Dead Famous Quotes

“Lincoln was sent a letter by an eleven-year-old girl called Grace Bedell, in which she’d dissed his weird face and suggested he grow some whiskers if he wanted people’s votes. Lincoln did as he was told, and met her in her hometown a few months later, whispering: ‘Gracie, look at my whiskers. I have been growing them for you.’ It’s extraordinary that his iconic look was the result of a hilariously blunt child stylist.* However, though news of Lincoln’s new beard quickly spread, he didn’t immediately pose for an updated portrait, so newspaper artists were initially forced to improvise what they thought his bearded face looked like, making him a sort of e-fit president better suited to a ‘Wanted!’ poster.40”
― Greg Jenner, Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen

“Lowbrow isn’t bad culture, it’s just different; it’s vibrant, immediate, accessible, and fun.”
― Greg Jenner, Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen

“She was a twenty-first-century Socrates in hotpants; a Socra-tease, if you will.”
― Greg Jenner, Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen

“inquisitor’s stick, beginning with the bizarre claims of Mary Toft, the Englishwoman from Surrey who in 1726 tricked doctors into believing she’d given birth to rabbits. Though the hoax was eventually unmasked, the king’s own credulous doctor was embarrassed by the scandal and the wider medical profession also emerged with egg on its”
― Greg Jenner, Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen

“The celebrity is a known individual who has become a marketable commodity.’24”
― Greg Jenner, Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen

“All of these other people threw themselves into the challenges, yet we don’t remember their names. The razzle-dazzle process that transforms nobodies into exemplary heroes is a curious one because sometimes it celebrates valour while simultaneously ignoring it in others. None of these forgotten people were any less altruistic than the eventual superstars bathed in limelight, but it was only Darling, Nightingale and Seacole who emitted the right sort of narrative charisma. The media found them intrinsically fascinating, and so only they were forged into public heroes, while their comrades in risk slunk back into anonymity.”
― Greg Jenner, Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen