Bestselling author Steven Naifeh, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
Tapped for 11 Pro Bowls, Tom Mack made it into the NFL’s Hall of Fame.
Sumner Redstone, the billionaire who got to the top at Showtime and Nickelodeon and MTV and CBS and Paramount and et cetera.
Mitt Romney’s dad was, of course, the Governor of Michigan until leaving office in the ‘60s — which is when it went to William Milliken, who kept at it through the ‘70s and into the ‘80s. (And that record-breaking Republican made plenty of headlines when he publicly declared for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.)
At that, Nick Cassavetes — the son of John Cassavetes — has an Emmy and has done his share of big-screen movie work (supporting roles in THE ASTRONAUT’S WIFE and FACE/OFF and so on, and top-billing in smaller films) but really staked out a spot for himself by directing THE NOTEBOOK: after he’d directed JOHN Q, but before he’d directed THE OTHER WOMAN (which outgrossed both of those).
Played himself in ENTOURAGE (but, then again, who didn’t?).
Esther Rolle was best known for playing Florida Evans in prime time for years and years on GOOD TIMES, though she won an Emmy for something else altogether.
The King made Lionel Logue a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, for reasons that should be memorable to anybody who saw Geoffrey Rush portray Logue in the Oscar-bait blockbuster that was THE KING’S SPEECH.
Wikipedia says, of author Jude Deveraux, that “more than 40 of her novels have been on The New York Times Best Seller list,” which is pretty danged impressive.
Abraham Mignon’s art has graced “the Dresden Gallery, which contains fifteen of his paintings … Six of his pictures are at the Louvre, four at the Hermitage, and other examples are to be found at the museums of Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Brussels, Munich, Karlsruhe, Brunswick, Kassel, Schwerin, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Lyon, Florence and Turin”; and Christie’s apparently auctioned off one of his oil paintings “for more than $1 million”, though that was kind of a special case.
Last year, Alex Smith led the NFL in passer rating.
This morning, he’s in the headlines for a different reason.
Raymond Dart authored Adventures with the Missing Link after discovering the first known fossil of Australopithecus africanus and naming the species.
Morris Stoloff “was touring the U.S. as a featured soloist at the age of 16, and joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic a year later as its youngest member ever” and “ranks among some of the most-nominated individuals in the history of the Academy Awards. He won three Oscars for best scores, including those for Cover Girl (1944), The Jolson Story (1946), and Song Without End (1960), and was nominated 14 other times.”
Richard Dimbleby “became the BBC’s first war correspondent, and then its leading TV news commentator.” And he hosted Panorama in the ‘50s and ‘60s — which is to say, before his son, David Dimbleby, “best known for the BBC’s long running Question Time television series”, handled it in the ‘70s and ‘80s. (“Question Time is still hosted by Dimbleby, who is now the programme’s longest-serving presenter. He will step down in December 2018 after presenting the programme for 25 years.”).
Self-made billionaire Fred DeLuca, founder of Subway.
(Wiki says it’s passed McDonald’s as “the largest single-brand restaurant chain, and the largest restaurant operator, in the world.” That’s kind of staggering.)
Sure, it’s great that five-time NBA champion Don Nelson got his number retired as a player who’d led the league in field-goal percentage; but it’s as the winningest coach in NBA history that he earned his spot in the Hall of Fame.
William Mountbatten-Windsor, the man who would be king.
Well, the other one, anyway. But he sure does get plenty of press.
For well over a decade now, the New York Times has been running a contest they of course call Win a Trip with Nick Kristof, offering journalism students a chance to travel with the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner on a reporting trip — you know, in hopes that they’ll someday collect accolades like Kristoff has.
(For example, he was presented with the Anne Frank Award with a declaration that “Nick Kristof was one of the first to publicly insist that the words Never Again mean something for the people of Darfur.” And then there was the time when Harvard gave him a career award for excellence in journalism, explaining that “the reporter who’s done more than any other to change the world is Nick Kristof.” And then there was the time when the president of the International Center for Journalists said that “Nick Kristof is the conscience of international journalism.”)
As I type this, Liam McIntyre is making a fifth primetime go-round on THE FLASH in his recurring role as the Weather Wizard — which (a) presumably wouldn’t qualify the guy for this, but which (b) he presumably landed on the strength of his starring role in SPARTACUS. (Plenty of other credits; but, c’mon: Spartacus.)
Still, he also went on to get an extra dose of notoriety for confidently noting, as chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, that Americans would “enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter” — and also for then serving as an acting Cabinet Secretary for the better part of a year, up until the Senate eventually voted him down instead of making it official.
That said, Strauss managed to get a Presidential Medal of Freedom and the cover of TIME Magazine along the way, and a guy could do a heck of a lot worse.
The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke is the most famous work of Richard Dadd, who “painted it while incarcerated in the State Criminal Lunatic Asylum of Bethlem Royal Hospital, where he was confined after he murdered his father”. Has other paintings on display in various art museums, but that one’s the showstopper.