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- Herausgeber: e-artnow
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Five Minute Biographies," Dale Carnegie masterfully distills the essence of significant figures throughout history, offering readers a panoramic view of influential lives in succinct, engaging narratives. By weaving together anecdotes and critical milestones, the book presents each biography with clarity, precision, and brevity, making it an ideal read in today's fast-paced world. Carnegie employs a straightforward yet captivating literary style, enabling readers to grasp essential life lessons and historical contexts effortlessly. Each biography is a testament to human ingenuity, resilience, and the timeless qualities that have propelled individuals to greatness across different epochs. Dale Carnegie, renowned for his groundbreaking work in self-improvement and interpersonal skills, brings his unique perspective honed through years of research and public speaking. His deep understanding of human nature and motivational psychology is evident throughout the book. Carnegie's dedication to enhancing personal and professional lives through understanding others' journeys likely inspired him to compile this collection of biographies, offering readers the chance to learn from those who have shaped history. "Five Minute Biographies" is highly recommended for readers seeking inspiration and insight into some of history's most remarkable personalities. This book offers valuable lessons distilled from their triumphs and tribulations, perfect for anyone looking to enrich their understanding of what drives success. Carnegie's adept storytelling ensures that each biography serves as a catalyst for reflection, making it a practical guide for both personal growth and professional development.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026
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Five Minute Biographies
Table of Contents
THREE LITTLE WORDS—"CAN YOU COOK?" LED HIM TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
Martin Johnson, who photographed thousands of lions in the wilds of Africa, killed only two. He told me that during twenty months of his last stay in Africa, he saw more lions than he had ever seen before; yet he never fired a gun once. In fact, he didn't even carry a gun.
Some African explorers like to come back and tell about their blood-curdling experiences; but Martin Johnson believed that he or any other man who really knows the wild animals of Africa can walk from Cairo to the Cape armed with nothing more deadly than a bamboo walking stick and never suffer any harm.
He also told me that the last time he went to Africa, he took along a fine radio set so he could listen to programs from America. He said he listened a great deal for the first month or two, and then he got so tired of listening to long, blatant commercial announcements, that he didn't turn on the radio for months at a time.
Martin Johnson started roaming the world when he was fourteen years old. His father was a jeweler in Independence, Kansas, and when Martin was a boy, he used to unpack the crates that came from the far-flung corners of the compass. He was fascinated by the strange, colorful names on the labels—Paris, Geneva, Barcelona, Budapest—and he determined to put the dust of those towns under his heel. So one day he ran away, tramped over the United States, and finally shipped on a cattle boat to Europe. Landing in the Old World, he worked at anything he could find; but he couldn’t always find work. He went hungry in Brussels; in Brest, he stood gazing out across the Atlantic, discouraged and homesick; and in London, he had to sleep in packing boxes. In order to get back to America and Kansas, he hid himself as a stowaway in the lifeboat of a steamship bound for New York.
Then something happened which changed the course of his whole existence, and set him out on trails of glamorous adventure. An engineer on the boat showed him a magazine containing an article by Jack London. Jack London told in this article how he intended to make a trip around the world in a little thirty-foot boat called the Snark.
As soon as Johnson arrived home in Independence, he wrote a letter to Jack London. He poured out his soul in eight feverish pages, and begged to go along on that trip. “I’ve already been abroad,” he wrote. “I started from Chicago with $5.50 in my pocket, and when I got back, I still had twenty-five cents.”
Two weeks passed—two weeks of nerve-wracking suspense. And then came a telegram from Jack London. It contained only three words—three words that changed Martin Johnson’s life. “Can you cook?” the telegram inquired with telegraphic abruptness and brevity.
Could he cook? Why, he couldn’t even cook rice. But he wired back precisely three words—“Just try me”— then he went out and got himself a job in the kitchen of a restaurant.
And when the Snark finally sailed across the rippling waters in San Francisco bay, and nosed her way out into the Pacific, Martin Johnson was aboard as chief cook and bottle washer, and his newly acquired culinary knowledge enabled him to make bread, omelets, gravy, soup, and even pudding. It was also his job to buy the provisions for the trip, and he calculated that he took along enough salt and pepper and other spices to last a normal crew something like two hundred years.
He learned to navigate during that trip. He thought he was an expert navigator. So one day, just to show how smart he was, he tried to locate the position of the ship on the map. By that time, the Snark was in mid-Pacific swept along by billowing sails in the direction of Honolulu; but according to his nautical calculations, the ship was located squarely in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!
