7224: Sergio Leone — The Italian Outsider Who Reinvented the American Cowboy | pplpod
Sergio Leone had never been to America when he reinvented the Western. He cast a television actor named Clint Eastwood, shot in the Spanish desert, scored the films with Ennio Morricone's operatic mus...
16 Jun 18min
7223: Richard Pryor — The Comedian Who Turned His Own Fire Into Comedy Gold | pplpod
Richard Pryor grew up in his grandmother's brothel, was molested as a child, and set himself on fire while freebasing cocaine. He turned every one of those experiences into material so honest and so f...
16 Jun 20min
7222: Paul McCartney — From Skiffle Bands to the Edge of AI and Silence | pplpod
Paul McCartney heard skiffle on the radio as a Liverpool teenager and it changed his life. Seven decades later he used artificial intelligence to extract John Lennon's voice from a degraded cassette t...
16 Jun 21min
7221: Mick Jagger — The Rock Star Who Was Always a CEO in Disguise | pplpod
Mick Jagger studied at the London School of Economics, and every decision he made after dropping out reflected that education. While Keith Richards played the outlaw, Jagger ran the Rolling Stones lik...
16 Jun 18min
7220: Maurice Ravel — The Obsessive Watchmaker Who Crafted Perfect Music | pplpod
Maurice Ravel composed music the way a Swiss watchmaker assembles a timepiece — every gear placed with microscopic precision, every surface polished until it gleamed. He spent years on single composit...
16 Jun 21min
7219: Marlene Dietrich — The Hollywood Icon Who Fought Fascism with Glamour and Grit | pplpod
Marlene Dietrich left Germany, renounced her citizenship, and spent World War II entertaining Allied troops on the front lines while the Nazis put a bounty on her head. She weaponized her glamour agai...
16 Jun 21min
7218: Magic Johnson — From Court Vision to Billion-Dollar Business Empire | pplpod
Magic Johnson announced he was HIV-positive in 1991 and the world assumed he was dying. Instead he built a business empire worth over a billion dollars, became part-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a...
16 Jun 20min
7217: Lucille Ball — The Fearless Architect of Modern Television | pplpod
Lucille Ball was a failed B-movie actress who became the most powerful woman in television history. She co-founded Desilu Productions, pioneered the three-camera sitcom format, greenlit both Star Trek...
16 Jun 19min
