The Birth of Venus, by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1485. Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

Celebrity

Volume IV, Number 1 | winter 2011

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Preamble

Dancing with the Stars

By Lewis H. Lapham

The vanity of princes is an old story; so is the wish for kings and the gazing into the pool of Narcissus.

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Portrait of Orson Welles for Citizen Kane, 1940.

Against Appearances

By Bruce Bawer

Orson Welles became a star not by creating some great work, but by simply scaring the hell out of people.

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Famous adventurers, entertainers, geniuses, and outlaws.

Map

Hall of Famers

Famous adventurers, entertainers, geniuses, and outlaws.

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1981 | Washington, DC

This Is Just to Say

John loves Jodie forever.More

c. 1920 | United States

Dreamboat

Rudolph Valentino and a million swooning fans.More

1819 | London

Bow and Bid Adieu

John Keats flirts with fame.More

Charts & Graphs

Name Changer

Name Changer

Match the given name to the stage name.

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Photograph of American artist Andy Warhol.

American social reformer Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Italian artist and author Giorgio Vasari.

Pastel drawing of George Eliot.

British writer Muriel Spark.

American musician, songwriter, and co-founder of Mötley Crüe Nikki Sixx.

English essayist, poet, and dramatist Joseph Addison.

Black and white photograph of Russian author Leo Tolstoy.

I’m afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.

—Aldous Huxley, 1925

Charles Dickens & John Lennon

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Lapham’sDaily

Roundtable

Capturing Martin Luther King Jr. and Elvis

By Preston Lauterbach

Looking at 1968 through the eyes of photographer Ernest Withers. More

DÉjÀ Vu

Love Is Dead

2018:

Woman announces she is divorcing her pirate ghost husband.

1926:

Man sues wife for adultery with a ghost.

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The World in Time

Alan Rusbridger

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Alan Rusbridger, author of Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now. More

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