Robert Benchley was an American humorist, drama critic and film actor who is best known for his small roles in over 40 films, including How To Sleep.
Athlete George Best played for Manchester United and was named European Footballer of the Year in 1968. His brief career ended by the time he was 25.
Author and poet Charles Bukowski wrote the gritty poetry book Love is a Dog from Hell, and the novels Barfly and Factotum, both of which were made into films.
Calamity Jane was a woman of the Wild West who was respected for her talent with a gun and kindness toward others.
Truman Capote was a trailblazing writer of Southern descent known for the works Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood, among others.
As prime minister, Sir Winston Churchill rallied the British people during WWII, and led his country from the brink of defeat to victory.
William Faulkner was a Nobel Prize-winning novelist of the American South, who wrote challenging prose and created the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. He is known for novels like Sartoris.
American short-story writer and novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald is known for his turbulent personal life and his famous novel The Great Gatsby.
Actress and singer Judy Garland was the star of many classic musical films, and was known for her tremendous talent and troubled life.
Irish actor Richard Harris is best known for his performances as King Arthur in Broadway's Camelot and Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films.
Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway is seen as one of the great American 20th century novelists, and is known for works like A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea.
Jack Kerouac was an American writer best known for the novel On the Road, which became an American classic, pioneering the Beat Generation in the 1950s.
Lindsay Lohan is an actress and pop singer who starred in the film Mean Girls and in the TV movie Liz & Dick.
Jack London was a 19th century American author and journalist, best known for the adventure novels White Fang and The Call of the Wild.
Shane McGowan is an Irish singer-songwriter who founded the folk-punk band the Pogues.
Modest Mussorgsky was a 19th century Russian composer. His most famous works include "Night on Bald Mountain," "Boris Godunov" and "Pictures at an Exhibition."
Dorothy Parker was the sharpest wit of the Algonquin Round Table, as well as a master of short fiction and a blacklisted screenwriter.
American writer, critic and editor Edgar Allan Poe is famous for his tales and poems of horror and mystery, including The Raven.
Actor Charlie Sheen, star of such films as Platoon and of TV's Two and a Half Men, is the brother of actor Emilio Estévez and the son of actor Martin Sheen.
Actor Kiefer Sutherland, son of Donald Sutherland, appeared in numerous coming-of-age films throughout the 1980s, including Stand by Me and The Lost Boys.
Writer Dylan Thomas is best known for the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," the play "Under Milk Wood," and for his heavy drinking.
A counterculture icon, Hunter S. Thompson was an American journalist best known for writing 1971's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and creating "Gonzo journalism."
Vincent van Gogh is considered the greatest Dutch painter after Rembrandt, although he remained poor and virtually unknown throughout his life.
Boris Yeltsin was the first freely elected President of Russia. He voluntarily resigned from the post after nine years, leaving the job to Putin.