18 Distinguished Men and Women Talk About Who Inspire Them Most

What better time of year to say thanks? Here, a group of distinguished men and women talk about who has inspired them most.

Tell us who inspires you most. Salute your mentor in our discussion.

Plus: See the slideshow

In the spirit of the season, we honor those whose wise words, kind acts, and good humor have changed our lives.

 

Alexandra and Matthew Reeve on their father, actor Christopher Reeve

Alexandra: Dad had always been a very active person, strong and self-disciplined, and that continued after his horseback-riding accident in 1995 [which paralyzed him from the neck down; he died in 2004]. He made physical rehab his new goal. He said, "If the scientists are going to do their job, I'm going to be ready when they come to me." That gave him a focus. He wanted to help the millions of other people in America who were living with paralysis, plus many more worldwide. He knew they didn't have the resources he did, the best help available, the best therapies, the best equipment. He wanted to change all that. He was always hopeful.

Matthew: With today's technology, the littlest extra movement can result in more independence. Dad was working on it. Moving his finger was the first encouraging sign. That happened five and a half years after he was paralyzed. He was even getting some mobility in one of his arms. He reminded us that things can change at any moment, for better or worse. So value what you have. Be grateful. Live in the moment. Dad was dealt a severe blow and yet was determined that that would not be the end of his story. He tried extraordinarily hard to make things better.

Alexandra: Never give up or stop fighting for what you believe in-that's what we've taken from Dad.

Playwright Eve Ensler on actors Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward*

Here's what Paul Newman and [his wife] Joanne Woodward gave me and, I suspect, many others in the world: the gift of confidence.

They were the perfect parents.

I was 23. I was depressed and fragile and hardly here in this world. I was writing as a way of survival. They took me under their wing. They pushed me and fed me and criticized my scripts with red pencils. They nurtured me and encouraged me to be funny, to always be funny. Mainly, they believed in me. Because of this, I came to believe in myself.

They never asked for credit. They did not hold on after I had found myself. They did not curtail my independence. They reappeared at crucial moments in my life in the many years that followed. They were always in my corner.

Here's what they taught me: generosity. They taught me that if you have or make money, you are not special, just lucky. They taught me to never make people beg or jump through hoops, because that implies you have a hoop. You do not have a hoop; you have money.

They taught me that the only real happiness comes from giving. And because the two of them lived everything they spoke, they taught me about integrity.

I can't imagine this world without Paul Newman [he died this past September]. But I know his generosity, his gift of confidence, lives in many of us, and if there is a way to appreciate him, it is in giving deeper and deeper.

*COPYRIGHT © 2008 BY EVE ENSLER. FROM HUFFINGTON POST.COM (SEPTEMBER 28, 2008). THE HUFFINGTON POST, 560 BROADWAY, SUITE 308, NEW YORK, NY 10012

 

Singer Martina McBride on poet Maya Angelou

I've had the chance to meet many astonishing people I never dreamed of knowing when I was growing up on a dairy farm in Kansas. But few have inspired me as much as Maya Angelou.

Maya affects me deeply when I read her writing, but she touches me most of all when I hear her speak. Her voice is so rich and commanding; she has such peace and wisdom. You see someone who isn't perfect-someone who has struggled. There's a video of her reciting her poem "Still I Rise," about the nobleness of the human spirit. To see and hear her do it-to watch her say, "I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide/Welling and swelling I bear in the tide"-that's very powerful. I showed it to my daughters Delaney and Emma, and they loved it as much as I do.

One time when I was talking with Maya, she asked me why I didn't write songs. I didn't have a good answer for that. Maya said that sometimes we're afraid to push ourselves, to really reach as far as we can, because we're afraid that when we succeed, the world will ask more of us. That statement stunned me. It made me realize I just needed to go for it. So I'm proud to say I cowrote three songs on my 2007 album, Waking Up Laughing.

Maya opened my eyes to the power of my words. I now take care to use words wisely and with integrity.

-- Martina McBride can be heard on the new album Elvis Presley Christmas Duets (Sony BMG)
Author Marie Brenner on film executive Pat Cooper

It was the first day of my first real job in New York City, and there she was: my first real boss. Pat Cooper wore a dress-for-success suit and pearls as if she were the star of The Women. She had dark, curly hair that was tightly cropped, and she walked and moved with confidence. As director of creative affairs at Paramount Pictures in 1973, she was willing to give me a tryout as her assistant. I was thrilled.

