always already" fallen in a world of presuppositions, we lose touch with what being was before its truth became "muddled". As a solution to this condition, Heidegger advocated a return to the practical being in the world, allowing it to reveal, or "unconceal" itself as concealment.
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• MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. - (1929-1968). American clergyman, activist, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience. King has become a national icon in the history of American progressivism.
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• Maury Paul - (1890-1942). Journalist who became famous as a society columnist for the New York American. Writing under the pseudonym "Cholly Knickerbocker", he coined the term "Café Society". In addition to coining the phrase "Café Society" to describe the people who frequented tony night clubs and expensive restaurants, he also invested the expression "The Old Guard" (the "Four Hundred") for the venerable New York families. Paul focused on the very well-born and extremely rich. In addition to his daily column, each week he wrote three features for the Sunday edition of the American. The column and features were carried by the over 60 newspapers of the Hearst syndicate. On 17 July 1942, Paul died of a heart condition at his New York home. He was 52 years old. He was succeeded as Cholly Knickerbocker by Igor Cassini.
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• MAX WEBER - (1864-1920). German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist whose ideas influenced social theory, social research, and the entire discipline of sociology.
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• MEDICI FAMILY - political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The Medici produced four Popes of the Catholic Church, two regent queens of France; and, in 1531, the family became hereditary Dukes of Florence. In 1569, the duchy was elevated to a grand duchy after territorial expansion. They ruled the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from its inception until 1737. They fostered and inspired the birth of the Italian Renaissance along with other families of Italy, such as the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, the Este of Ferrara, and the Gonzaga of Mantua. The Medici Bank was one of the most prosperous and most respected institutions in Europe. There are some estimates that the Medici family were the wealthiest family in Europe for a period of time. From this base, they acquired political power initially in Florence and later in wider Italy and Europe. A notable contribution to the profession of accounting was the improvement of the general ledger system through the development of the double-entry bookkeeping system for tracking credits and debits.
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• MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE - (1533-1592). One of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre, and commonly thought of as the father of modern skepticism. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual exercises with casual anecdotes and autobiography—and his massive volume Essais (translated literally as "Attempts" or "Trials") contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written.
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• MICHELANGELO - (1475-1564). Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci. Michelangelo was considered the greatest living artist in his lifetime, and ever since then he has been held to be one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of his works in painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence. His output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century. Two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, were sculpted before he turned thirty. Despite his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
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• MIKHAIL KALASHNIKOV - (1919-2023). Russian small arms designer, most famous for developing the AK-47, AKM, and AK-74 assault rifles.
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• MILTON FRIEDMAN - (1912-2006). The Economist described him as "the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century... possibly of all of it."
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• Misia Sert - (1872-1950). Pianist of Polish descent who hosted an artistic salon in Paris. She was a patron and friend of numerous artists, for whom she regularly posed. The Serts’ social set included bohemian elites and the upper levels of society. It was a libertine group, rife with emotional and sexual intrigues - all fueled by drug use and abuse. Misia Sert had an enduring association with couturière Coco Chanel. It is said that theirs was an immediate bond of like souls, and Sert was attracted to Chanel by "her genius, lethal wit, sarcasm and maniacal destructiveness, which intrigued and appalled everyone." Both women, convent bred, maintained a friendship of shared interests, confidences and drug use.
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• Mohamed Al-Fayed - (1929-2023). Egyptian business magnate. Amongst Fayed's business interests are ownership of the English Premiership football team Fulham Football Club, Hôtel Ritz Paris and formerly Harrods Department Store, Knightsbridge, London, U.K.
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• MOLIÈRE - (1622-1673). French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature. Among Molière's best-known works are Le Misanthrope (The Misanthrope), L'École des Femmes (The School for Wives), Tartuffe ou L'Imposteur (Tartuffe or the Imposter), L'Avare (The Miser), Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman).

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• NANCY MITFORD - (1904-1973). English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years. She is best remembered for her series of novels about upper-class life in England and France, particularly the four published after 1945; but she also wrote four popular biographies (of Louis XIV, Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, and Frederick the Great).
