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Lord Byron 377 Views
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Description:
The first real celebrity was a poet? Guess our standards have changed.
Transcript
- 00:03
Lord Byron a la Shmoop. Celebrities today are often famous for something
- 00:13
besides their actual job.
- 00:15
Sure, they might occasionally star in a blockbuster movie…
- 00:19
…but people are talking about them because they’re feuding with other celebrities or…
- 00:22
unwittingly starring in a racy online video.
Full Transcript
- 00:26
But celebrities existed before E! News and paparazzi, they just didn’t have a word
- 00:31
for it.
- 00:32
Is it possible that Lord Byron was the world’s first celebrity?
- 00:37
Like George Clooney, Byron was famous for his devastating good looks and his scandalous
- 00:41
personal life.
- 00:47
And just as Clooney occasionally does a movie or two, Byron may have written one or two
- 00:51
famous works.
- 00:52
In a pre-Hollywood world, poetry was hot. But Byron’s looks and behavior were even
- 00:57
hotter.
- 00:59
Lord Byron was crazy enough to have been on the cover of a tabloid, if they existed back
- 01:04
then.
- 01:04
He claimed to live on a diet of vinegar and potatoes. Could that have been the first celebrity
- 01:09
diet craze?
- 01:11
And just like people throw their underpants at the Rolling Stones, women sent Byron fan
- 01:15
mail. Sometimes very personal items.
- 01:18
How much would it have cost to ship a girdle back then?
- 01:21
He wasn’t just defined by his poetry and his adoring fans.
- 01:25
Just as Sean Penn is always on his soap box about something, Byron, too, had his pet causes.
- 01:32
He fought for Greek independence.
- 01:34
Not only did his poetry help raise awareness for the cause, he trucked it over there to
- 01:38
raise funds and procure supplies.
- 01:42
What sets Byron apart from many modern celebs is that he actually died for this cause. He
- 01:47
came down with a fever and died in Greece.
- 01:50
Do you think Sarah McLachlan would take a bullet to save a stray dog? Yeah, we don’t
- 01:58
think so either.
- 02:01
Perhaps cementing his celebrity status, Byron lived fast and died young.
- 02:05
He was like James Dean, the rebel without a cause… not James Deen, the X-rated film
- 02:11
actor.
- 02:11
Although with Byron, who knows? He might have been a little of both if video cameras were
- 02:15
around back then…
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