Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American actor, comedian, film director, producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan...

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE was an English film director and producer, widely regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He directed 53 feature films[a] in a career spanning six decades, becoming as wel...

Walt Disney was an American business magnate, animator, producer, director, screenwriter, philanthropist, and voice actor. As a prominent figure within the American animation industry and throughout the world, he is regarded as a cultural i...

Leni Riefenstahl was a German film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, photographer, actress and dancer. Born in 1902, Leni Riefenstahl grew up in Germany with her brother Heinz (1905–1944), who was killed on the Eastern Front in W...

Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton CBE was an English fashion and portrait photographer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre....

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business tycoon, investor, aviator, aerospace engineer, inventor, filmmaker and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world. As a maverick film tycoon, Hughes gained prominence...

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet composer and pianist, and a prominent figure of 20th-century music. Shostakovich achieved fame in the Soviet Union under the patronage of Soviet chief of staff Mikhail Tukhachevsky, but later...

Josephine Baker was an American-born French entertainer, French Resistance agent, and civil rights activist. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. She was the first black woman to star in a major motion...

James Agee (1909) Agee was an American novelist, screenwriter, journalist, poet, and film critic who worked for Fortune, Time, and The Nation. His first major book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a commentary on the life of tenant farmers i...

Lucille Désirée Ball Morton was an American actress, comedian, model, film-studio executive, and producer. She was best known as the star of the self-produced sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, and Here's Lucy....

Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American actor and politician. He was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989), and served as the 33rd Governor of California (1967–75) prior to his presidency. As president, Reagan implemented swee...

George Orson Welles was a uniquely talented artist, but one who was doomed to spend much of his life unable to realize his ambitions. It didn't start that way: Welles was a precocious and gifted child who began acting, writing, and directin...

Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. His influential body of work dealt with bleakness and despair as well as comedy and hope. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest fi...

Isaac Asimov was a Jewish-American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. He was known for his works of science fiction and popular science. Asimov was a prolific writer, and wrote or edited more than 500 books and an es...

Federico Fellini was an Italian film director. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century. Personal and highly idiosyncra...