Salvador Dali

Name at birth: Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali i Domenech

Salvador Dali was the 20th century's most famous surrealist artist. He may be best known as the painter of 1931's The Persistence of Memory -- the crazy landscape with the droopy clocks. In the 1920s and '30s Dali made his reputation in Europe and the U.S., influenced by the cubism of Picasso and the psychological theories of Freud. Breaking with other surrealist artists in the 1940s, Dali's later paintings were more realistic and filled with religious and scientific imagery. As the years passed Dali became famous for his flamboyant personality and looks -- in particular, for his pop-eyes and his super-waxed, turned-up moustache. Dali worked in several media, including film: He collaborated with filmmaker Luis Buñuel on the avant-garde Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L'Age d'Or (1930), and designed the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945).