Popcorn predicts cultural trends for corporate clients at her cultish company, BrainReserve.

Born Faith Plotkin in Shanghai to an army family, the future Ms. Popcorn moved to New York when she was five and says she originally planned to pursue a law career. She ended up taking night-school copywriting classes instead and worked in the ad business until 1974, when she founded her own company, BrainReserve. As for her transformation from Plotkin to Popcorn, she says it was a friend who originally gave her the nickname. She liked it so much, she made the change official.

Popcorn's company forecasts cultural trends for the likes of American Express, Fisher-Price and McDonald's. Her predictions can come off as spot-on (she predicted porn would start appearing on cell phones and GPS chips would be used to track missing kids), or completely loony. One of her more bizarre suggestions: that "mechanized hugging booths" will replace pay-phones in cities as part of a cultural trend toward more physical contact. BrainReserve is an unusual place to work, to say the least. "BrainJam" is a regular meeting at which employees discuss their ideas; participants are instructed to "speak only in headlines" and not make any negative comments. BrainReserve employees are also expected to follow a strict dress code. Called a "brand look" in Popcornese, acceptable clothing colors are black, navy, grey, "summer white" and khaki, with special allowances made for occasional pinstripes or check prints.

Popcorn has never been married. She has one child, a daughter she adopted from China whom she renamed Georgica Sawn Pond Rose Petal Qi Xin. (Yes, that's her name. Her mom calls her G.G.) She attempted to have G.G.'s birthdate officially changed, so that the baby would be a Taurus, just like Popcorn, but abandoned the effort when the legal red tape proved to be too much of a hassle. (Apparently, you can't just stroll into a government office and arbitrarily change your birthday.) [Image via Getty]