Sidney Poitier
What failed
Around 1945, working as a dishwasher, he auditioned at a Harlem theatre. He could barely read the script. The director marched him to the door by his collar and belt and pushed him into the street. He returned six months later, auditioned again, and was rejected again by letter.
What happened next
He offered to work as the theatre's unpaid janitor in exchange for classes, and got in. His first Broadway job closed in four days and he fluffed his lines on opening night, but a producer in the audience put him in a touring company. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1964.
The point
Two rejections and a four-day flop, and each time he changed the offer rather than the ambition. He could not buy his way in, so he traded labour for lessons.
The sequence
3 documented failures, shown with the successes in between. Every entry carries its own source — the wins are part of the record, and leaving them out is how these stories get distorted.
- 1945
Physically removed from his first audition, told he could not read and could hardly talk.
- 1946
Spends six months fixing his reading and his accent by listening to the radio.
- 1946
Rejected a second time, by letter. He offers to work as the theatre's janitor in exchange for lessons.
- 1946
His Broadway debut closes after four days.
- 1964
Wins the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Sources
- Sidney Poitier (Academy of Achievement)
the theater's director ridiculed his Caribbean accent and poor reading skills. The young Poitier took the rejection as a challenge, and resolved to become an actor, if only to prove the man wrong.
Use the ← and → keys to move between entries.
Related failures
Others in film & television, and nearby.
John Cassavetes
Filmmaker
Scrapped his own first film after the audience walked out.
2 documented failures
Oprah Winfrey
Broadcaster
Not fired. Moved to reading early-morning headline cut-ins in the same building — which was worse.
2 documented failures
Laurence Olivier
Stage actor
He developed stage fright at fifty-seven and kept walking on stage anyway, terrified, for years.
2 documented failures
Ann Dowd
Character actress
Before Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid's Tale: the best reviews of her life, a hundred dollars a day, and a distributor that would not spend a cent. She put it on a credit card and did not get the nomination.
3 documented failures