"I have a dream job," I wrote my mother.

Under Pat, I learned about well-written scripts and great stories from the same movie titans who had made classics like The Godfather. Pat's mantra was this: quality.

Quality was for her everything that our smart band of script readers believed in and those philistines in Hollywood did not.

After returning from a business lunch, she'd wave her hand and say to me, "None of this is real. Trying to change the world is what matters. Wake up. Look around you every day. There are wars in Bangladesh and criminals in the White House. Why are you here when you could be out there, trying to tell people what's going on?"

And two years later, I was suddenly out there, out here, struggling to make my way as a reporter. Pat helped show me the way.

 

Cancer activist Dee Dee Ricks on cycling champion Lance Armstrong

Early last year, I was packing for spring break with my kids when I felt a lump in my breast. That was odd: Only months before, I'd had a routine exam and there were no abnormalities. I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and they said one breast would have to be removed quickly. I thought about watching my boys graduate from college and opted to have a double mastectomy. I remember that a Tim McGraw song was playing in the car on my way to the hospital, "Live Like You Were Dying."

I was a single working mother.

My first thought was, What about my children? My second thought was, What man is going to want me without breasts? But whom could I relate to? I got tired of all the Hallmark survivor stories. Not for me. Finally I happened upon Lance Armstrong's book It's Not About the Bike, and there I found a superhuman. He was a child of a single mother, as I was.

After my mastectomy, I joined forces with Lance and others to help change our health care system. Through all the charitable work he does with his Lance Armstrong Foundation, Lance has inspired me to use my voice to promote cancer awareness, especially for the poor who are diagnosed too late. This is our connection. Cancer patients are dying not because we don't have a cure but because we don't have enough preventive medical care. To have hope, we must have access to health care.

Lance is not just an athlete to me. He's a role model. He achieves everything he sets his mind to. In our generation, there are few whom I hold in high esteem. Lance makes me want to reach higher for myself and especially for others. And he is always out to win. That's what I love about him.

It's spooky because in 1999, when I was visiting Paris, he was cycling in the Tour de France. And I was one of the people who stood in the crowd and held up a sign that said "Go Armstrong. U.S.A. rules!" Who knew that just a few years later, his cancer mission and mine would unite us?

 

Lance Armstrong on his mother, Linda Armstrong Kelly

My mother is my hero. She once told me, "If you can't give 110 percent, you won't make it," and I've never forgotten that. She is my best friend, my motivator, and my most loyal ally. I wish everyone had at least one person who inspires him or her the way my mother inspires me.

 

Novelist Jacquelyn Mitchard on actress Jamie Lee Curtis

While sitting in a Los Angeles hotel lobby in 1996, I noticed the racehorse legs of the woman who was next to me. I turned and saw actress Jamie Lee Curtis, the "scream queen" who tended to display her perfect body a bit too readily, in my view, and who was, at that moment, a proud and happy children's author. I blurted out to her that her earlier book, Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born, was lovingly worn-out at my house: I had adopted a daughter and read the book to her constantly. It was our guide, our comfort.

Jamie Lee had just adopted her second child, so we two mothers began chatting away about husbands too devoted to the kids for romantic getaways (she said she told her husband, "It's our anniversary! Come on!").

When I asked Jamie Lee to autograph a napkin for my son, a wannabe actor, she said, "I can do better than that." She pulled out her only copy of a publicity still and wrote on it, "With love to Martin, from Jamie Lee."

Years later, I was among a crowd of people who heard her say, "I had a rough childhood. I don't write these books because, hey, acting offers aren't rolling in. I want to make a kid feel better, the way I would have liked to feel better." I admired this. In 2002 she further inspired me with what she called her "apology to women" for all those years of showing off-a now-famous unretouched photo of her in her underwear, showing how movie stars really look. It was her way of telling women everywhere that she never meant to make them feel lesser.

-- Jacquelyn Mitchard's latest novel is The Midnight Twins (Razorbill).