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• Napoleon Bonaparte - (1769-1821). French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the French Revolution and its associated wars in Europe. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815, the first monarch of France bearing the title emperor since the reign of Charles the Fat (881-887). His legal reform, the Napoleonic Code, has been a major influence on many civil law jurisdictions worldwide, but he is best remembered for his role in the wars led against France by a series of coalitions, the so-called Napoleonic Wars. He established hegemony over most of continental Europe and sought to spread the ideals of the French Revolution, while consolidating an imperial monarchy which restored aspects of the deposed Ancien Régime. Due to his success in these wars, often against numerically superior enemies, he is generally regarded as one of the greatest military commanders of all time, and his campaigns are studied at military academies worldwide.
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• NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI - (1469-1527). Italian historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He was for many years an official in the Florentine Republic, with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs. He was a founder of modern political science, and more specifically political ethics. He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry. His personal correspondence is renowned in the Italian language. He was Secretary to the Second Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512, when the Medici were out of power. He wrote his masterpiece, The Prince, after the Medici had recovered power and he no longer held a position of responsibility in Florence.
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• NIKOLA TESLA - (1856-1943). Serbian-born American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
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• NOËL COWARD - (1899-1973). English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise". As a teenager he was introduced into the high society in which most of his plays would be set. Coward achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter and Blithe Spirit, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. He composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet and comic revues), poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, and a three-volume autobiography. Coward's stage and film acting and directing career spanned six decades, during which he starred in many of his own works.
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• Nostradamus - (1503-1566). French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties, the first edition of which appeared in 1555. Since the publication of this book, which has rarely been out of print since his death, Nostradamus has attracted a following that, along with much of the popular press, credits him with predicting many major world events.
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• Nubar Gulbenkian - (1896-1972). Armenian business magnate and socialite born in the Ottoman empire. A known gourmet, he was quoted as saying that 'the best number for a dinner party is two - myself and a damn good head waiter'.

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• ORSON WELLES - (1915-1985). American actor, director, writer and producer who worked extensively in theater, radio and film. He is best remembered for his innovative work in all three media, most notably Caesar (1937), a groundbreaking Broadway adaption of Julius Caesar and the debut of the Mercury Theatre; The War of the Worlds (1938), one of the most famous broadcasts in the history of radio; and Citizen Kane (1941), which is consistently ranked as one of the all-time greatest films.
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• OSCAR WILDE - (1854-1900). Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, his only novel (The Picture of Dorian Gray), his plays, and the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death. At the height of his fame and success, while his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), was still on stage in London, Wilde had the Marquess of Queensberry prosecuted for libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The charge carried a penalty of up to two years in prison. The trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency with other men. After two more trials he was convicted and imprisoned for two years' hard labour. In 1897, in prison, he wrote De Profundis, which was published in 1905, a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. Upon his release he left immediately for France, never to return to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six.
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• OSAMA BIN LADEN - (1957-2011). The founder of al-Qaeda, the Sunni militant Islamist organization that claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks on the United States, along with numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror, as the FBI placed a US$25 million bounty on him in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group and Central Intelligence Agency operatives in a covert operation ordered by United States President Barack Obama.

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• PABLO PICASSO - (1881-1973). Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer who spent most of his adult life in France. As one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.
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• Paul-Louis Weiller - (1893-1993). French aviator, engineer, industrialist and philanthropist. "There have been few industrialists of the stature of Paul-Louis Weiller, and even fewer with such a love for the arts. A pioneer of commercial aviation and a great philanthropist."
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• PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY - (1792-1822). One of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron; Leigh Hunt; Thomas Love Peacock; and his own second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Shelley is perhaps best known for such classic poems as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, Music, When Soft Voices Die, The Cloud and The Masque of Anarchy. His other major works include long, visionary poems such as Queen Mab (later reworked as The Daemon of the World), Alastor, The Revolt of Islam, Adonaïs, the unfinished work The Triumph of Life; and the visionary verse dramas The Cenci (1819) and Prometheus Unbound (1820). His close circle of admirers, however, included some progressive thinkers of the day, including his future father-in-law, the philosopher William Godwin.
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• PERCY FAWSETT - (1867-1925). British artillery officer, archaeologist and South American explorer. Along with his eldest son, Fawcett disappeared under unknown circumstances in 1925 during an expedition to find "Z" – his name for an ancient lost city, which he (in all likelihood, accurately) believed to be El Dorado, in the uncharted jungles of Brazil.
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• Perle Mesta - (1889-1975). American socialite, political hostess, and U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg (1949–1953). Mesta was known as the "hostess with the mostest" for her lavish parties featuring the brightest stars of Washington, D.C., society, including artists, entertainers and many top-level national political figures.