But he didn’t give a whoop if his calculations were all cock-eyed. He was living the gay, adventurous life every boy dreams of living. Nothing could daunt his enthusiasm. Once the crew ran out of water for two weeks and nearly perished under a sizzling sun—a sun so blasted hot that the pitch in the deck seams bubbled and boiled like soft molasses!
Many years have passed since then—years packed with action, for Martin Johnson sailed the seven seas and roamed all over the world from the coral islands of the South Seas to the jungles of darkest Africa. He made the first pictures of cannibals ever shown in this country. He photographed pigmies and giants, elephants and giraffes, and made pictures of all the wild life on the African veldt. He brought back a whole Noah’s Ark full of fantastic creatures—brought ’em back on spools of celluloid film that have been unreeled upon thousands of moving picture screens. He captured an imperishable record of a perishing wild animal life—a photographic record that your great grandchildren may enjoy generations from now when many of the wild animals of Africa no longer exist.
Martin Johnson told me that a well-fed lion that has never been molested by man will pay no attention whatever to the scent of a human being. He had driven his automobile into the midst of a bunch of fifteen lions, and the lions just lay there and blinked like pussy cats. One lion even came over and started to chew the front tire. Another time, he drove his car so close to a lioness that she could have reached out and touched it with her paw —but she didn’t so much as twitch a whisker.
I asked him: “Are you trying to tell me that a lion is really a good-natured beast?”
And he said: “Good heavens, no! The best way I know to commit suicide is to trust a lion. Why, you never know when he’s going to become suspicious and turn on you. And there’s nothing in the world more dangerous than a charging lion. It’s just like having a hundred pounds of dynamite coming at you. A lion can travel forty feet at a single leap, and he can cover ground faster than Cavalcade on the home stretch.”
I asked him what he considered his narrowest escape, and he said: “Oh, there have been lots of close calls. But they’re all fun.”
One of his closest calls was in the South Sea Islands, when he nearly ended up in a kettle of soup. That was when he was getting the first pictures of cannibals ever made.
White traders had been raiding the cannibal islands, kidnaping the natives and selling them into slavery. The cannibals were hostile and suspicious—and hungry. They had already killed a number of white men and seized their goods; and after sizing up Martin Johnson, they figured that this chap from Kansas would make a nice tender pot roast for Sunday dinner. So while he was busy talking to the chief and laying out the presents he had brought along, dozens of cannibals began to gather out of the forest and surround him. Help was miles away. He had a revolver, but he was outnumbered a hundred to one. A cold sweat of fear stood out on his forehead. His heart raced and pounded; but there was nothing to do but to try to appear calm and keep on talking. And all the time he was being crowded in by a ring of greedy cannibals licking their chops in anticipation. For the first time since he’d left Independence, Kansas, Martin Johnson began to think it might not have been a bad idea after all if he'd gone into the jewelry business with his father.
And then, as the cannibals were about to rush, a miracle happened. Into the bay far below steamed a British patrol boat. The cannibals stared. They knew what that meant. Johnson stared too, hardly able to believe his own eyes. And then, with a low bow to the chief, he said: “You see, my ship has come after me. Glad to have met you all. Goodbye." And before anyone summoned enough courage to stop him, he made a dash for the shore.
HE KNEW THE TELEPHONE NUMBERS OF MORE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS THAN ANY MAN IN HISTORY
For twenty-four years, the Ziegfeld Follies blazed supreme over the firmament of Broadway. No other revue in the entire world was ever staged so lavishly or acclaimed with such roars of delight. No other revue ever made so much money, and no other revue ever lost so much money.
Florenz Ziegfeld knew the telephone numbers of more beautiful girls than any other man living. In his Blue Book of Beauty were listed the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of thousands of glamorous girls. Fifty or sixty aspiring young Venuses paraded before his critical glance every day.
He was proud of the fact that he was called the Glorifier of the American Girl. It was a title richly deserved. He often took some drab little girl no one had ever looked at twice and transformed her on the stage into a dazzling creature of mystery and seduction. Form and grace—these alone—were the covered passport to the Ziegfeld stage. The glamor was supplied by Ziegfeld himself.
Ziegfeld was as regal in his extravagance as an Oriental potentate. He squandered millions of dollars on costumes, combing the markets of Europe and India and Asia for the most beautiful fabrics money could buy. Even the linings of dresses had to be of the finest silk, for he claimed no woman could feel really beautiful unless she had beautiful cloth against her skin.
In order to get just the proper hats for a certain cowboy number he had in mind, he postponed the production of Show Boat for three entire months. Once, after he had spent a quarter of a million dollars on a production, he closed it after one performance, because he felt it was unworthy of the glorious Ziegfeld tradition.