Writer A. J. Jacobs on former NY Governor Mario Cuomo

When I was 13, I met Mario Cuomo for five minutes. I don't imagine he spends a lot of time reminiscing about our talk. But I do. What he told me in those five minutes changed my life.

It was 1982, and Cuomo was running for his first term as governor of New York, a position he would hold for the next 12 years. My grandfather took me to a party for him. There were a lot of people at the party who could help Cuomo more than I could. Even if I had donated my entire allowance, it would have barely paid for a lawn sign. But Cuomo talked to me like I was the most important bigwig at that fund-raiser.

First he answered my inane questions. Which hockey team did he like better, I wondered, the New York Rangers or the New York Islanders? He said, "Officially, I like them both. But just between us, I prefer the Rangers." When I ran out of queries, the famous orator bent down and gave me some advice I still remember practically word for word 26 years later. "In this life," he said, "you should read every-thing you can read. Taste everything you can taste. Meet everyone you can meet. Travel everywhere you can travel. Learn everything you can learn. Experience everything you can experience."

Over the years, I've tried, as Cuomo advised, to experience the world in all its magnificent, overwhelming, sometimes baffling variety. I've tried to sample everything on life's pupu platter. Mario Cuomo has given a lot of soaring speeches since then, but this is one I won't forget.

 

Humorist Mary Roach on a Sort-of Boyfriend

I'm sort of a self-basting turkey. No one comes to mind as an inspiration. No teachers, and my parents never dispatched advice.

Honestly, the only person I can think of is a sort-of boyfriend who came to visit me in Boston the summer before I graduated from college. I had no idea what I was going to do with myself. He said, "It has to be creative." For some reason, that stuck with me. He did not.

-- Mary Roach's latest book is Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (Norton).

 

Fox newsman Bill O'Reilly on baseball's Willie Mays

If I could have been anything in my life, it would not have been a TV anchorman; it would have been a baseball player. I wanted to catch the ball the way Willie Mays [now 77] did. I wanted to hit the ball the way Willie Mays did. If he played stickball, I wanted to play stickball. Anything he did, I wanted to do. I just felt that with his great style and play on the field, Willie was the best, and I couldn't get enough of him when I was a kid.

He always played flat out. There was nothing subtle about Willie. He was so direct. I have always admired directness. Other people, as I came up over the years, showed me this quality, too, but Willie stood out.

Americans historically have admired straight talk, even if we don't agree with it. We want to know what's on a person's mind in an understandable way. Of all the people in my life, I have Willie Mays to thank for first modeling directness for me-it has made my career.

-- Bill O'Reilly's new memoir is A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity (Broadway Books).

 

Pianist Lang Lang on opera star Luciano Pavarotti

Pavarotti's voice was like the sun- so bright, pure, and sensitive that it opened up your heart. It still does that for me whenever I hear his recordings [he died in 2007]. With his talent, he was able to bring classical music and the opera to a wide audience. Once people heard this man sing, their lives were changed.

Pavarotti inspired me to do the same as a pianist. That's the real reason I wanted to perform at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing this past summer. I feel beautiful music should be shared, not hoarded; it teaches us to feel what we might not have felt.

It touches our souls and helps us understand the world in a more imaginative and precise way.

I will forever admire this man for bringing music to so many lives, for reaching out to others, and for inspiring me to do the same.

-- Lang Lang's memoir, Journey of a Thousand Miles: My Story (Spiegel & Grau), came out last year.

 

Educator Salome Thomas-El on teacher Marsha Pincus

She took the time to ask whether her students had eaten breakfast in the morning, or if they had enough warm clothes to wear in winter, or if there was someone there for them when they got home from school. My English teacher, Marsha Pincus, did all that and more for me when I was growing up in inner-city Philadelphia, one of eight kids raised by a single mother.

Mrs. Pincus told me to come by or to call her if I needed to. She cared about me. She gave a skinny kid like me some extra support. Sometimes all it takes to succeed is a little help.

I had always been something of a smart-mouth when I was young, but Mrs. Pincus helped me channel my enthusiasm into something constructive. When she was out on maternity leave with her first child, a substitute teacher came in for English class. On the first day, this teacher had trouble controlling the classroom. I watched kids cutting up in front of her and got really mad. This was my favorite class; I loved learning Shakespeare.