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• Philipp von Ferrary - (1850-1917). Eccentric stamp collector, who at the death of his father, Raffaele de Ferrari, Duke of Galliera, refused to inherit his fortune and the title of Duke to which he was entitled. Assembling probably the most complete worldwide collection that ever existed, or is likely to exist. Amongst his extremely rare stamps were the unique Treskilling Yellow of Sweden and the 1856 one-cent "Black on Magenta" of British Guiana.
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• PIERRE BOURDIEU - (1930-2002). French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher. Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location, and symbolic violence to reveal the dynamics of power relations in social life. His work emphasized the role of practice and embodiment or forms in social dynamics and worldview construction, often in dialogue and opposition to universalized Western philosophical traditions. Bourdieu rejected the idea of the intellectual "prophet," or the "total intellectual," as embodied by Jean-Paul Sartre.
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• PIERRE PLANTARD - (1920-2000). French draughtsman, best known for being the principal perpetrator of the Priory of Sion hoax, by which he claimed from the 1960s onwards that he was a Merovingian descendant of Dagobert II and the "Great Monarch" prophesied by Nostradamus. Today in France he is commonly regarded as a mystificator.
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• PIERRE-JOSEPH PROUDHON - (1809-1865). French politician, founder of mutualist philosophy, economist, and libertarian socialist. He was a member of the French Parliament and the first person to call himself an "anarchist". He is considered among the most influential theorists and organizers of anarchism. After the events of 1848 he began to call himself a federalist. His best-known assertion is that Property is Theft!, contained in his first major work, What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and Government (Qu'est-ce que la propriété? Recherche sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement), published in 1840.
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• PIET HEIN - (1905-1996). Danish scientist, mathematician, inventor, designer, author, and poet, often writing under the Old Norse pseudonym "Kumbel" meaning "tombstone". His short poems, known as gruks or grooks (Danish: gruk). In addition to the thousands of grooks he wrote, Piet Hein devised the games of Hex, Tangloids, Morra, Tower, Polytaire, TacTix, Nimbi, Qrazy Qube, Pyramystery, and the Soma cube. He advocated the use of the superellipse curve in city planning, furniture making and other realms. He also invented a perpetual calendar called the Astro Calendar and marketed housewares based on the superellipse and Superegg.
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• PLATO - (428/427 BC - 348/347 BC). Philosopher in Classical Greece. He was also a mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science.
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• PORFIRIO RUBIROSA - (1909-1965). Dominican diplomat and adherent of Rafael Trujillo. He made his mark as an international playboy, for his jet setting lifestyle, and his legendary prowess with women. Among his spouses were two of the richest women in the world: Doris Duke (married: 1947-1951) and Barbara Hutton (married: 1953-1954). Also had a pepper grinder named after a part of his anatomy (for its length).
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• Prince Alessandro "Dado" Ruspoli - (1924-2005). Occasional actor and a playboy and eccentric aristocrat, the 9th Principe di Cerveteri, 9th Marchese di Riano and 14th Conte di Vignanello, who is said to have inspired Federico Fellini in making his famous movie La Dolce Vita. Dado became known for his extravagant lifestyle in the 1950s and 60s. He was friends with Brigitte Bardot, Salvador Dalí, Truman Capote, Roger Vadim, Roman Polanski, Emmanuelle Arsan and many others.
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• Princess Irene Galitzine - Russian-Georgian fashion designer whose most renowned creation was the "palazzo pyjama". She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1965. Her creations have been worn by some of the most famous women in the world such as Sofia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Lee Radzwill, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Ira von Fürstenberg, Queen Paola of Belgium, Queen Anne-Marie of Greece, Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, Duchess of Windsor, Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari, Merle Oberon, Audrey Hepburn, Marella Agnelli, Greta Garbo, Catherine Spaak, Pamela Churchill Harriman and Claudia Cardinale.
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• P. T. BARNUM - (1810-1891). American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Although Barnum was also an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician, he said of himself, "I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me," and his personal aims were "to put money in his own coffers." Barnum is widely but erroneously credited with coining the phrase "There's a sucker born every minute."

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• RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER - (1945-1982). German film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the most important figures in the New German Cinema. Fassbinder maintained a frenetic pace in film-making. In a professional career that lasted fewer than fifteen years, he completed 40 feature length films; two television film series; three short films; four video productions; twenty-four stage plays and four radio plays; and 36 acting roles in his own and others’ films. He also worked as an actor (film and theater), author, cameraman, composer, designer, editor, producer and theater manager.
