Charlie

Harry Crosby was the godson of J. P. Morgan and a friend of Ernest Hemingway. Living in Paris in the 1920s and directing the Black Sun Press, which published the works of James Joyce and others, Crosby was at the center of the wild life of the Lost Generation. Drugs, drink, sex, gambling, the deliberate derangement of the senses in the pursuit of transcendent revelation: these were Crosby's pastimes until, in 1929, he shot his girlfriend, the recent bride of another man, and then himself.

Arthur Cravan was known as a pugilist, a poet, a larger-than-life character, and an idol of the Dada and Surrealism movements. After his schooling, during World War I, he travelled throughout Europe and America using a variety of passports and documents, some of them forged. He declared no single nationality and claimed instead to be "a citizen of 20 countries". Cravan set out to promote himself as an eccentric and an art critic, though his interest was showing off a powerful, striking personal style rather than discussing art. He staged public spectacles and stunts with himself at the centre, once acting on the front of a line of carts where he paraded his skills as a boxer and singer, although he never pursued either of these activities on stage with anyone else.