# People who were internationally famous and didn't know it **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 9, 2005, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-were-internationally-famous-and-didnt-know-it/330280 "2005-11-09T21:11:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2005, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-were-internationally-famous-and-didnt-know-it/330280/41 "2005-11-10T20:50:32Z")
> [@Breakdancing Duck](#): > > Wrong. > > He’s known about it, gets residuals from it and has made a good bit of money giving speechs and doing autograph shows because of it. > > Hell, he was even on the first season of **Scrubs**. No. You’re wrong. He didn’t know about it for many years. He did eventually find out when someone decided to look him up but it was quite a while after it had been shown every week. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-were-internationally-famous-and-didnt-know-it/330280/42 "2005-11-11T05:54:10Z")
RumMunkey writes: \> IIRC, Vincent VanGough sold only 1 or 2 paintings in his life and died believing \> he was a total failure (commercially anyway). If you’re going to use Van Gogh as an example, then an equally good case can be made for the American singer Eva Cassidy, who died at 33 with nothing except a local cult reputation, never even able to make a living off of her singing, but four and a half years after her death she had a #1 album in the U.K. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-were-internationally-famous-and-didnt-know-it/330280/43 "2005-11-11T18:00:54Z")
Brad Nowell died before any significant number of people outside of southern California knew who he was. I think it was Rolling Stone (but it might have been Guitar World) did a lengthy feature about him entitled “Dead On Arrival”, alluding to the fact that he was already dead by the time anyone had heard of him. ---
**Author:** ![TrivTriv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@TrivTriv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TrivTriv)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-were-internationally-famous-and-didnt-know-it/330280/44 "2005-11-11T21:47:42Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Brad Nowell died before any significant number of people outside of southern California knew who he was. I think it was Rolling Stone (but it might have been Guitar World) did a lengthy feature about him entitled “Dead On Arrival”, alluding to the fact that he was already dead by the time anyone had heard of him. Sublime (Bradley Nowell’s band) wasn’t quite unknown before he died. I worked at _Rolling Stone_ as an intern when he passed, and they did run a short obituary. But yes, it wasn’t until after he died that Sublime became huge. Sadly, the surviving members couldn’t capitalize on it, and Nowell’s been forgotten. Franz Kafka and Bix Beiderbeke also acheived fame primarily after their deaths. In a darker vein, you could say the same for someone like Pat Tillman. A favorite urban legend of mine that turned out completely untrue: For many years, I was convinced that “Weird Al” Yankovic kept his career secret from his mother. I’d heard that she was a devoutly religious shut-in who would never approve of Al’s lifestyle, so he told her he was a plumber, and she believed it. Very, very shut in, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-were-internationally-famous-and-didnt-know-it/330280/45 "2005-11-11T22:08:42Z")
Eva Peron had a following in Argentina at the time of her death, but didn’t become internationally famous until around 1978. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-were-internationally-famous-and-didnt-know-it/330280/46 "2005-11-11T22:13:33Z")
Perhaps this is the flip side of the coin, but the famous shot from Woodstock of two flower-children huddling together in a blanket seen [here](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6300271447.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) has never been positively substantiated, and there are several couples who claimed to be the couple in question. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-were-internationally-famous-and-didnt-know-it/330280/47 "2005-11-11T22:27:33Z")
I think one of the great chess players, Sultan Kahn has to be considered: [http://www.ishipress.com/sultan.htm](http://www.ishipress.com/sultan.htm) > [@](#): > > One of the most interesting and important personalities in chess history was Mir Sultan Khan. He was brought from India to England in 1929 by his master, a maharaja, was kept there for four years, and then was taken back to India in 1933 by his master, never to be seen by the world of chess again. > > During his short stay in England, Sultan Khan won the British Chess Championship, defeated former World Champion Capablanca and played first board for England during the World Chess Olympiads at Prague 1931 and at Folkestone 1933. At the same time, another servant brought by the same maharaja, a Miss Fatima, won the British Woman’s Chess Championship. > > Sultan Khan never finished lower than fourth in any chess tournament in which he ever played. Although he always lost to William Winter (who usually finished last, in spite of defeating Sultan Khan) there is no doubt that Sultan Khan was one of the strongest chess players in the world at that time. According to the modern rating system, Sultan Khan was about 2550 in strength and was easily a grandmaster. This also means that Sultan Khan was the first ever Asian grandmaster of chess. > > There is some dispute as to whether Sultan Khan was a slave or was merely a servant. Reuben Fine related that when he was a guest for dinner at the maharaja’s home in England, Sultan Khan was a waiter who brought the dishes to the table. Much later, when Kahn was no longer a servant: > [@](#): > > Coles relates that in the early 1960s, someone (I forget the name) located Sultan Khan at his home near Lahore, Pakistan and visited him there. He found Sultan Khan sitting under a tree smoking a hookah. The visitor related that Sultan Khan offered to play him a game of blindfold chess, but that the visitor “wisely declined”. Khan knew that he had some fame in Europe, but his world fame came to my notice when I was beginning to learn chess in El Salvador, then he was pointed as one of the greatest chess players in history. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-were-internationally-famous-and-didnt-know-it/330280.md?page=2)