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• RAYMOND LOEWY - (1893-1986). "The father of industrial design." Born in France, he spent most of his professional career in the United States. Among his designs were the Shell and former BP logos, the Greyhound Scenicruiser bus, Coca-Cola vending machines, the Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 and S-1 locomotives, the Lucky Strike package, Coldspot refrigerators, the Studebaker Avanti and Champion, and the Air Force One livery. His career spanned seven decades.
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• RÉGINE Zilberberg - (1929-2022). Founded in the 70s the international nightclub chain Chez Régine, Jimmy'z (the 'z' for Zylberberg), Club Maona in Monte-Carlo (named for MAria Callas/ONAssis) and Régine's.
• RÉgine, Whose Discotheque Gave Nightlife a New Dawn, Dies at 92 - "Credited with opening the first disco, she built an empire of glittering playgrounds for the Beautiful People in Paris, New York and beyond." The New York Times.
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• REMBRANDT - (1606-1669). Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age when Dutch Golden Age painting, although in many ways antithetical to the Baroque style that dominated Europe, was extremely prolific and innovative. Rembrandt's greatest creative triumphs are exemplified especially in his portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and with the utmost sincerity. The Night Watch or The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq is the common name of one of his most famous works. It is prominently displayed in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, as the best known painting in its collection. The Night Watch is one of the most famous paintings in the world.
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• RENÉ DESCARTES - (1596-1650). French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematics is equally apparent.
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• RICHARD WAGNER - (1813-1883). German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his operas (or, as some of his later works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama, and which was announced in a series of essays between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).
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• ROBERT BADEN-POWELL - (1857-1941). Also known as B-P or Lord Baden-Powell, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder of the Scout Movement and first Chief Scout of The Boy Scouts Association.
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• ROBERT DE MONTESQUIOU - (1855-1921). French aesthete, symbolist poet, art collector and dandy. He is reputed to have been the inspiration both for des Esseintes in Joris-Karl Huysmans' (1848-1907) À rebours (1884) and, most famously, for Baron de Charlus in Proust's (1871-1922) À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927).
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• ROBERT VESCO - (1935-2007). Fugitive United States financier. After several years of high stakes investments and seedy credit dealings, Vesco was alleged guilty of securities fraud. He immediately fled the ensuing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation by living in a number of Central American and Caribbean countries that did not have extradition laws. In 1970, Vesco began a successful takeover bid for Investors Overseas Service, Ltd., a mutual fund investment firm with holdings of $1.5 billion run by financier Bernard Cornfeld, who had run into trouble with the SEC. When his firm ran into financial difficulty, no "white knight" was willing to get involved. Vesco saw his chance and began a protracted battle to assume control of the company, opposed by Cornfeld and others. The battle quickly turned nasty; Cornfeld was thrown into jail in Switzerland and Vesco was accused of looting the company of hundreds of millions of dollars. Many prominent figures in global business, finance, and royalty were tied to the mess, receiving money from one party or the other for support. Among the accusations against Vesco were that he parked funds belonging to IOS investors in a series of dummy corporations, one of which had an Amsterdam address that was later linked to Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands.
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• RUDOLF STEINER - (1861-1925). Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. Steiner gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher. At the beginning of the 20th century, he founded a spiritual movement, anthroposophy, as an esoteric philosophy growing out of idealist philosophy and with links to theosophy. Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual component. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang Goethe's world view, in which "Thinking … is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." A consistent thread that runs from his earliest philosophical phase through his later spiritual orientation is the goal of demonstrating that there are no essential limits to human knowledge.

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• SALVADOR DALÍ - (1904-1989). Spanish surrealist painter. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media. Dalí attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors. Dalí was highly imaginative, and also enjoyed indulging in unusual and grandiose behavior. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork, to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem, and to the irritation of his critics.
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• SAMUEL JOHNSON - (1709-1784). Often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory, and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature": James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.
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• SERGE GAINSBOURG - (1928-1991). French singer, songwriter, poet, composer, artist, actor and director. Regarded as one of the most important figures in French popular music, he was renowned for his often provocative and scandalous releases, as well as his diverse artistic output, which embodied genres ranging from jazz, chanson, pop and yé-yé, to reggae, funk, rock, electronic and disco music. Gainsbourg's varied musical style and individuality make him difficult to categorize although his legacy has been firmly established and he is often regarded as one of the world's most influential popular musicians.
