Podcast Episodes
Back to Search7232: Keith Richards — The Choirboy Behind Rock's Most Dangerous Myth | pplpod
Episode 7232
Keith Richards sang in a church choir as a boy soprano and was praised by his choirmaster for his pure tone. Decades later he became the most famous …
4 days, 23 hours ago
7231: Tiger Woods — The Building and Breaking of Golf's Greatest Prodigy | pplpod
Episode 7231
Tiger Woods was engineered from birth to dominate golf. His father put a club in his hands before he could walk, trained him with military psychologi…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7236: Janis Joplin — The Raw Nerve and Unfiltered Pain Behind Rock's Greatest Voice | pplpod
Episode 7236
Janis Joplin sang like she was tearing something open inside herself. The power came from pain — a childhood of relentless bullying in Port Arthur, T…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7233: Arnold Palmer — The King Who Built the Blueprint for the Modern Athlete-Brand | pplpod
Episode 7233
Arnold Palmer did not just win golf tournaments. He invented the concept of the athlete as brand. Before Palmer, professional athletes played sports …
4 days, 23 hours ago
7230: George Gershwin — The Brooklyn Outsider Who Invented America's Sound | pplpod
Episode 7230
George Gershwin was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants who grew up on the Lower East Side and taught himself piano on a neighbor's instrument. He m…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7227: Spencer Tracy — The Demons That Invented Modern Screen Acting | pplpod
Episode 7227
Spencer Tracy won two consecutive Academy Awards and made it look like he was doing nothing on camera. That apparent effortlessness was the invention…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7228: Ted Williams — The Science of Hitting and the Physics of Immortality | pplpod
Episode 7228
Ted Williams approached hitting a baseball as a physics problem. He divided the strike zone into seventy-seven cells, calculated the probability of g…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7229: Robin Williams — The Brain Disease That Betrayed a Comic Genius | pplpod
Episode 7229
Robin Williams could improvise faster than any comedian alive. His mind moved at a speed that left audiences breathless and interviewers helpless. Wh…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7225: Dmitri Shostakovich — Terror, Genius, and the Midnight Elevator | pplpod
Episode 7225
Dmitri Shostakovich slept every night with a packed suitcase by his bed, waiting for the secret police to come. He composed some of the greatest symp…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7226: Sophia Loren — From Wartime Curtains to the Academy Awards | pplpod
Episode 7226
Sophia Loren grew up so poor during World War II that her family made clothes from curtains. She was dismissed as just another Italian beauty until s…
4 days, 23 hours ago