NORCROSS FURNISHING LEADER MAKES

THE WORLD A BETTER AND BEAUTIFUL PLACE

Mark Norcross wants to make the world a better place. The president and CEO of Mark David, the High Point, North Carolina–based furniture company, understands the hospitality industry from both sides: as an international traveler whose brief takes him from Beverly Hills to Beijing and as the supplier of high-end furniture with high-end finishes to some of the most luxurious hotels and resorts in the world. He uses his success, connections and business acumen to support a wide variety of humanitarian causes and institutions, locally and across America.

President and General Manager, History

Nancy Dubuc has transformed History. Now president and general manager of the cable network—which she has been helming since January 2007—Dubuc has creatively steered the network from one that only looked back in time to one that also shows history in the making. By launching testosterone-driven, tough-guy programming like Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men and powerful specials like “102 Minutes That Changed America,” which recently won three Emmy awards, Dubuc is responsible for green-lighting ten of the top-rated series and five of the highest-rated specials ever for the network. Under her, History’s Web traffic is up by more than 400 percent.

“The Cool School” presents a cinematic take on the explosion of the Los Angeles art world at midcentury. Director Morgan Neville discusses the film, its significance, and why he chose to point his lens at SoCal.

A half a century ago, Los Angeles emerged from its origins in the artistic blasé to become the embodiment of art world hip. Billy Al Bengston, Ed Ruscha, Dennis Hopper, Larry Bell and Ed Kienholz, to mention some of the coolest cats, threw the art world for a loop, managing to nudge the NewYork crowd off its perch at the art world mountaintop.