I knew the substitute would talk to Mrs. Pincus and that she'd be disappointed.

"We need to stop this!" I shouted.

Usually I was the one clowning around, but the kids seemed to listen. I ended up standing in front of the room discussing Julius Caesar. Later, the substitute told Mrs. Pincus about the skinny boy who taught the lesson. Mrs. Pincus said she knew right away what had happened.

"Without her even naming you, I knew it was you," she told me.

Her eyes shone with pride.

Looking back, I think that was when the teacher in me started to emerge.

Mrs. Pincus retired this year after more than 30 years of teaching.

I spoke at her retirement party. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But because of this lady's encouragement, I learned I belonged in the classroom, at the front of it.

-- Salome Thomas-EL's latest book is The Immortality of Influence (Kensington).

 

Cosmetics CEO Bobbi Brown on baseball legend Yogi Berra

I'm probably one of the few people in America who fell in love with Yogi Berra not because he's a legendary baseball player but because he's a really nice guy. We were introduced years ago in our New Jersey town and have been friends ever since. He is a national treasure, and I feel genuinely lucky to have him in my life.

He is an incredible family man.

He adores his wife, Carmen. He loves his children; he loves his grandchildren. He cherishes his friendships. He's such a kind human being. I have never seen him be rude to anyone in public, not once. From watching him, I have learned valuable lessons in how to treat people.

I actually have a lip balm named after Yogi. My staff came into my office one day and said, "Okay, what do we want to name this clear lip balm? How about Bare?" And I said, "No, I want to name it Yogi." They just looked at me like, What? And I said, "Yogi. As in, Yogi Bare. Get it?" He gave his permission.

Yogi's very funny because he's been known to go into the Yankees locker room and give makeup advice. He'll tell these guys, "You gotta try this" or "You gotta try that." So

I get a lot of phone calls from people with the Yankees asking for Bobbi Brown skin-care products. As the mother of three boys, it's good for me to be surrounded by sports-my kids don't care about makeup.

But my favorite Yogi story of all happened when a mutual friend told me that Yogi was "cheating" on me-that he was using someone else's skin-care products. I said, "Yogi?" And he said, "Bobbi, I tried your wrinkle stuff, but it didn't work." I said, "Well, don't get the wrinkle stuff, Yogi. You gotta get the anti-wrinkle stuff." And he said, "Yeah, can you get me some of that anti-wrinkle stuff?"

-- Bobbi Brown's new book is Bobbi Brown Makeup Manual (Grand Central Publishing).

Author Rick Bragg on his brother Sam

Rolling, smoking, shaking junk-I drove a lot of junk. It might have looked good, broken down in the yard, but an $800 car is never going to take you very far, and when they broke down, it always seemed like it was someplace pitch-black and wet, or cold, or blistering hot. And I would have perished there, staring under the hood of an old Mustang or an ancient GMC truck, if not for him. They would have found my bones bleaching in the Alabama sun, half hidden by johnsongrass, if it hadn't been for my brother Sam.

I was trying to make something of myself, trying to fit into the necktie world, trying to flee the very world of rusted wrenches, muddy work boots, and grease-stained hands that we had been born into. But I kept breaking down on the way.

He was not fleeing that place with me. He was in it, then and forever. As the oldest brother, he went to work as a boy, digging coal out of frozen mud so we could heat the house, raising hogs so there would be something delicious at suppertime instead of just beans and corn bread. He never had a job that did not depend on sweat and muscle and guts.

But instead of laughing at me or even just ignoring me as I tried to escape that life, he came to rescue me, every time I broke down on the side of the road, my clip-on tie flapping in the wind.

I would hold the flashlight as he worked for hours under a hood or under a car till he finally got me rolling again, got me on my way.

Not one time, not once, did he refuse to come when I needed him.

He is only three years older than me, my brother Sam, but he helped raise me, helped me climb up to something that I used to think was better. Now, knowing him better, I know that I didn't go someplace better-only different.

-- Rick Bragg's latest book is The Prince of Frogtown (Knopf)

 

Actress Marlo Thomas on her father, Danny Thomas

The greatest source of inspiration for me has always been my father. Though he's been gone for 17 years, his lessons still resonate. He taught me how to run my own race in life, about how giving is more enriching than taking, about how to tell the perfect joke. But the most inspiring thing he taught me was to forgive.

