In recent years there has been a recurring trend at the box office: the biography. Larger-than-life figures such as J. Edgar Hoover and Abraham Lincoln have been put on the screen with more to come such as Alfred Hitchcock and the recently announced Johnny Carson biopic. Who will be the next to have their story immortalized in film? Here is a list of ones that seem worthy of the honor.
Bob Dole: Many remember Bob Dole for referring to himself in the third person, but few realize he had an impressive political career that lasted more than 40 years. He also is the only person to run for both Vice President and President and not make it to either spot.
If all this political gobbledygook sounds like a boring story, Dole was also a war hero. In WWII, he earned himself two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. These came from an incident where young Dole came under fire from a German machine gun and took upwards of eight bullets in the shoulder and arm. They gave him the largest dose of morphine they thought he would survive, wrote M for morphine on his forehead, and he spent the next nine hours on the battlefield waiting to be rescued.
Nikola Tesla: In recent years, it seems as though the allure of Thomas Edison has worn off and people are starting to recognize the people from whom he ‘”borrowed” ideas. Most notable among those is Tesla, who in addition to having a car company named after him in recent years also had an internet campaign to buy his old laboratory and turn it in to a museum of sorts.
Unfamiliar with Telsa’s ideas and innovations? Here is the short list of his work as a mad scientist, for which we wouldn’t have these things today: alternating current, neon, lighting, remote controls, X-rays and cryogenics. His inventions didn’t stop there — Tesla also created an earthquake machine that threatened to destroy his neighborhood.
In the 1890s, he was able to create ball lightning — something scientists are still trying to replicate — and the piece de resistance, the Teleforce, a charged particle beam projector, a.k.a. death ray, that he invented and claimed to have tested, which would stop armies dead from up to 200 miles away.
Herman Melville: Literary heavyweight Melville is perhaps best remembered for his novel, “Moby-Dick.” He also wrote many more stories on the subjects of whaling, sailing and general adventuring.
While these are exciting tales to read, they are mostly based on his personal experiences. Becoming a professional whaler, being marooned on an island for two weeks and falling in love with a beautiful young native who happened to be from a tribe of cannibals and engaging in a mutiny or two are all events from his adventuring days that made it to his novels.
Ernest Shackleton: Largely forgotten in modern times, Shackleton is mostly known for a number of expositions to the Antarctic. While he wasn’t the first person to the South Pole, he did attempt to become the first to cross the Antarctic from one side to the other.
Before his ship could even land in Antarctic, it got stranded in the pack ice. Eventually, the ice crushed and sank the ship, and Shackleton and his 27 men spent six months in a makeshift camp on the ice, adrift in the ocean. They made it to a small island, but they weren’t saved yet. Shackleton and a crew of five made an incredible 800-mile open ocean journey in one of the lifeboats to civilization before finally rescuing the rest of his crew.
Through amazing leadership and skill, Shackleton was able to do all this without the loss of a single life. Upon returning to his native England — instead of resting or retiring — he immediately volunteered to help the WWI effort, even though he was past the enlistment age of 42.
Leon Czolgosz: Those unfamiliar with Czolgosz might be more familiar with his actions. On Sept. 6 1901, he assassinated William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States.
Czolgosz worked a number of factory jobs starting at the age of 10, and by the age of 25, he had witnessed a number of violent strikes and horrible working conditions. He decided there was a great injustice in American society that allowed some to get so rich by exploiting the poor. So, he moved in to his parents’ basement and spent his days drinking milk and reading anarchist literature while hatching his plan to assassinate McKinley.
http://www.westerncourier.com/the_edge/men-worthy-of-movies/article_32c521f6-39c3-11e2-8cb6-001a4bcf6878.html
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