ShmoopTube

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Lord Byron a la Shmoop. Celebrities today are often famous for something

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besides their actual job.

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Sure, they might occasionally star in a blockbuster movie…

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…but people are talking about them because they’re feuding with other celebrities or…

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unwittingly starring in a racy online video.

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But celebrities existed before E! News and paparazzi, they just didn’t have a word

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for it.

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Is it possible that Lord Byron was the world’s first celebrity?

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Like George Clooney, Byron was famous for his devastating good looks and his scandalous

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personal life.

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And just as Clooney occasionally does a movie or two, Byron may have written one or two

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famous works.

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In a pre-Hollywood world, poetry was hot. But Byron’s looks and behavior were even

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hotter.

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Lord Byron was crazy enough to have been on the cover of a tabloid, if they existed back

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then.

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He claimed to live on a diet of vinegar and potatoes. Could that have been the first celebrity

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diet craze?

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And just like people throw their underpants at the Rolling Stones, women sent Byron fan

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mail. Sometimes very personal items.

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How much would it have cost to ship a girdle back then?

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He wasn’t just defined by his poetry and his adoring fans.

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Just as Sean Penn is always on his soap box about something, Byron, too, had his pet causes.

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He fought for Greek independence.

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Not only did his poetry help raise awareness for the cause, he trucked it over there to

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raise funds and procure supplies.

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What sets Byron apart from many modern celebs is that he actually died for this cause. He

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came down with a fever and died in Greece.

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Do you think Sarah McLachlan would take a bullet to save a stray dog? Yeah, we don’t

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think so either.

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Perhaps cementing his celebrity status, Byron lived fast and died young.

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He was like James Dean, the rebel without a cause… not James Deen, the X-rated film

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actor.

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Although with Byron, who knows? He might have been a little of both if video cameras were

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around back then…

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