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• SERGEI DIAGHILEV - (1872-1929). Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise. Diaghilev's most notable composer-collaborator, however, was Igor Stravinsky. In 1910, he commissioned his first score from Stravinsky, The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913) followed shortly afterwards.
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• SIGMUND FREUD - (1856-1939). Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis. Freud's psychoanalytic system came to dominate the field from early in the twentieth century, forming the basis for many later variants. While these systems have adopted different theories and techniques, all have followed Freud by attempting to effect behavioral change through having patients talk about their difficulties. Psychoanalysis itself has declined as a distinct therapeutic practice, despite its pervasive influence on psychotherapy.
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• Simon Spies - (1921-1984). Famous Danish eccentric billionaire & bon vivant.
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• SIMON WIESENTHAL - (1908-2005). Jewish-Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter. Wiesenthal dedicated most of his life to tracking down and gathering information on fugitive Nazi war criminals so that they could be brought to trial. In 1947 he co-founded the Jewish Historical Documentation Center in Linz, Austria, where he and others gathered information for future war crime trials and aided refugees in their search for lost relatives. He opened the Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna in 1961 and continued to try to locate missing Nazi war criminals.
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• SITA DEVI OF BARODA - (1917-1989). Known as the "Indian Wallis Simpson." She was a colorful lady who led an extravagant life for over 40 years and was a member of the international jet set. Even after the dissolution of her second marriage, she clung to her exalted title. Her Rolls-Royce still sported the armorial insignia of Baroda. She would reminisce about the days when she was referred to as royalty and received 101-gun salutes. Prince Rainier awarded citizenship of Monaco in 1956 to both Sita Devi and her son Princie. She maintained a Paris apartment as well. She continued to live in grand style, drinking Baron de Rothschild’s Bordeaux, rearranging her Louis XVI furniture and attending exclusive parties. When travelling she brought along a large wardrobe, reported to be a thousand saris, hundreds of pairs of shoes and of course her jewellery. But her finances were eventually exhausted enough for her to secretly auction some of her beloved jewels in 1974.
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• SOCRATES - (c. 469 BC - 399 BC). Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Many would claim that Plato's dialogues are the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity.
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• STEVE JOBS - (1955-2011). American entrepreneur and co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. who revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing and digital publishing. Jobs brought Apple from near bankruptcy to profitability by 1998. As the new CEO of the company, Jobs oversaw the development of the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, and on the services side, the company's Apple Retail Stores, iTunes Store and the App Store. The success of these products and services provided several years of stable financial returns, and propelled Apple to become the world's most valuable publicly traded company in 2011. The reinvigoration of the company is regarded by many commentators as one of the greatest turnarounds in business history. In 2003, Jobs was diagnosed with a pancreas neuroendocrine tumor. Though it was initially treated, he reported a hormone imbalance, underwent a liver transplant in 2009, and appeared progressively thinner as his health declined. On medical leave for most of 2011, Jobs resigned in August that year, and was elected Chairman of the Board. He died of respiratory arrest related to his tumor on October 5, 2011. He has been referred to as "legendary", a "futurist" or simply "visionary", and has been described as the "Father of the Digital Revolution", a "master of innovation", "the master evangelist of the digital age" and a "design perfectionist".
• Steve Jobs Archive - since September 7, 2022. "With respect for the past and excitement for the future, the Steve Jobs Archive offers people the tools and opportunities to make their own contribution. We are building programs, fellowships, collections, and partnerships that reflect Steve’s values and carry his sense of possibility forward." The archive was introduced by Laurene Powell Jobs, Jobs’ widow, at Vox Media’s Code conference on Wednesday. 'While we do have some artifacts and some actual real material, the archive is much more about ideas,' she said. According to Powell Jobs, the archive is 'rooted in Steve’s long held notion that once you understand that, outside of the natural world, everything in the built environment and all the systems that govern our life on the planet were built and designed by other humans. Once you have that insight, you understand that you as a human can change it, can prod it, can perhaps, interrogate it and stretch it. In that way, human progress happens.'
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• STEVE RUBELL - (1943-1989). American-Jewish entrepreneur and co-owner of the New York disco Studio 54 (1977-1986) in the old CBS television studio on West 54th Street that the network was selling. Rubell became a familiar face in front of the building, turning people down at the door and only letting in those who met his specific standards. Rubell also dealt with the club's celebrity patrons, ensuring that they were thrown lavish parties. His tactics worked, and the club made $7 million during its first year.