He did everything on a lavish scale. Although he communicated with hundreds of people daily, he never troubled to dictate a letter. Telegrams and cables fluttered in his wake like autumn leaves in a gale of wind. Wherever he went, he carried with him a telegraph blank. He used to get on the train at Grand Central Station and use up a whole pad of telegraph blanks before he reached 125th Street.
Incredible as it seems, he actually sat in the orchestra pit during rehearsals and sent telegrams to the actors across the footlights. He sent telegrams to people who were within range of his voice. He once leaned out of his window and yelled at the man in the window opposite: “Say, I sent you a telegram. Why haven't you answered it?” .
It was almost impossible for him to walk past a telephone booth without stopping to call up a dozen people; and he got out of bed almost every morning at six o’clock in order to telephone to his staff.
He could scheme for hours to save seventeen or eighteen dollars; and the next day, he’d drop a hundred thousand dollars in Wall Street without batting an eye. He once borrowed five thousand dollars from Ed Wynn, and spent that five thousand dollars of borrowed money to hire a private train to carry him across the continent.
He made women feel beautiful by the sheer power of his chivalry and consideration. On opening night, every girl in his chorus received a box of flowers from him. Even old and half-demented women who applied to him for jobs were treated with the same consideration he showed to all the rest.
He paid his most famous stars an average of $5,000. a week; often, at the end of the season they had more money in the bank than he himself had.
When he started in the show business, chorus girls were getting $30. a week; but under his profligate reign, feminine pulchritude reached a market price of $125. a week.
Ziegfeld’s first venture into show business was made at the precocious age of fourteen. Running away from home, he became a trick rider and fancy shooter in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
At the age of twenty-five, he was cleaning up a fortune as manager to Sandow, the husky strong man of the naughty Nineties.
Two years later, he was in London—broke—without a shilling to his name. He'd staked his luck at Monte Carlo, and with a turn of the wheel, he had lost his shirt.
Being penniless never worried this great entrepreneur. By the sheer witchery of his manner, he got together another show and sailed back in triumph to America with the most sensational star in Europe—the vivacious, scintillating, and palpitating Anna Held—the Mae West of her day.
The most canny producers in America had been cabling and pleading with Anna Held to come to New York. They had tempted her with extravagant offers. Yet it was Florenz Ziegfeld, only twenty-seven years old, practically unknown, and without a dime in his pocket, who walked into her dressing room, charmed her, got her name on a contract, and started skyrocketing to fame.
Anna Held was an immediate sensation. She took America by storm. Corsets, face powder, hats, perfumes, horses, cocktails, puppies, and cigars were named in her honor. She was toasted in champagne from coast to coast. And within a year, Florenz Ziegfeld married her.
Many years later, after he had divorced Anna Held, he fell ecstatically in love with Billie Burke. The very day after he met her, he bought out an entire flower shop and sent the complete stock to her home—sent her everything from sweet peas and orchids and carnations to the orange trees in the window. And when Billie Burke told him that she had tried to thank him by telephone, but had not been able to because his line was busy, he had a golden phone installed, with a special ring, for her private use.
Ziegfeld loved indecision. He hated to make up his mind. He used to keep a box of licorice drops on his desk; and when a friend asked him if he really liked licorice, he said: “I’ll tell you why I eat them. They’re all black, so I don't have to make up my mind which color I like best.”
He hired the most famous comedians in the world for his Follies: but he himself never laughed at their antics. Neither Ed Wynn nor Eddie Cantor nor Will Rogers could make him crack a smile. He was so cool that his actors gave him the nickname of "Ice Water.”
For twenty-four years, the opening night of the Follies was something of an event in roaring old New York. Limousines jammed the street; silk hats and ermine wraps thronged the lobby; and sharp-witted speculators made tired business men pay as high as $300. for a pair of seats in the front row. Backstage was filled with clamor and tumult. Wardrobe mistresses and messenger boys bumped into each other; comedians with stage fright muttered in the wings; and chorus girls hunted frantically for clothes. In the mad whirl, there was only one man who remained calm, cool and composed—that man was Ziegfeld. New York’s sophisticated first nighters put on their tails and white ties for the auspicious occasion; but Ziegfeld himself appeared in a plain gray business suit. He didn’t even allow himself the luxury of a seat. He watched the show from the stairs that led to the balcony.
When Wall Street crashed in 1929, it was lights and final curtain for the career of Ziegfeld the great Glorifier. From then on, the magician who had lavished millions on tinsel and glitter for the gayest pageant in the world, could hardly raise the money to pay his rent. The last Follies was staged with funds partly supplied by his own stars and employees.
