Richard Burton (1925 - 1984)

Actor. Born Richard Walter Jenkins, Jr., the son of Thomas Jenkins, a coal miner, in Pontrhydyfen, Wales. Burton is best known for his Shakespearean stage performances, his commanding voice and stage presence, and for his collaborations with actress Elizabeth Taylor, whom he married twice. In the 1960s and 1970s, Burton received Academy Award nominations but during his career, never won an Oscar. His most well-known roles: Cleopatra (1962) and Exorcist II (1977).

Timothy Dalton (1946 - )

Actor. Though Welsh-born, he is of British, Italian, and Irish ancestry. Dalton portrayed Bond twice, in The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill .

David Lloyd George (1863 - 1945)

British statesman and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1916-22). Although born in Manchester, David Lloyd George was a Welsh-speaking Welshman, the only Welshman ever to hold the office of Prime Minister in the British government. There is no doubt that he was a brilliant politician, hence his nickname: The Welsh Wizard.  Lloyd George represented Britain at the Versailles Peace Conference.  He introduced the radical People's Budget which taxed the rich to finance the brand new Old Age Pensions scheme and National Insurance against illness and unemployment.

Catherine Zeta Jones (1969 - )

Actress. Born in Swansea. The only daughter (she has two brothers) of working-class parents. In 1991, Zeta-Jones achieved star status in the United Kingdom with the tremendous success of Darling Buds of May, a television comedy series. In late 2000, Zeta-Jones played the wife of a Mexican drug lord in the Oscar-winning drama Traffic. In 2003, she received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Chicago.

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

Philosopher and mathematician, born in Trelleck, SE Wales. He studied at Cambridge, where he became a fellow of Trinity College in 1895, concerned to defend the objectivity of mathematics. In 1907 he offered himself as a Liberal candidate, but was turned down for his "free-thinking'. After 1949 he became a champion of nuclear disarmament. One of the most important influences on 20th c analytic philosophy, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950.

Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953)

Poet. Born Dylan Marlais Thomas in the Welsh seaport of Swansea. His father was an English teacher and a would-be poet, from whom Dylan inherited his intellect and literary abilities. During World War II he served as an antiaircraft gunner. After the war he became a commentator on poetry for the BBC. Thomas wrote that he became a poet because "I had fallen in love with words." His sense of the richness and variety and flexibility of the English language shines through all of his work. Thomas's poetic output was not large. He wrote only six poems in the last 6 years of his life. His conviction that he would die young led him to create "instant Dylan" - the persona of the wild young Welsh bard, damned by drink and women, that he believed his public wanted. Thomas celebrated his thirty-ninth birthday in New York City in a mood of exhilaration following the phenomenal success of his just-published Collected Poems. Some reports attribute his death to pneumonia induced by acute alcoholism, others to encephalopathy, a virulent brain disease.