One incident is vivid in my mind. It happened when I was a teenager. My sister, Terre, and I were not very fond of a so-called friend of our father's. Dad was a very generous man, and as he'd done with so many people, he'd given this fellow a career boost. But when my father asked for a favor in return, the guy didn't deliver.

Dad wasn't someone who loaded himself up with a lot of emotional baggage. His outlook on most things was "Live and let live." In this case, however, his levelheadedness bothered Terre and me, and we let him know it.

"How can you be nice to that man?" we said to him. "You've been so kind to him, and he's not being kind back. Why would you want to give him the time of day again?"

My father shrugged and said to us, "I do not hunch my back with yesterday."

I didn't get it at first, but over the years I came to understand the philosophy. Holding a grudge doesn't change the person you're angry with, but it changes you. It makes you heavier and gives you more weight to lug around.

After my father died, in 1991, I received letters and calls from people around the world who wanted to express their sympathy. Everyone knew how deeply I loved my dad and what a giant hole had been left in my life with his passing. One letter came from a fellow I'd had a falling-out with years before.

"I know I'm probably not the person you want to hear from right now," he wrote, "but I thought I'd tell you how sorry I am about the loss of your father. I know he meant the world to you. I just wanted to let you know that you are in my thoughts."

I was moved, and I wrote the man back. I thanked him for his kindness. And then, because he'd mentioned our disagreement, I recalled Dad's inspiring words. "I am my father's daughter," I wrote. "And like him, I do not hunch my back with yesterday."

-- Marlo Thomas is national outreach director for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, which was founded by her father, Danny Thomas.

 

Biographer Alice Schroeder on investor Warren Buffett

Over the past five years, I've spent about 2,000 hours watching Warren Buffett work, and I've never seen anybody use his time more effectively. He does not do meetings, especially meetings where people sit around and plan their next one. It's a time-waster. Instead he sees people individually and will give a yes or no response to their proposals. Occasionally he'll ask questions. But once he makes a decision, he never revisits it. He's incredibly efficient.

He does not book up his day with a lot of activity. He keeps his schedule very open so that he's free to do what he wants and likes to do. Those who need access to him have it. And if someone from his inner circle calls, he picks up his own phone. (All others go through his secretary.)

He's inspired me to be a much better manager of my own time.

I am more focused, and I've wiped out nonessential things. I make time for what I really like to do-things like gardening and traveling. I have given up hot-air ballooning, which I like only a little.

Also, Warren Buffett never criticizes those closest to him. He'll only praise the qualities that he likes and admires. People feel safe around him because of this and try to live up to what he wants. If he hadn't told me I was a good writer when I was still in finance, I would never have undertaken a biography of him. I hadn't written narrative before.

But he believed in me. Here I am today, the author of a new biography of Warren Buffett [The Snowball]. All because he said, "You can do it."

-- Alice Schroeder's new book is The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (Bantam).

 

Designer Eileen Fisher on Economist Otto Scharmer

Some people help me see more in the world and make connections within it, and one of those people is Otto Scharmer. As a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he works on how organizations change and how we approach the future. That may sound dull, but he's pretty brilliant! He is a big-picture thinker.

I first became aware of him when I read the book Presence, which he coauthored. It seemed so aligned with my experience of how creativity happens. In my company, we think about the future a lot because the business is always evolving and we're planning garments today that won't be in stores for a year or more. Clothes are something that you want to have in your life. They're not just a fad; they last.

We have a process [at Eileen Fisher, Inc.] called Deep Dive, and in it we try to come together as a team to sense the emerging future. Otto has helped us open the discussion so that we get ideas from lots of people. It's important to catch ideas while they're still raw.

From Otto, I've learned that a lot of creativity is about being patient. Instead of saying, "Bang! We're going with this," it's good to be open to possibilities. And to be open-minded, you have to be openhearted.

Otto is an excellent listener, and he's made me aware of the power of everyone looking to one another instead of to me. So now I'm as interested in how we work as in what we make. Sometimes I forget that what we design are clothes!