Sammy Davis Jr.
When all odds were against him, Sammy Davis Jr. understood how to look past the difficulties and aim for the best. During his stint in a special forces unit in the U.S. Army, he had to deal with a lot of racism. He didn’t let it affect him as he claimed: “My talent was the weapon, the power, the way for me to fight. It was the one way I might hope to affect a man’s thinking.”
Steve McQueen
On the screen he helped POWs escape from a German camp in “The Great Escape”, but in real life he did much more. During an exercise in the Arctic, he rescued five other marines from a sinking tank that had collided with an ice cap. Some heroes are given lines and cues, and others just know when it’s their turn.