Episodes

He’s been instrumental in shaping both country and pop music, yet his appeal crosses all social and economic lines. Sometimes he’s called an outlaw, though from Farm Aid to the aftermath of September 11, from the resurrection of a burned-out courthouse in his own hometown to fanning the flame of the Olympics, it is Willie Nelson who brings us together.

Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Clara Bow, were stars who created trademark personas and spent their entire careers testing the limits of those characters. For many in the industry, both then and now, this type of career is considered the pinnacle of success, but for one actor it was the antithesis of the his art. For Lon Chaney, the art of acting was the art of continual transformation.

The Juilliard School is a performing arts conservatory located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, & music. It is widely regarded as one of the world's leading drama, music and dance schools, with some of the most prestigious arts programs.

Alice Waters shares her Inspiring Woman: Michelle Obama. During her time in the White House, Mrs. Obama planted a vegetable garden on the White House lawn and championed healthy eating initiatives. Share your story at pbs.org/InspiringWoman or using #InspiringWomanPBS.

Although she is clearly a child of the great American popular tradition, there is no more serious artist on the contemporary scene than the composer-poet, Joni Mitchell. Her work, like that of Duke Ellington and Stevie Wonder, transcends the limits imposed by the terms “popular” and “serious.” Furthermore, her music-poetry is a remarkable example of the ever-present potential of ancient unity.

Muddy Waters is, in many ways, the archetypal bluesman. He was raised as a sharecropper in the Mississippi Delta, where he learned to play an acoustic guitar. He went to Chicago in 1943, and the band he assembled established the electric blues sound. Over the next three and a half-decades, his band became a springboard for many of his sidemen, launching a prominent school of blues performers.

Robert Capa was a Hungarian war photographer and photojournalist as well as the companion and professional partner of photographer Gerda Taro. He is considered by some to be the greatest combat and adventure photographer in history.

Gore Vidal (1925-2012) never lacked for labels: Witty, irreverent, and shrewd, a propagandist, a truth-teller, and an agent provocateur. Dramatist, novelist, screenwriter, actor, and public debater. A troublemaker at large, poking his pen at anyone who got in his way. That’s how Vidal seared himself into the American consciousness.