Your favorite stories of people becoming famous in one day

Michael Gee had a couple of really good posts telling of people who pretty much began their day as relatively anonymous, and then become famous by the end of the day. He told about the hockey player in his daughter's class who got interrupted by a cell phone call and having to tell the professor he was signing with the Rangers, and Roger Bannister, who put in a hospital shift, took a train, had lunch, walked to the track, and and ran the sub 4-minute mile.

So that got me thinking. What's your favorite story or stories of those who pretty much became overnight sensations? These are ones that I thought of:

1. Susan Boyle on "America's Got Talent." Everyone thinks she's nothing special until she opens her mouth and sings.

2. A story David Halberstam told about Elvis Presley's first songs on the radio. Elvis was so nervous, he went to see a movie. His two songs gets played in Memphis' most popular radio show, and the phone lines light up wanting to hear it again. Finally the DJ wants to interview him, but nobody can find Elvis untîl his mother finds him in the theater and takes him out to the station. He practically walks in the theater anonymous, and walks out into a world going crazy for his music.

3. MacCauley Culkin. Kid gets starring role in this little Christmas movie, and it blows up and becomes one of the highest grossing films of all time and an all-time classic.

4. Politically, I can't stand her. But Sarah Palin's story is fun. She had a group of longtime woman friends that would meet every year and do creative stuff, like crafts, for a weekend. The day before the weekend, she called a couple of friends and told them that she couldn't make it that year, and refused to say why. The friends meet for their get together, and find out from the news that she was going to be McCain's running mate.

There's others, but these are the ones of the top of my head. What's your's?

 

Wrong country, but point taken

 

Bannister was already pretty famous. The world was paying close attention to him, American Wes Santee and Australian John Landy all trying to be the first.

 

Arrgh. And now it belongs to the ages.

 

I don't know if it's precisely one day, but Nirvana was still playing small auditoriums and college bars for about a month and a half after Nevermind was realeased. Then all of the sudden Smells Like Teen Spirit hits the radio and they sold 500,000 albums in a week.

 

The U.S. curling dudes, maybe. They said at the outdoor game last night that they are just regular guys who go to work every day. Before the Olympics, they couldn't have bought a ticket for that game at Annapolis, but now they were "curling out the first puck."

 

Sully. Greatest instant hero ever.

 

Oh hell to the yes on Sully.
Some of the reality shows are aimed at this kind of stuff. Jacki Evancho, Carrie Underwood...

I think of some bad ones. The guy in the red sweater in the presidential debates. The guy who was brought in "off the street" at the Oscars last year and "married." Turned out he was a sex offender, someone recognized him, and his fiancee left him.

 

Steve Bartman

 

Vinko Bogataj, forever famous as "The Agony of Defeat."

 

Jeffrey Maier

 

Brent Musburger's greatest call ever ...