One day during the production of Dead End (1937), William Wyler's screen adaptation of Sidney Kingsley's play about New York slums, Goldwyn Pictures chief Samuel Goldwyn dropped by to see how things were going. "Why is everything so dirty here?" he asked, gazing around the tenement-street set with obvious distaste. "Because it's supposed to be a slum, Sam," Wyler replied. "Well," Goldwyn grumbled, "this slum cost a lot of money. It should look better than any ordinary slum!"

Although Henry Irving's productions at London's Lyceum Theatre earned him a knighthood (the first ever awarded to a thespian) in 1895, his decision to pursue acting (long considered a dodgy profession) drew considerable scorn.
"In his first night in London," Kenneth Branagh once recalled, "Irving had this huge personal success in the Merchant of Venice or Richard the Third or something, and he was going home, driving across Hyde Park in a hansom cab with his [sophisticated] missus. There´d been a standing ovation and it was obvious he had 'arrived'. It was a wonderful, wonderful evening.

"And as they were driving across the park, his wife turned to him and said, 'How long are you going to go on making a fool of yourself like this?' Irving stopped the cab, got out, walked home, collected his things, left - and never saw her again."

The 3M Company encourages creativity from its employees. The company allows its researchers to spend 15 percent of their time on any project that interests them. This attitude has brought fantastic benefits not only to the employees but to the 3M Company itself Many times, a spark of an idea turned into a successful product has boosted 3M's profits tremendously.

Some years ago, a scientist in 3M's commercial office took advantage of this 15 percent creative time. This scientist, Art Fry, came up with an idea for one of 3M's best-selling products. It seems that Art Fry dealt with a small irritation every Sunday as he sang in the church choir. After marking his pages in the hymnal with small bits of paper, the small pieces would invariably fall out all over the floor.

Suddenly, an idea struck Fry. He remembered an adhesive developed by a colleague that everyone thought was a failure because it did not stick very well. "I coated the adhesive on a paper sample," Fry recalls, "and I found that it was not only a good bookmark, but it was great for writing notes. It will stay in place as long as you want it to, and then you can remove it without damage."

Yes, Art Fry hit the jackpot. The resulting product was called Post-it! and has become one of 3M's most successful office products.

Henry Ford hired an efficiency expert to go through his plant. He said, "Find the nonproductive people. Tell me who they are, and I will fire them!"

The expert made the rounds with his clipboard in hand and finally returned to Henry Ford's office with his report. "I've found a problem with one of your administrators," he said. "Every time I walked by, he was sitting with his feet propped up on the desk. The man never does a thing. I definitely think you should consider getting rid of him!" When Henry Ford learned the name of the man the expert was referring to, Ford shook his head and said, "I can't fire him. I pay that man to do nothing but think - and that's what he's doing."

When young F. W. Woolworth was a store clerk, he tried to convince his boss to have a ten-cent sale to reduce inventory. The boss agreed, and the idea was a resounding success. This inspired Woolworth to open his own store and price items at a nickel and a dime. He needed capital for such a venture, so he asked his boss to supply the capital for part interest in the store. His boss turned him down flat. "The idea is too risky," he told Woolworth. "There are not enough items to sell for five and ten cents." Woolworth went ahead without his boss's backing, and he not only was successful in his first store, but eventually he owned a chain of F. W. Woolworth stores across the nation. Later, his former boss was heard to remark, "As far as I can figure out, every word I used to turn Woolworth down cost me about a million dollars."