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• SUN TZU - (c. 544 BC - c. 496 BC). Ancient Chinese military general and strategist, and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty. He is traditionally believed to have authored The Art of War, an extremely influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy. Sun Tzu has had a significant impact on Chinese and Asian history and culture, both as an author of The Art of War as well as through legend.
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• SUSAN SONTAG - (1933-2004). American writer and filmmaker, professor, literary icon, and political activist. Beginning with the publication of her 1964 essay Notes on 'Camp', Sontag became an international cultural and intellectual celebrity. Her best known works include On Photography, Against Interpretation, The Way We Live Now. Her often provocative essays and speeches sometimes drew criticism. The New York Review of Books called her "one of the most influential critics of her generation."
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• SØREN KIERKEGAARD - (1913-1855). Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic, and religious author. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology and philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and parables. He is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking, and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment. His theological work focuses on Christian ethics, on the institution of the Church, and on the differences between purely objective proofs of Christianity and the individual's subjective relationship to Jesus Christ, the God-Man, which came through faith. Much of his work deals with the art of Christian love. He was extremely critical of the practice of Christianity as a state religion, primarily that of the Church of Denmark. His psychological work explored the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices. Collected works at SØREN KIERKEGAARDS Skrifter.

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• T. E. LAWRENCE - (1888-1935). British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title which was used for the 1962 film based on his World War I activities. Lawrence's public image resulted in part from the sensationalised reportage of the revolt by an American journalist, Lowell Thomas, as well as from Lawrence's autobiographical account, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922). In 1935, he was fatally injured in a motorbike crash in Dorset.
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• THE RAT PACK - refers to a group of actors originally centered on Humphrey Bogart. In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a later variation of the group, after Bogart's death, that called itself "the summit" or "the clan," featuring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop.
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• THE ROBBER BARONS - derogatory term applied to wealthy and powerful 19th-century American businessmen. By the late 1800s, the term was typically applied to businessmen who used what were considered to be exploitative practices to amass their wealth. These practices included exerting control over national resources, accruing high levels of government influence, paying extremely low wages, squashing competition by acquiring competitors in order to create monopolies and eventually raise prices, and schemes to sell stock at inflated prices to unsuspecting investors in a manner which would eventually destroy the company for which the stock was issued and impoverish investors. The term combines the sense of criminal ("robber") and illegitimate aristocracy (a baron is an illegitimate role in a republic).
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• THOMAS AQUINAS - (1125-1274). Italian Dominican priest and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology, and the father of Thomism. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy was conceived in development or refutation of his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory. Pope Benedict XV: "The Church has declared Thomas' doctrine to be her own."
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• THOMAS EDISON - (1847-1931). American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park", he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. Edison is the fourth most prolific inventor in history, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. He is credited with numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures. Edison developed a system of electric-power generation and distribution to homes, businesses, and factories – a crucial development in the modern industrialized world. His first power station was on Pearl Street in Manhattan, New York.
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• THOMAS J.WATSON - (1874-1956). The chairman and CEO of International Business Machines (IBM), who oversaw that company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. Watson developed IBM's distinctive management style and corporate culture, and turned the company into a highly-effective selling organization, based largely around punched card tabulating machines. A leading self-made industrialist, he was one of the richest men of his time and was called the world's greatest salesman when he died in 1956.
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• THOMAS ROBERT MALTHUS - (1766-1834). British cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political economy and demography. Malthus became widely known for his theories about change in population. His An Essay on the Principle of Population observed that sooner or later population will be checked by famine and disease. He wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as perfectible. He thought that the dangers of population growth precluded progress towards a utopian society: "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man". Malthus placed the longer-term stability of the economy above short-term expediency. His views became influential, and controversial, across economic, political, social and scientific thought.
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• THORSTEIN VEBLEN - (1857-1929). American economist and sociologist, and a leader of the institutional economics movement. Besides his technical work he was a popular and witty critic of capitalism, as shown by his best known book The Theory of the Leisure Class. Famous in the history of economic thought for combining a Darwinian evolutionary perspective with his new institutionalist approach to economic analysis. The Veblen Good is named after his concepts of conspicuous consumption and status-seeking.
