Chris Gardner: A trainee stockbroker who was homeless with his son
With no degree, he won a trainee place at a San Francisco brokerage in 1981. For about a year he worked by day and spent nights in shelters with his toddler son.
Medical sales
Chris Gardner was born in Milwaukee in 1954. After four years in the US Navy he worked as a medical research assistant and then sold medical equipment in San Francisco, without much success.
A trainee place
He saw a well dressed man getting out of a red Ferrari and asked him what he did; the answer was stockbroker. With no degree and no contacts he kept asking for interviews until, in 1981, he won a place on the Dean Witter Reynolds training programme.
Nights without a home
At the same time he became the sole carer of his toddler son and had nowhere to live. For about a year they slept in shelters, on trains, in his office after hours and sometimes in a public toilet. Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco helped them.
What came of it
He passed his exams, became a broker, and in 1987 founded his own firm in Chicago. His book The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) was made into a film the same year.
He got in by asking, again and again, for a chance he was not qualified for on paper. Then he turned up every day, whatever the night had been like.
The myth: The film compresses and changes events, as films do. His own book is the fuller account.
Where the facts come from: Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe, The Pursuit of Happyness (2006); Biography, Encyclopaedia Britannica.
