From Failure to Famous

   

The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
(St. Mark 12:10 )

Woody Allen , Academy Award-winning writer/producer/director, flunked motion picture production at New York University and the City College of New York and failed English at N.Y.U. (The Best of Bits & Piece s, p. 60)

Who flunked first and fourth grades yet went on to become an astronaut ? Ed Gibson. (Glenn Van Ekeren, The Speaker's Sourcebook , p. 355)

Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis: Some 17 publishers rejected this novel about a free-spirited older woman before Vanguard accepted it. An immediate hit, the book was soon made into a popular film starring Rosalind Russell. Ten years later a musical version of the play, now called Mame , started a long Broadway run. The film Mame was released in 1974. Total book sales have been around 2 million copies. (Wallace/Wallechinsky, The Book of Lists, #2 )

In the Irish uprising of 1848, the men were captured, tried and convicted of treason against Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. All were sentenced to death...
Passionate protest from all over the world persuaded the Queen to commute the death sentences. The men were banished to Australia --as remote and full of prisoners as Russian Siberia. Years passed. In 1874 Queen Victoria learned that a Sir Charles Duffy who had been elected Prime Minister of Australia was the same Charles Duffy who had been banished 26 years earlier. She asked what had become of the other eight convicts. She learned that:
Patrick Donahue became a Brigadier General in the United States Army.
Morris Lyene became Attorney General for Australia.
Michael Ireland succeeded Lyene as Attorney General.
Thomas McGee became Minister of.. Agriculture for Canada.
Terrence McManus became a Brigadier General in the United States Army.
Thomas Meagher was elected Governor of Montana.
John Mitchell became a prominent New York politician and his son, John Purroy Mitchell, a famous Mayor of New York City.
Richard O'Gorman became Governor of Newfoundland.
(Johnny Rocco, in Abundant Living magazine)

It is said that there is not a moment of the day when reruns of the madcap television series I Love Lucy are not playing somewhere in the world. Lucille Ball 's career didn't start off so well, however. She was once dismissed from drama school for being too quiet and shy.
(Paul Stirling Hagerman, It's a Weird World )

Big companies that went bankrupt :
1. Quaker Oats (3 times)
2. Pepsi-Cola (3 times)
3. Birds Eye Frozen Foods
4. Borden's
5. Aunt Jemima
6. Wrigley's (3 times) (Press-Telegram newspaper, Long Beach, CA)

In 1962 the Decca Recording Company turned down the opportunity to work with the Beatles . Their rationale? "We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way out." Of course, the Beatles turned that imminent failure into prominent success.
(Glenn Van Ekeren, The Speaker's Sourcebook )

Alexander Graham Bell , the inventor of the telephone, an invention without which the business world of today could not even begin to function, was hard pressed to find a major backer. In 1876, the year he patented the telephone, Bell approached Western Union, then the largest communications company in America, and offered it exclusive rights to the invention for $100,000. William Orton, Western Union's president, turned down the offer, posing one of the most shortsighted questions in business history: "What use could this company make of an electrical toy?"
(M. Hirsh Goldberg, The Blunder Book , p. 151)

Lee Strasberg, head of the famed Actors Studio, once told Robert Blake he could never learn to act. Blake went on to star in the popular American TV show Baretta and was voted outstanding actor in a dramatic series in 1975 by the U. S. Academy of TV Arts and Sciences.
(Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Book of Chance)

Best-selling books rejected by six or more publishers: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street , Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss); MASH , Richard Hooker; Kon-Tiki , Thor Heyerdahl; Jonathan Livingston Seagull , Richard Bach; Auntie Mame , Patrick Dennis.
(Wallace/Wallechinsky,The Book of Lists , #2)

Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884) the Austrian botanist who discovered the basic laws of heredity, never was able to pass the examination to become a full-fledged teacher of science.
(Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Weird Inventions and Discoveries, p. 67)

Winston Churchill did not become prime minister of England until he was 62, and then only after a lifetime of defeats and setbacks. His greatest contributions came when he was a senior citizen.
(Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business , p. 250)