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• TRUMAN CAPOTE - (1924-1984). American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966), which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." A milestone in popular culture, In Cold Blood was the peak of Capote's literary career; it was to be his final fully published book. In the 1970s, he maintained his celebrity status by appearing on television talk shows. Through his jet set social life Capote had been gathering observations for a tell-all novel, Answered Prayers (eventually to be published as Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel). The book, which had been in the planning stages since 1958, was intended to be the American equivalent of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time and a culmination of the "nonfiction novel" format. Initially scheduled for publication in 1968, the novel was eventually delayed, at Capote's insistence, to 1972. Capote permitted Esquire to publish four chapters of the unfinished novel in 1975 and 1976.

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• VASLAV NIJINSKY - (1890-1950). Russian ballet dancer and choreographer of Polish descent, cited as the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century. He grew to be celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterizations. In 1909 he joined the Ballets Russes, a new ballet company started by Sergei Diaghilev which planned to show Russian ballets in Paris, where productions of the quality staged by the Imperial ballet simply did not exist. Nijinsky became the company's star male dancer, causing an enormous stir amongst audiences whenever he performed, although in ordinary life he appeared unremarkable and even boring to meet. Diaghilev and Nijinsky became lovers, and although Nijinsky had unparalleled ability, it was the publicity and opportunity provided by Diaghilev's company which made him internationally famous.
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• Victor Lustig - (1890-1947). Best known as "The man who sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice." He was a glib and charming conman, fluent in multiple languages. He established himself by working scams on the ocean liners steaming between Paris and New York City. One of Lustig's trademark cons involved a "money-printing machine". Later, Lustig persuaded Al Capone to invest $50,000 in a stock deal. Lustig kept Capone's money in a safe deposit box for two months then returned it to him, claiming that the deal had fallen through. Impressed with Lustig's integrity, Capone gave him $1,000.
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• Vidal Sassoon - (1928-2012). "If you don't look good, we don't look good." British hairdresser, businessman, and philanthropist. He is credited with creating a simple geometric, "Bauhaus-inspired" hair style, also called the wedge bob, and the five-point haircut in 1965.
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• VLADIMIR NABOKOV - (1899-1977). Russian American novelist. Nabokov's first nine novels were in Russian. He then rose to international prominence as a writer of English prose. He also made serious contributions as a lepidopterist and chess composer. Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is his most famous novel, and often considered his finest work in English.
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• VOLTAIRE - (1694-1778). French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit, his attacks on the established Catholic Church, and his advocacy of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken advocate, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day.

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• WALT DISNEY - (1901-1966). American animator, film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O. Disney, he co-founded the Walt Disney Productions, which later became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation is now known as The Walt Disney Company.
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• WALTER CRONKITE - (1916-2009). "...And that's the way it is." American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–1981). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll.
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• Ward McAllister - (1827-1895). Self-appointed arbiter of New York society from the 1860s to the early 1890s. Coined the phrase "the Four Hundred". According to him, this was the number of people in New York who really mattered; the people who felt at ease in the ballrooms of high society.
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• WILLIAM BLAKE - (1757-1827). English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led one contemporary art critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced".
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• William James - (1842-1910). American philosopher and psychologist who had trained as a physician. He was the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James wrote influential books on pragmatism, psychology, educational psychology, the psychology of religious experience, and mysticism. James defined true beliefs as those that prove useful to the believer.
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• WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST - (1863-1951). American newspaper publisher who built the nation’s largest newspaper chain and whose methods profoundly influenced American journalism. His life story was a source of inspiration for the development of the lead character in Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane. His mansion, Hearst Castle, near San Simeon, California, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, was donated by the Hearst Corporation to the state of California in 1957.
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• WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS - (1914-1997). American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th century". His influence is considered to have affected a range of popular culture as well as literature.
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• WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE - (1564-1616). English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, the authorship of some of which is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the 16th century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest works in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.
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• WINSTON CHURCHILL - (1874-1965). British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British Prime Minister in history to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was also the first person to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States.
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• WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART - (1756-1791). Austrian-born prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and travelled in search of a better position, always composing abundantly. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons. Mozart learned voraciously from others, and developed a brilliance and maturity of style that encompassed the light and graceful along with the dark and passionate. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence on subsequent Western art music is profound; Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote that "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years."

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• YVES SAINT LAURENT - (1936-2008). French fashion designer, and is regarded as one of the greatest names in fashion history. Yves Saint Laurent can be credited with both spurring the couture's rise from its sixties ashes and with finally rendering ready-to-wear reputable."