Never give up... April 30, 2010 at 6:50pm After Fred Astaires first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, read, Cant act. Cant sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little. He kept that memo over the fire place in his Beverly Hills home. After his first audition, Sidney Poitier was told by the casting director, Why dont you stop wasting peoples time and go out and become a dishwasher or something? It was at that moment, recalls Poitier, that he decided to devote his life to acting. When Lucille Ball began studying to be actress in 1927, she was told by the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School, Try any other profession. The first time Jerry Seinfeld walked on-stage at a comedy club as a professional comic, he looked out at the audience, froze, and forgot the English language. He stumbled through a minute-and a half of material and was jeered offstage. He returned the following night and closed his set to wild applause. After Harrison Fords first performance as a hotel bellhop in the film Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, the studio vice-president called him in to his office. Sit down kid, the studio head said, I want to tell you a story. The first time Tony Curtis was ever in a movie he delivered a bag of groceries. We took one look at him and knew he was a movie star. Ford replied, I thought you were spossed to think that he was a grocery delivery boy. The vice president dismissed Ford with You aint got it kid , you aint got it ... now get out of here. Michael Caines headmaster told him, You will be a laborer all your life. Charlie Chaplin was initially rejected by Hollywood studio chiefs because his pantomime was considered nonsense. Decca Records turned down a recording contract with The Beatles with the evaluation, We dont like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way out. After Decca rejected the Beatles, Columbia records followed suit. In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, You aint goin nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin a truck. Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer. And, of course, you know that he wrote five of his greatest symphonies while completely deaf. Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4-years-old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was sub-normal, and one of his teachers described him as mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams. He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.He did eventually learn to speak and read. Even to do a little math. Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because he lacked imagination and had no good ideas. He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff. As an inventor, Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, How did it feel to fail 1,000 times? Edison replied, I didnt fail a thousand times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps. Thomas Edisons teachers said he was too stupid to learn anything. He was fired from his first two jobs for being non-productive. Van Gogh sold only one painting during his life. And this, to the sister of one of his friends, for 400 francs (approximately $50). This didnt stop him from completing over 800 paintings. F. W. Woolworth was not allowed to wait on customers when he worked in a dry goods store because, his boss said, he didnt have enough sense. When Bell telephone was struggling to get started, its owners offered all their rights to Western Union for $100,000. The offer was disdainfully rejected with the pronouncement, What use could this company make of an electrical toy. And how many people have a telephone today? Sigmund Freud was booed from the podium when he first presented his ideas to the scientific community of Europe. He returned to his office and kept on writing. Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college. He was described as both unable and unwilling to learn. No doubt a slow developer. Emily Dickinson had only seven poems published in her lifetime. Jack London received six hundred rejection slips before he sold his first story. 21 publishers rejected Richard Hookers humorous war novel, M*A*S*H. He had worked on it for seven years. 27 publishers rejected Dr. Seusss first book, To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 19:58:36 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015