Category Archives: Celebrity Heroes

Ellen DeGeneres: Heroic Comedienne and Underdog Advocate

Oops!  We had to remove the hero profile you’re looking for because it appears in our book Heroic Leadership: An Influence Taxonomy of 100 Exceptional Individuals, published by Routledge in 2013.

Our contract at Routledge required us to remove many of our profiles on our blog.  But we do have other hero profiles and information about heroes on the menu bar located on the right side of this page.  Check it out!

In the mean time, please accept our apologies.

 

— Scott Allison and George Goethals

Lucille Ball: A Heroic Comic Genius

Oops!  We had to remove the hero profile you’re looking for because it will soon appear in our new book Heroic Leadership: An Influence Taxonomy of 100 Exceptional Individuals, to be published by Routledge in 2013.

Our contract at Routledge required us to remove many of our profiles on our blog at this time.  But we do have other hero profiles and information about heroes on the menu bar located on the right side of this page.  Check it out!

In the mean time, please accept our apologies.  Here is more information about our new book.

You can click here to return to our HERO home page.  And thanks for visiting!

— Scott Allison and George Goethals

Steve Jobs, the iHero – Innovative, Imaginative, Ingenious

Oops!  We had to remove the hero profile you’re looking for because it will soon appear in our new book Heroic Leadership: An Influence Taxonomy of 100 Exceptional Individuals, to be published by Routledge in 2013.

Our contract at Routledge required us to remove many of our profiles on our blog at this time.  But we do have other hero profiles and information about heroes on the menu bar located on the right side of this page.  Check it out!

In the mean time, please accept our apologies.  Here is more information about our new book.

You can click here to return to our HERO home page.  And thanks for visiting!

— Scott Allison and George Goethals

The Million Dollar Quartet: Four Rock Heroes, Sixty Years Later

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

Over the past several years, the musical Million Dollar Quartet has been playing in major cities around the United States.  It’s a fabulous show, featuring singer/actor/musicians portraying four 1950s rock’n roll heroes from Sun Records in Memphis Tennessee.  The four are Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley.

The play’s performances are sensational.  But the leading man is not one of the musicians, rather the actor playing the role of Sam Phillips, founder and owner of Sun Records.  We have mentioned Sam Phillips before.  His Sun Records studio on 706 Union Avenue is now a lovingly preserved national landmark in Memphis.  Artists such as Bono and Ringo Starr still go there, either to record or just to see and touch the microphone used by the great singers of the golden “rockabilly” age of The Fifties.

The facts of the Million Dollar Quartet are fascinating in themselves.   The play takes some liberty with actual events, making the story even more compelling than it was in actuality.  But our need to make our heroes even more heroic than they really were easily accounts for those embellishments.  In the theatre version, Sam Phillips is dealing with Johnny Cash leaving to sign with another record company, Carl Perkins is trying to find another hit after his early defining single smash, Blue Suede Shoes, and Jerry Lee Lewis is emerging as perhaps the most musically talented of all them all.  Phillips is the glue that holds them together. That part does fit the historical record.  For that Phillips is a genuine hero to rockers of all ages.

As best we can figure out, and supposedly authoritative versions conflict, here’s what happened.  It was a Tuesday afternoon, December 4, 1956.  Elvis was at his peak.  That year he had had five number one singles and two top albums, his first movie, Love Me Tender, was a monstrous success, and his appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show drew 83% of the television audience.  In contrast, after Blue Suede Shoes Perkins career hadn’t gone anywhere.  He just didn’t have the charisma that blessed Elvis.  Jerry Lee Lewis was only a studio piano player brought in to round out Perkins’ combo.

Johnny Cash had recorded I Walk the Line and Folsom Prison Blues with Phillips at Sun.  But he was about to leave for another label.  In this context, Elvis and his current girlfriend dropped by the studio.  It was likely a relief to him to return to a familiar, nurturing place where he could just be himself.  As the famous “quartet” and others in the studio chatted, Elvis sat at a piano and started playing and singing.  The others joined in.  Someone in the studio had the good sense to turn on the tape recorder.

What is so interesting are the songs they all knew and could work on together.  At first, they are almost entirely gospel songs, reflecting their common Southern heritage.   Later, they started doing more traditional rock’n roll.  Elvis takes the lead on most numbers, and the others harmonize.  They are clearly just having fun.  Many historians of the era feel that by the end of 1956, Elvis’ best days were behind him.  He was being homogenized into a bland, antiseptic round of recordings and films.

