Podcast Episodes
Back to Search7223: Richard Pryor — The Comedian Who Turned His Own Fire Into Comedy Gold | pplpod
Episode 7223
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…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7224: Sergio Leone — The Italian Outsider Who Reinvented the American Cowboy | pplpod
Episode 7224
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, s…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7222: Paul McCartney — From Skiffle Bands to the Edge of AI and Silence | pplpod
Episode 7222
Paul McCartney heard skiffle on the radio as a Liverpool teenager and it changed his life. Seven decades later he used artificial intelligence to ext…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7217: Lucille Ball — The Fearless Architect of Modern Television | pplpod
Episode 7217
Lucille Ball was a failed B-movie actress who became the most powerful woman in television history. She co-founded Desilu Productions, pioneered the …
4 days, 23 hours ago
7219: Marlene Dietrich — The Hollywood Icon Who Fought Fascism with Glamour and Grit | pplpod
Episode 7219
Marlene Dietrich left Germany, renounced her citizenship, and spent World War II entertaining Allied troops on the front lines while the Nazis put a …
4 days, 23 hours ago
7216: Lead Belly — The Man Who Sang His Way Out of Prison Twice | pplpod
Episode 7216
Lead Belly was serving time for murder when the folklorist John Lomax recorded him in a Louisiana prison. His singing was so powerful that the govern…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7220: Maurice Ravel — The Obsessive Watchmaker Who Crafted Perfect Music | pplpod
Episode 7220
Maurice Ravel composed music the way a Swiss watchmaker assembles a timepiece — every gear placed with microscopic precision, every surface polished …
4 days, 23 hours ago
7218: Magic Johnson — From Court Vision to Billion-Dollar Business Empire | pplpod
Episode 7218
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 dolla…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7221: Mick Jagger — The Rock Star Who Was Always a CEO in Disguise | pplpod
Episode 7221
Mick Jagger studied at the London School of Economics, and every decision he made after dropping out reflected that education. While Keith Richards p…
4 days, 23 hours ago
7211: Larry Bird — How a Small-Town Kid Mastered Every Role in the NBA | pplpod
Episode 7211
Larry Bird grew up in a town so small that basketball was the only way out, and he took it further than anyone from French Lick, Indiana, had any rig…
4 days, 23 hours ago