Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Like other members of the Ivy League, it is known for prestige, academic rigor and selective undergraduate admissions process. Among its peers, Brown is noted for a culture of campus activism and longstanding commitment to academic and intellectual freedom exemplified by its Open Curriculum and course "shopping period." [1] [2] [3] The university has been described as the "progressive Ivy," "hip Ivy," and "creative Ivy." [4] [5] [6]
Brown is consistently referenced in popular culture, including in works of cinema, television, music, and the written word. [7] [8] [9]
Josiah Carberry – Professor of Psychoceramics (the study of cracked pots), who was created as a joke in 1929 and who has become a tradition at Brown. On every Friday the 13th, cracked pots are left around the Brown campus for students to deposit their pocket change. The money goes to support the Brown University library. Traditionally, Brown alums everywhere send their pocket change to the library on Friday the 13th. There is an organization of alums called "Friends of Josiah" that meets for dinner on the Brown campus on Friday the 13th. [10]
Jeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American novelist and short story writer. He has written numerous short stories and essays, as well as three novels: The Virgin Suicides (1993), Middlesex (2002), and The Marriage Plot (2011). The Virgin Suicides served as the basis of a feature film, while Middlesex received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in addition to being a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the International Dublin Literary Award, and France's Prix Médicis.
Julie Deborah Kavner is an American actress. Best known for her voice role as Marge Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons, Kavner first attracted notice for her role as Brenda Morgenstern, the younger sister of Valerie Harper's title character in the sitcom Rhoda, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She also voices other characters for The Simpsons, including Marge's mother, Jacqueline Bouvier, and sisters Patty and Selma Bouvier.
Robert Michael Schneider is an American actor, comedian, and screenwriter. A stand-up comic and veteran of the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, he went on to a career in feature films, including starring roles in the comedy films Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999) and its 2005 sequel, The Animal (2001), The Hot Chick (2002), The Benchwarmers (2006), and Big Stan (2007). Schneider is the father of singer Elle King.
Cloris Leachman was an American actress and comedian whose career spanned nearly eight decades. She won many accolades, including eight Primetime Emmy Awards from 22 nominations, making her the most nominated and, along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, most awarded performer in Emmy history. She won an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Daytime Emmy Award.
Angeline Dickinson is an American actress. She began her career on television, appearing in many anthology series during the 1950s, before gaining her breakthrough role in Gun the Man Down (1956) with James Arness and the Western film Rio Bravo (1959), for which she received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year.
Molly Helen Shannon is an American actress and comedian who was a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2001. In 2017, she won the Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film Other People.
Colleen Rose Dewhurst was a Canadian-American actress mostly known for theatre roles. She was a renowned interpreter of the works of Eugene O'Neill on the stage, and her career also encompassed film, early dramas on live television, and performances in Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. One of her last roles was playing Marilla Cuthbert in the Kevin Sullivan television adaptations of the Anne of Green Gables series and her reprisal of the role in the subsequent TV series Road to Avonlea. Dewhurst won two Tony Awards and four Emmy Awards for her stage and television work.
Mary Wickes was an American actress. She often played supporting roles as prim, professional women, secretaries, nurses, nuns, therapists, teachers and housekeepers, who made sarcastic quips when the leading characters fell short of her high standards.
Brenda Lee Strong is an American actress. She began her career in television, including guest starring appearances in Twin Peaks, Party of Five, Seinfeld, Scandal, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Blossom and Sports Night. She was a regular cast member in the sitcoms Desperate Housewives (2004–2012), Scorch (1992), and The Help (2004).
Amy Marie Yasbeck is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Casey Chappel Davenport on the sitcom Wings from 1994 to 1997, and for having played the mermaid Madison in the television film Splash, Too in 1988. She has guest starred in several television shows and appeared in the films House II: The Second Story, Pretty Woman, Problem Child, Problem Child 2, The Mask, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It.
Sara Paxton is an American actress, voice artist, and singer. She began acting at an early age, appearing in minor roles in both films and television shows, before rising to fame in 2004, after playing the title role in the television series Darcy's Wild Life (2004-2006) and Sarah Borden in Summerland (2004). Paxton's other films include Aquamarine (2006), Return to Halloweentown (2006), Sydney White (2007), Superhero Movie (2008), The Innkeepers (2011) and The Front Runner (2018).
Frances Evelyn Bay was a Canadian-American character actress. In a career that spanned 35 years, she acted in a variety of roles both in film and television. Bay was inducted in Canada's Walk of Fame in 2008.
Clueless is an American teen sitcom based on the 1995 film of the same name. It premiered on ABC on September 20, 1996, as a part of the TGIF lineup during its first season. The series then spent its last two seasons on UPN, ending on May 25, 1999. Alicia Silverstone had a development deal with Columbia-TriStar at this time, and did not reprise her role from the film.
Kristoffer Tabori is an American actor and television director.
Is It College Yet? is a 2002 American animated comedy-drama television film written by Glenn Eichler and Peggy Nicoll, and directed by Karen Disher. The film was the second film-length installment of MTV's animated series Daria, after 2000's Is it Fall Yet?, and served as the series finale, chronicling the end of high school as the characters prepare for college.
Shantel VanSanten is an American actress and model. As a model, she has been featured in the magazines Teen Vogue and Seventeen. On television, she played the role of Quinn James in the CW teen drama series One Tree Hill, recurred as Detective Patty Spivot in the CW show The Flash, and stars as Julie Swagger, the wife of lead character Bob Lee Swagger on the USA Network series Shooter. On film, she has appeared in The Final Destination, You and I, and Something Wicked. From 2019 to 2022, VanSanten starred as Karen Baldwin in the Apple TV+ original science fiction space drama series For All Mankind.
"Pilot" is the first episode of the American family sitcom television series Modern Family. It was written by series creators Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, and directed by Jason Winer. It premiered on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States on September 23, 2009. The episode introduces viewers to three sets of people who make up a single family. The episode is shot in a mockumentary style, with a cameraman following the characters around their everyday lives and interviewing them at various intervals. It cuts between the experiences of the three separate units before they all come together at the end of the episode.
Jessica Rose Brown Findlay is an English actress. She played Lady Sybil Crawley in the ITV television period drama series Downton Abbey and Emelia Conan Doyle in the 2011 British comedy-drama feature film Albatross.
Caroline Kepnes is an American writer, screenwriter, author, and former entertainment reporter. She is best known for her novels You (2014), Hidden Bodies (2016), Providence (2018) and You Love Me (2021).