Ziegfeld died in 1932 in California, and as he slipped into the delirium of death, he imagined he was directing a revue. His stage was a white hospital room, his orchestra was only a radio; and for a stage crew, he had nothing but his terrified valet. His lips were parched, and his eyes were glowing with fever, but he sat up in bed and shouted his directions to an invisible cast.
“Curtain!” he cried. “Fast music! Lights! Ready for the last finale!” And finally he murmured: “Great! The show looks good. . . . The show . . . looks . . . good.”
THE MISSIONARY WHO GOT ON THE WRONG TRAIN—AND BECAME A FAMOUS MAGICIAN
One cold night, over half a century ago, a crowd was pouring out of McVicker's Theatre in Chicago. It was a laughing, happy crowd—a crowd that had been entertained by Alexander Herrmann, the great magician of that day.
A shivering newsboy stood on the sidewalk, trying to sell copies of the Chicago Tribune to the crowd. But he was having a tough time of it. He had no overcoat, he had no home, and he had no money to pay for a bed. That night, after the crowd faded away, he wrapped himself in newspapers and slept on top of an iron grating which was warmed slightly by the furnace in the basement, in an alley back of the theatre.
As he lay there, hungry and shivering, he vowed that he too would be a magician. He longed to have crowds applauding him, wear a fur-lined coat, and have girls waiting for him at the stage door. So he made a solemn vow that when he was a famous magician, he would come back and play as a headliner in the same theatre.
That boy was Howard Thurston—and twenty years later he did precisely that. After his performance he went out in the alley and found his initials where he had carved them on the back of the theatre a quarter of a century before when he had been a hungry, homeless newsboy.
At the time of his death—April 13, 1936—Howard Thurston was the acknowledged dean of magicians, the king of legerdemain. During his last forty years he had traveled all over the world, time and again, creating illusions, mystifying audiences, and making people gasp with astonishment. More than sixty million people paid admissions to his show, and his profits were almost two million dollars.
Shortly before his death, I spent an evening with Thurston in the theatre, watching his act from the wings. Later we went up to his dressing room and he talked for hours about his exciting adventures. The plain, unvarnished truth about this magician’s life was almost as astonishing as the illusions he created on the stage.
When he was a little boy, his father whipped him cruelly because he had driven a team of horses too fast. Blind with rage, he dashed out of the house, slammed the door, ran screaming down the street and disappeared. His mother and father never saw him or heard from him again for five years. They feared he was dead.
And he admitted that it was a wonder he wasn’t killed; for he became a hobo, riding in box cars, begging, stealing, sleeping in barns and haystacks and deserted buildings. He was arrested dozens of times, chased, cursed, kicked, thrown off trains, and shot at.
He became a jockey and a gambler; at seventeen years of age, he found himself stranded in New York without a dollar, and without a friend. Then a significant thing happened. Drifting into a religious meeting, he heard an evangelist preach on the text, “There Is a Man in You.”
Deeply moved, and stirred as he had never been stirred before in his life, he was convinced of his sins. So he walked up to the altar and with tears rolling down his cheeks, was converted. Two weeks later, this erstwhile hobo was out preaching on a street comer in Chinatown.
He was happier than he had ever been before, so he decided to become an evangelist, enrolled in the Moody Bible School at Northfield, Massachusetts, and worked as a janitor to pay for his board and room.
He was eighteen years old then, and up to that time, he had never gone to school more than six months in his life. He had learned to read by looking out of box car doors at signs along the railway and asking other tramps what they meant. He couldn’t write or figure or spell. So he went to his classes in the Bible School and studied Greek and biology in the daytime, and studied reading and writing and arithmetic at night.
He finally decided to become a medical missionary and was on his way to attend the University of Pennsylvania when a little thing happened that changed the entire course of his life.
On his way from Massachusetts to Philadelphia, he had to change trains at Albany. While waiting for his train, he drifted into a theatre and watched Alexander Herrmann perform tricks of magic that kept the audience popeyed with wonder. Thurston had always been interested in magic. He had always tried to do card tricks. He longed to talk to his idol, his hero, Herrmann the Great Magician. He went to the hotel and got a room next to Herrmann's; he listened at the key-hole and walked up and down the corridor, trying to summon up enough courage to knock, but he couldn't.
The next morning he followed the famous magician to the railway station, and stood admiring him with silent awe. The magician was going to Syracuse. Thurston was going to New York—at least he thought he was. He intended to ask for a ticket to New York; but by mistake he too asked for a ticket to Syracuse.
That mistake altered his destiny. That mistake made him a magician instead of a medical missionary.