Discussing her early career as a would-be stage actress at England's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, "Dynasty" star Joan Collins reveals that her first report card there contained a rather ironic assessment of her talents. It read: "Joan has a good personality and lots of stage presence. But she must try to improve her voice projection or she will wind up in films and TV, and that would be a pity." (People Weekly)

Turn On , a television series hosted by Tim Conway , proved to be a turn off. It premiered on February 5, 1969, and was cancelled the same day.
(Jack Kreismer, The Bathroom Trivia Book , p. 88)

Gary Cooper wore his best suit to a tryout for a western movie, but suspicious producers thought the big actor was a dude and made him prove he could ride--and fall off--a horse. He went on to a career that culminated in the classic High Noon , but before he made it big, Coop was fired and rehired by the movie bosses seven times.
(Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Book of Chance , p. 8)

Twenty dollars a week was all the salary Joan Crawford drew in her first job on the stage. She was a dancer in a road show which closed two weeks after it opened. (Sunshine magazine)

Edison knew 1800 ways not to build a light bulb. One of Madame Curie's failures was radium. Columbus thought he had discovered the East Indies. Freud had several big failures before he devised psychoanalysis. Rodgers and Hammerstein's first collaboration bombed so badly that they didn't get together again for years. The whole history of thought is filled with people who arrived at the "wrong" destinations . (Bits & Pieces)

Neil Diamond was on his way to becoming the first member of his family to graduate from college when he dropped out in his senior year to take a songwriting job with a music-publishing company. "It was a chance to step into my career," he explains. The job lasted only four months. Eventually, he was fired by five other music publishers. "I loved writing music and lyrics," he says, "and I thought, 'There's got to be a place for me somewhere.'" After eight years of knocking around and bringing songs to publishers and still being basically nowhere, I met two very successful producers and writers, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who liked the way I sang. They took me from being a guy with a guitar to a guy who could make real records," he adds. (Claire Carter, in Parade magazine)

Dune by Frank Herbert: Herbert's massive science-fiction tale was rejected by 13 publishers with comments like "too slow," "confusing and irritating," "too long," and "issues too clear-cut and old fashioned." But the persistence of Herbert and his agent, Lurton Blassingame, finally paid off. Dune won the two highest awards in the science-fiction writing and has sold over 10 million copies. (Wallace/Wallechinsky, The Book of Lists, #2 )

Clint Eastwood was once told by a Universal Pictures executive that his future wasn't very promising. The man said, "You have a chip on your tooth, your Adam's apple sticks out too far, and you talk too slow." (Ed Lucaire, Celebrity Setbacks )

Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) America's most prolific inventor, was granted 1,093 patents by the U.S. Patent office, more than anyone else--yet they included such duds as a perpetual cigar, furniture made of cement and a way of using goldenrod for rubber.
(Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Weird Inventions and Discoveries , p. 36)

Paul Ehrlich , the German bacteriologist, always performed badly at school, and he particularly loathed examinations. He had a flair for microscopic staining work, however, and this carried him through his education despite his ineptness at composition and oral presentations. He eventually used his talent with the microscope to develop the field of chemotherapy, and he was awarded a Nobel Prize in medicine in 1908.
(Wallace/Wallechinsky, The Book of Lists, #2 )

Albert Einstein did poorly in elementary school, and he failed his first college entrance exam at Zurich Polytechnic. But he became one of the greatest scientists in the history of the world.
(Charles Reichblum, Knowledge in a Nutshell , p. 137)

If starting your own business is what you'd like to do, please note that studies at Tulane University suggest the average entrepreneur fails 3.8 times before making it work. (L. M. Boyd)
Hope, can be increased and fears decreased when you keep in mind that failure, like success, is never fatal . God always has new experiences and surprises in store for us. Often what appears to be the end is, in the hands of God, a new beginning. (Victor M. Parachin, in Unity magazine)

