15 great stories from Hollywood legends

From the book Conversations at the American Film Institute with the Great Moviemakers, Hollywood luminaries share some fascinating stories.

10. Sidney Poitier

Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

Poitier remembered an early part he had in a production of "Lysistrata" in which he had 12 lines. The time came for him to go out onstage during the first act and perform his only scene, and Poitier says he suddenly forgot every single line. "The other actor throws me his line and instead of answering him with my first line, I give him my ninth line," he said. "I can see his eyes rolling in his head.... he shoots me the prompt for my second line and I give him line number eight. Now I'm really flustered.... the reviews came out... and every one of them said, 'Who was that kid who came out there in the first act? He was funny, he was so terrific, he was just delightful!' So somebody was smiling on me up there."

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About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

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We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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