Andre Leon Talley

The happiest moments of my childhood were spent on my grandmother's front porch in Durham, N.C., or at her sister's farmhouse in Orange County, where chickens paraded outside the kitchen's screen door and hams were cured in the smokehouse.

I loved theatre and did magic, too, but I was never the best at it - there was never a teacher saying, 'You're great, you have to make this your career!' I was good at science and math. I figured I'd go into science and become a dentist.