Artists

In brief: Beethoven’s hearing loss began around 27 and was total by his mid-40s. He composed his Ninth Symphony — still one of the greatest works in Western music — almost entirely deaf, relying on his inner sense of sound. At its premiere, he had to be turned around by a performer just to see…

In brief: At 18, Frida Kahlo was riding a bus that collided with a trolley car. A steel handrail tore through her body. Doctors weren’t sure she’d survive. Months into a full-body cast, bored and in constant pain, she asked her mother for a special easel and a mirror above her bed — and started…

In brief: Vincent van Gogh made around 2,100 paintings and drawings in his lifetime. He’s documented to have sold exactly one, for 400 francs, four months before he died. He never knew what any of it would become. I think that’s the part of his story worth actually sitting with. What would it feel like…

In brief: Georgia O’Keeffe was already one of the most successful painters in America when, in 1932, her life fell apart — a failed commission, a crumbling marriage, and a breakdown so severe she stopped painting completely for close to a year. When she finally picked up a brush again, it was in New Mexico,…

In brief: Louis Armstrong grew up dirt poor in a New Orleans neighborhood so rough it was nicknamed “The Battlefield.” At 12, he was arrested and sent to a reform school. It’s where he got his first real music lessons. He later said the arrest changed his entire life for the better — and he…

In brief: As a child, Maya Angelou survived a sexual assault and, believing her own words had led to her attacker’s death, stopped speaking almost entirely for nearly five years. During her silence, she read everything she could find and memorized poetry. A teacher eventually reached her — not by pushing her to talk, but…

Imagine being told your greatest strength is actually your biggest problem. That’s exactly what happened to Amitabh Bachchan. The deep, resonant baritone that would one day make entire cinema halls go silent — that would narrate films, anchor quiz shows watched by hundreds of millions, and become one of the most recognised voices on the…

What does it cost to become the greatest entertainer the world has ever seen? For Michael Jackson, the answer is this: no Christmas. No birthdays. No childhood. Rehearsals from the age of five, in a two-bedroom house in one of the poorest cities in America, with a father whose idea of encouragement was fear. And…

What would you do if you had $106 in your bank account, no home, no car, and someone offered you $350,000 to walk away from your dream? Most people would take the money. Stallone didn’t. And that single decision is the reason you know his name. Born Fighting Before he ever stepped in front of…

Picture this. Delhi, 1991. A 25-year-old sits in a rented apartment surrounded by the remnants of a life that has just fallen apart. His father — gone ten years ago, taken by cancer before he could see anything his son would become. His mother — gone now too, just weeks ago, after years of illness…