text: Eight Successful People Grateful That They Got Canned - WSJ.com
  May 11, 2009, 1:54 p.m. ET
  Offbeat from Mental FlossEight Successful People Grateful That They Got Canned
  3. Robert RedfordBefore he became the Sundance Kid, Redford needed his dad's help to get a job at Standard Oil. Although he would later reach great heights on the screen, acting like a good employee was one role he never nailed. As Harvey Mackay writes in his 2004 book Fired Up!, Redford served as a "roustabout," an unskilled laborer who did little jobs around the rigs, until he was discovered sleeping in an oil tank he'd been assigned to clean. Instead of canning him on the spot, the company put Redford on probation and moved him to a bottle-washing plant where he drove a forklift. Redford got bored with the job, though, and started doing forklift tricks. One day it literally all came crashing down when Redford took a corner too quickly and overturned his bottle-laden forklift. As Redford dryly remarked to Mackay, "I knew it was the end of my career in that business."
  4. WilcoIn 2000 and 2001, the Chicago rock band Wilco recorded an artsy album that departed from the band's previous folk-inflected work. The record, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, didn't sound quite like what the band's label, Reprise Records, was hoping for. Although the album isn't aggressively grating, it wasn't full of the radio-friendly rock that the cash-strapped imprint needed to churn out a few hit singles. Reprise refused to release the album and dropped Wilco from its roster. As part of their severance from the label, the band got to take the master tapes of the record with them.
  5. Annabelle GurwitchAnnabelle Gurwitch, who hosted Dinner and a Movie on TBS from 1996 to 2002, had at least one show business firing that would have made most people look for a new career. In 2003 she was acting in a play under the direction of her idol Woody Allen when the director suddenly decided he didn't like what he was seeing from Gurwitch. He really didn't like it. As Allen fired Gurwitch, he launched into a tirade, saying, 'What you're doing is terrible, none of it good, all of it bad, don't ever do that again." As if he hadn't said enough, Allen then added, "You look retarded."
  6. Rainn WilsonThe actor who plays Dwight Schrute isn't quite as eager-to-please as his on-screen alter ego. In a 2007 interview with New York Magazine, Wilson told the story of working as an events coordinator at a foundation for disabled people. When his boss said, "Jump!" he wanted his subordinates to literally ask, "How high?" Wilson wasn't up for that, and he got fired.
  Radio talk show host Howard Stern
  7. Howard SternIt might be hard to believe, but Howard Stern has been fired for being offensive. While working for NBC's flagship AM station WNBC in New York in 1985, Stern did a bit on his show called (and this is not a joke), "Beastiality Dial-a-Date." Negative public reaction to the skit prompted Stern's firing. Instead of cleaning up his material and trying to start fresh, Stern quickly found a new home on FM radio and remained edgy. It worked. Following a jump to Sirius in 2006, Stern now pulls in as much as $70 million a year for his show.
  8. Bill BellichickBelichick, the glowering, hoodie-wearing architect of three Super Bowl wins with the New England Patriots, had a rough start to his head-coaching career. In 1991 he took over the star-crossed Cleveland Browns, and like so many Browns coaches before him, he just couldn't win. Belichick guided the team to records of 6-10, 7-9, and 7-9 in his first three seasons before riding Vinny Testaverde and the immortal Leroy Hoard to an 11-5 record in 1994. The team even won a playoff game that year. The success didn't last for Belichick, though, as the team crashed back down during a 5-11 debacle of a season in 1995.