William Faulkner failed to graduate from high school because he didn't have enough credits.
He bummed around the United States and Canada, enlisting in the Royal Canadian Air Force, trying to get into a university and later working as a postmaster until he was fired for reading on the job.
He then tried writing and had five books finished by 1930 but failed to earn enough money to support a family. But he kept going and became popular in the mid 1930's. He eventually received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. (Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Book of Chance, p. 37)

Malcolm Forbes , the late editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, one of the largest business publications in the world, did not make the staff of The Princetonian , the school newspaper at Princeton University.
(The Best of Bits & Piece s, p. 60)

Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he finally succeeded.
(Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business , p. 250)

Henry Ford forgot to put reverse gear in the first car he manufactured. Then in 1957, he bragged about the car of the decade. It was the Edsel, renowned for doors that wouldn't close, a hood that wouldn't open, paint that peeled, a horn that stuck, and a reputation that made it impossible to resell. However, Ford's future track record contains more glowing productions. (Glenn Van Ekeren, The Speaker's Sourcebook , p. 150)

Who was dismissed from the psychiatric society in Vienna, Austria, only to become a world respected, prominent psychiatrist? Victor Frankl .
(Glenn Van Ekeren, The Speaker's Sourcebook , p. 355)

Past performance is usually a pretty good indication of a man's future potential--but not always.
In 1860 a thirty-eight-year-old man was working as a handyman for his father, a leather merchant. He kept books, drove wagons, and handled hides for about $66 a month.
Prior to this menial job the man had failed as a soldier, a farmer, and a real estate agent. Most of the people who knew him had written him off as a failure.
Eight years later he was President of the United States. The man was Ulysses S. Grant . (Bits & Pieces)

In World War II, the army classified thirty-three-year-old Joe Rosenthal as 4-F because he had one-twentieth normal vision, but he followed the fighting anyway as a war photographer. When the U. S. invaded the island of Iwo Jima under heavy Japanese fire, Rosenthal was there wearing his thick glasses and carrying two spare pairs.
At the top of Mount Suribachi he caught the greatest picture of the war--five marines and a navy corpsman raising the Stars and Stripes. Rosenthal became an immediate celebrity and his picture won the Pulitzer Prize. The flag-raising appeared on a three-cent stamp and broke all records for first-day-issue sales. On November 19, 1954, a seventy-five-feet-high sculpture of the raising was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.
(John & Claire Whitcomb, Oh Say Can You See , p. 101)

Eighteen publishers turned down Richard Bach's 10,000-word story about a "soaring" seagull, Jonathan Livingston Seagull , before Macmillan finally published it in 1970. By 1975, it had sold more than 7 million copies in the United States alone. (Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business , p. 250)

One November night, Michael Jordan and I found ourselves alone, and he told me about being cut as a sophomore from his high-school basketball team in Wilmington, N.C. "The day the cut list was going up, a friend--Leroy Smith--and I went to the gym to look together," Jordan recalled. "If your name was on the list, you made the team. Leroy's name was there, and mine wasn't. I went through the day numb. After school, I hurried home, closed the door to my room and cried so hard. It was all I wanted--to play on that team." (Bob Greene, in Reader's Digest )

Who flunked the first grade and went on to become attorney general? Robert F. Kennedy . (Glenn Van Ekeren, The Speaker's Sourcebook )

When he was 22, he failed in business. When he was 23, he ran for the legislature and lost. When he was 24, he failed in business again. The following year he was elected to the legislature. When he was 26, his sweetheart died. At the age of 27, he had a nervous breakdown. When he was 29, he was defeated for the post of Speaker of the House in the State Legislature. When he was 31, he was defeated as Elector. When he was 34, he ran for Congress and lost. At the age of 37, he ran for Congress and finally won. Two years later, he ran again and lost his seat in Congress. At the age of 46, he ran for the U.S. Senate and lost. The following year he ran for Vice President and lost that, too. He ran for the Senate again, and again lost. Finally, at the age of 51, he was elected President of the United States. Who was this perpetual "loser"? Abraham Lincoln .
(Paul Stirling Hagerman, It's a Weird World , p. 74)

