Threadwinner.
Didn’t Edison also do everything in his power to make Westinghouse’s AC electricity synonymous with danger and death, solely in order to make his own DC electricity the standard? (Didn’t work, but still…)
Industrialist Henry Ford and First Lady Bess Truman were hard core anti-semites.
Check out David Berlinski’s biography of Newton. It is a very entertaining and thoughtful book. He really depicts the complex character of Newton, who was indeed 1) brilliant and 2) a real jerk.
To cite one example, his treatment of Leibnitz (co-discoverer of calculus) was horrendous.
Blimey. No wonder somebody shot him.
You may be thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther died of natural causes. Unless this is intended to be a whoosh, in which case I get it and it’s funny.
To be fair, though, that wasn’t necessarily a negative trait to a majority of Americans living in that less enlightened era. Jews were still largely segregated from mainstream society, and non-Jews weren’t likely to know any Jews well enough to think about Ford’s beliefs. Indeed, most were likely not even aware of them.
Henry still wasn’t a benign uncle to a lot of Americans, however. Even if you owned a Ford you might have had misgivings about the galloping influence of Fordism in contemporary life.
Well, I guess if he nailed your wife you’re allowed to hold a grudge against him.
If I recall, this included the public electrocution of various dogs and cats (and wasn’t an elephant involved too?) to demonstrate the dangers of AC.
Ed Zotti?
Joe
Been nice knowing you, Joe. 
Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio.
Not the same kind of famous, but I was surprised to learn that Peter Sellers was such a big honkin’ jerk, because he was so funny in many movies, including The Pink Panther.
Margaret Sanger was another racist and believed in eugenics.
Newton was extremely jealous of other scientific figures getting any credit that he felt he alone deserved.
John Scopes was also a eugenicist with some racist views. Here’s a link to some passages from the textbook, A Civic Biology: Presented in Problems, he was arrested for teaching evolution from.
Henry Ford’s own work (and stuff he commissioned), which mostly ended up being published as The International Jew, didn’t convince many people.
However, he bankrolled publishing and distribution of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the US and elsewhere, which is arguably the basis for all Western anti-Semitism.
The modern-day conspiracy theorists who talk about a shadowy Jewish plot to take over the world are essentially just recycling Protocols.
The strangest part is just how silly the Protocols really are. Sample passage:
On a completely unrelated note, I was kind of shccked to discover that Vince McMahon is a pretty nice guy. All signs point to the opposite.
Newton was a genuine asshole in the way ordinary assholes can only aspire to be. In addition to the calculus controversy, Newton as Master of the Mint pursued those he suspected of counterfeiting with fanatical zeal and caused the execution of many accused, rightfully and wrongfully.
He was very smart, and could be very petty and vindictive. He was absolutely not the kind of man anyone in his right might would want to cross.
Bugs Bunny. On-screen he was a law-of-physics bending crossdressing sarcastic funnyman, but off screen he told the House UnAmerican Activities Committee that Foghorn Leghorn, Porky Pig and Road Runner were a Communist cell, routinely beat his does and had them reabsorb their litters in order to avoid paying child support, insisted that his wards Buster and Bunny have only Pay-for-Play contracts to keep their residuals, and introduced the Beatles, the Who, Cary Grant and Jimi Hendrix to Lapine Sense Deepener (LSD) all while authoring constant screeds under assumed name denouncing Jews, foreigners, Catholics, and- for no apparent reason- Vivian Vance in the most hateful of terms. I hope he burns in hell.
And that’s nothing. You should read what he thought of Mel Blanc.