Fleeting Fame

Consider the following:

1. Whittaker Chambers
2. Rube Goldberg
3. Neville Chamberlain
4. Booker T. Washington
5. Wallace Beery
6. Amelia Earhart
7. Willie Sutton
8. Ronald Colman
9. Betty Boop
10. Ngo Dinh Diem
11. Jack Anderson
12. Eric Hoffer
13. Lenny Bruce
14. Dean Acheson
15. Dorothy Parker

Mention those famous names in front of an audience nowadays and you'll have a sizable portion of people who won't recognize many of them. In some cases, that is simply a sign of changing fashions and with others it signals a decline in the knowledge of history. Whatever the case, it is important for speakers to remember that fame is fleeting and making assumptions about celebrity can be dangerous.