It's an historical fact that Carl Linder , the 1919 winner of the Boston Marathon, was rejected for military service because of flat feet.
(L. M. Boyd)

When Mickey Mantle graduated from Commerce High (Oklahoma) in 1949 he was not voted "Most Athletic." That's right, the man who possessed the greatest combination of power from both sides of the plate (he hit the longest home run in major league history, 565 feet in 1953) and speed (some experts suggested he could have won a track medal in the Olympics) lost out in the voting to his best friend, Bill Mosley.
(Jim Kreuz, in Baseball Digest )

Richard Hooker worked for seven years on his humorous war novel, M*A*S*H , only to have it rejected by 21 publishers before Morrow decided to publish it. It became a runaway best-seller, spawning a blockbusting movie and a highly successful television series.
(Joe Griffith, Speaker's Library of Business , p. 250)

Napoleon finished near the bottom of his class at military school, yet became one of the leading military men of all time.
(Charles Reichblum, Knowledge in a Nutshell , p. 138)

Lord Laurence Olivier is acknowledged by many critics as the greatest actor of the 20th century. However, his debut as an actor was less than auspicious. His first professional role was that of a policeman in a play called The Ghost Train . At his first entrance--the very first time he had ever set foot on the professional stage--he tripped over the door sill and fell headfirst into the floodlights. (Paul Stirling Hagerman, It"s a Weird World )

Charles Schulz, the cartoonist who draws " Peanuts ", was told by his high school's yearbook staff that his cartoons were not acceptable for the annual. But Charles Schulz knew that he was of importance to God. He kept on drawing and eventually became known internationally for his considerable talent. (Charles E. Ferrell, in The Clergy Journal )

Devotees of Elvis Presley will tell you their hero tried to join his high school glee club but was turned down. (L. M. Boyd)

As playwright Gore Vidal tells it, when his play The Best Man was being cast back in 1959, Ronald Reagan was proposed for the lead role of the distinguished front-running Presidential candidate. He was rejected. It was decided that he lacked the "Presidential look." (Fifty Plus)

Daniel Dafoe took Robinson Crusoe to 20 publishers before he finally got it printed. It has been a best-seller for over 250 years and has been translated into 10 languages. (Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Book of Chance)

The poet Carl Sandburg flunked out of West Point, according to the record, because of deficiencies in English. (L. M. Boyd)

One of America's most beloved writers was rejected 20 times by the magazine that eventually bought most of his work. James Thurber started writing sketches for the New Yorker in 1926, but they kept turning him down before finally accepting a short piece on a man caught in a revolving door. Thurber never looked back. He published more than 20 books of collected prose and delightful pictures he drew himself.
(Ripley's Believe It or Not!: Book of Chance)

Liv Ullman , two-time Academy Award nominee for Best Actress, failed an audition for the state theater school in Norway. The judges told her she had no talent. (The Best of Bits & Piece s, p. 60)

The United States greatest naval victory--Midway--occurred only six months after its greatest naval defeat--Pearl Harbor. (L. M. Boyd)

At that time we had the pleasure of visiting with Mary Oliff Ward, whose husband, William Arthur Ward , is one of America's most quoted writers of inspirational maxims...Mary told how Bill kept a rolling pin around which he wrapped all rejection slips received. When one of his students complained about rejected work, yet one more time, Bill would unwind the rolling pin to reveal yards of rejection slips!
(Dr. Delia Sellers, in Abundant Living )

George Washington lived in the day of the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon, both of whom far outshone him as military geniuses. He made some rather tragic blunders on the battlefield but somehow managed to bring our troops through that long and painful war to victory.
(Dr. D. James Kennedy)

Thoughts Along The Way : 8th issue. Compiled by Rev. David J. Seibert
c/o Unity Temple, 1555 Race Street, Denver, CO 80206--(303) 377-4838