The Million Dollar Quartet was one of the last instances where Elvis was recorded in a setting where he was simply relaxing with his friends and his music, not trying to impress anyone.  Still, the recordings, which were rediscovered many years later, impress us all.

Below is a clip of the Million Dollar Quartet singing Farther Along on that historic day in December of 1956.

Harrison Ford: A Natural Hero of the Silver Screen

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

There is a scene in Harrison Ford’s recent movie, Cowboys and Aliens, that nicely sums up his legacy as a legendary hero in motion pictures.  Prior to this scene, Ford’s character, Woodrow Dolarhyde, has been shown to be a rather unsavory character.  We see him as a ruthless cattle rancher who mistreats anyone standing in his way.  But now aliens from another planet threaten the world, and to defeat the aliens, Dolarhyde must cooperate with the chief of the Apache Indian tribe.

At first, the chief refuses to work with Dolarhyde.  But an impassioned speech given by Dolarhyde’s adopted Native American son, Nat, turns the tide.  Nat informs the chief of the heroic side of Dolarhyde’s character that we, the audience, haven’t seen.  Nat tells the chief that Dolarhyde saved his life as an infant, raised him, and infused him with love and wisdom.  Dolarhyde, exclaims Nat, is a man of action, integrity, and fearless leadership.

During Nat’s speech the camera zooms in on Harrison Ford’s face.  It is filled with Ford’s trademark emotional intensity.  An inescapable truth is made clear.  Despite appearances, Dolarhyde is the same hero that audiences have come to expect from Harrison Ford’s characters for almost 40 years.  He’s rougher around the edges than usual, but he’s tough as nails and will triumph over any adversity.  At this point in the movie, we pity those poor aliens who may be centuries ahead in technology but have crossed the wrong man in Harrison Ford.

Back in 1977, Ford’s breakthrough movie was Star Wars, in which he played the affable hero Han Solo.  He became a mainstay in the Star Wars sequels, and if one blockbuster movie franchise wasn’t enough, Ford also played the hero in the Indiana Jones movie franchise.  He then carried yet another movie franchise playing Jack Ryan, a CIA intelligence officer, in movies based on Tom Clancy’s spy novels.  Along the way, Ford was the hero in other wildly successful movies such as The Fugitive, Blade Runner, Witness, Air Force One, Sabrina, and Frantic.

Ford welcomed the Cowboys and Aliens role because it provided an opportunity for him to depart from his usual role of the hero with impeccable character.  When he read the script, Ford said, “I began to see an opportunity to play a different kind of character than I’m used to. To enjoy the pleasures of having a character where you don’t have to have anybody like you. He’s the richest man in town. He’s the most powerful man in town. He’s arrogant. He’s contentious. There’s no sign of Mrs. Dolarhyde. She must have fled a long time ago.”

We hope we’re not giving away the movie’s ending by stating that Harrison Ford, a mere 19th century cowboy, crushes the technologically sophisticated aliens in Cowboys and Aliens.  Did you expect anything different?

In our book on heroes, we describe the mental checklist that people use to determine whether someone they encounter is a hero.  For better or for worse, the physical appearance of a person is crucial – is the person tall, rugged, and good-looking?  Is the person charismatic?  Is the person selfless, smart, and courageous?  Does he show remarkable resilience in vanquishing the enemy? On screen and in virtually every one of his movies, Harrison Ford somehow meets every criterion on the mental checklist with almost effortless ease.  He may be the purest hero in the history of Hollywood.

Below is a clip from an interview with Harrison Ford about his role as Woodrow Dolarhyde in Cowboys and Aliens.

Johnny Cash: Walking the Heroic Line

Oops!  We had to remove the hero profile you’re looking for because it will soon appear in our new book Heroic Leadership: An Influence Taxonomy of 100 Exceptional Individuals, to be published by Routledge in 2013.

Our contract at Routledge required us to remove many of our profiles on our blog at this time.  But we do have other hero profiles and information about heroes on the menu bar located on the right side of this page.  Check it out!

In the mean time, please accept our apologies.  Here is more information about our new book.

You can click here to return to our HERO home page.  And thanks for visiting!

— Scott Allison and George Goethals