ANDRE AGASSI (B. 1970)
American Tennis Player

At the bottom:
1997—Andre Agassi stared at the small mound of crystal meth powder his friend “Slim” had just poured on the coffee table. He leaned over and snorted, then slipped back into his chair and felt “a moment of regret, followed by a vast sadness.” Just two years earlier, Agassi had been the top tennis player in the world, reaching the rank of number one after a decade as a professional, during which time he had won Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Australian Open as well as numerous lesser tournaments. During the early 1990s, he helped the United States win three Davis Cup titles, and he took the gold medal in men’s singles at the 1996 Olympics, held in Atlanta. In addition to his success on the court, Agassi was the closest thing his sport had to a rock star; he stood out to fans—and advertisers—with his flashy, charismatic personality, his colorful outfits, and his long, flowing hair. By the end of 1996, however, Agassi’s success began to wane. He suffered early-round losses in the U.S. and Australian Opens, and an old wrist injury resurfaced, limiting the number of matches he would play in 1997. He continued to use crystal meth throughout the year and eventually failed a drug test, but he evaded punishment by claiming that he had accidentally consumed a spiked soda. His world ranking slipped to number 141, and he no longer felt a love for the game. It seemed as though Agassi’s once-bright career was fading fast.

At the top:
1999—Andre Agassi could barely keep his composure as he addressed the crowd in Paris, where he had just won his first French Open title. “I never dreamed I’d ever be back here after so many years, I’m so proud,” said Agassi, his voice shaking. “I’ll never forget this, I’ll never forget this. I’m very blessed.” Agassi began the tournament ranked thirteenth in the world and had made a surprising run to the final match, where he defeated Andre Medvedev—a victory that was itself a remarkable comeback, as Agassi had been down two sets to none in the five-set match before storming back to take the title. With the win, Agassi completed one of the most remarkable comebacks in tennis history, and he became only the secondmen’s player ever to have won all four of the major tournaments (Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open) since Rod Laver did so in 1969. Agassi went on to win Wimbledon once more and take another two Australian Open titles, returning several times to the number-one spot in the next few years while remaining in the Top 10 for the rest of his career.

The comeback:
Years later, Agassi described the failed drug test as a wake-up call. He realized that “My name, my career, everything [was] now on the line. Whatever [I had] achieved, whatever [I had] worked for, might soon mean nothing.” He stopped using crystal meth shortly afterwards and put himself on an intense training regimen. With his ranking so low, Agassi was unable to play in some of the major tournaments and had to work his way back up by appearing in the so-called “Challenger Series,” which is to professional tennis what the minor leagues are to professional baseball. He carried his own bags and no longer received VIP treatment at tournaments. Along with younger, unknown hopefuls, the former top player in the world had to struggle up from square one. Agassi took it all in stride, however, and did not allow himself to think he deserved an easier path because he had already won the top prizes in his sport. He was no longer a superstar, but the humbling experience taught him to appreciate what he’d achieved—and what he’d lost—and it stoked his competitive fire. He focused on improving himself one day at a time, and before long he was back, better than ever.

JULIE ANDREWS (B. 1935)
English Singer and Actress

At the bottom:
1997—For the past year and a half, Julie Andrews—one of the most accomplished stage and screen actresses of the late twentieth century—had been starring in the Broadway version of Victor/Victoria, the musical film Andrews had starred in fourteen years earlier. Audiences flocked to hear the voice from such memorable classics as Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music—the voice that had helped her win an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, and five Golden Globes over the past three decades. During the last few months of the stage show, however, Andrews had missed over thirty performances. Sidelined with bronchitis and pneumonia, Andrews was having trouble with her beautiful singing voice, which had taken a beating over her career. By the time Victor/Victoria ended its Broadway run, Andrews had developed a noncancerous cyst on the left side of her throat. Doctors removed the cyst, promising her that her voice would return within six weeks. It didn’t. She later described her voice as having a “fried sound,” with “certain notes that just don’t appear.” Her husband, the filmmaker Blake Edwards, told a reporter a year after the operation that he didn’t think she’d ever sing again. “It’s an absolute tragedy,” he said. “If you heard [her voice], you’d weep.”

At the top:
2004—Seven years after her failed throat surgery, Julie Andrews sang again for the first time on screen. The film was The Princess Diaries 2, a lighthearted sequel to one of the surprise hits of 2001; in the two films, Andrews plays the queen of a fictional country called “Genovia.” Marketed to pre- and early-teen girls, both films did quite well at the box office, generating $300 million in combined revenues and introducing Andrews to a new generation of filmgoers. Although her singing performance in the sequel was brief (and pitched lower than her usual soprano), anyone who had followed Andrews’ career would have appreciated what that performance meant to her. By 2004, Andrews had also pursued a new avenue for her creative talents, as she and her daughter Emma had begun writing a series of children’s books that told stories about characters who triumph over adversity. The books—especially the “Dumpy the Dumptruck” series—were well received and earned high marks from educators and librarians. For Andrews, the messages in the books were drawn from her own experiences, and she drew inspiration from the idea that she might be able to help guide young readers to see the silver lining during difficult times. As she explained to a group of educators, “If you think about it, the books I write for children are really an extension of my singing voice.”

The comeback:
Andrews describes herself as an extremely private person, and so for several years after her surgery she quietly focused on recovering from the trauma of the surgery and its aftermath. To friends, she admitted that it was unlikely that her voice would return to its previous level, but she was confident that “a certain part of it” would return with time. Even so, with the loss of her “stock-in-trade,” she found herself asking, “Who am I? What do I do?” She kept busy with a string of nonmusical roles in plays and films and tried not to dwell on the fact that her singing voice was not improving. She kept a stiff upper lip and refused to brood about her condition in public; she recognized that she had enjoyed a remarkable career and that she still had much to offer to her audience. She also realized that she could develop a new audience and even venture into new areas of creativity with her writing—something she’d always hoped to do more of but had never had the time to pursue.

AMILYA ANTONETTI (B. 1967)
American Entrepreneur and Author

At the bottom:
1993—Just an ordinary suburban mother from San Leandro, California, Amilya Antonetti couldn’t figure out why her new baby boy, David, was suffering so terribly. He cried constantly, keeping his parents awake at all hours of the night. His breathing was often short and marked by a dry, hacking cough; he developed horrible skin problems, with bumpy rashes covering his body. At times when she changed his diaper the skin on his legs and bottom would simply peel away in sheets. David’s eyes seemed glassy, and he had a chronic runny nose. A variety of doctors and specialists were baffled by the baby’s condition. They took X-rays, drew blood, checked him for allergies—and yet they were unable to explain what might be wrong. Some chalked it up to colic; others suggested she was overreacting. Meanwhile, Antonetti’s heart was breaking. “The euphoria of David’s arrival was replaced with a tidal wave of fear,” she wrote in 2003. “All I knew was that my son, the most precious gift I had ever received, was in agony, and nothing I did seemed to ease his suffering.”

At the top:
2003—Amilya Antonetti looked at her company books for the previous year and was astonished to see that Soapworks, the company she’d founded in 1995, had more than $10 million in sales. Dubbed “the better choice mom” by Oprah Winfrey, Antonetti had just finished her first book, Why David Hated Tuesdays, a guide for parents looking to make their homes less toxic and safer. Soapworks had grown out of Antonetti’s discovery that ordinary household chemicals were making her son sick; each year, the company’s sales had doubled as Antonetti and her growing stable of employees (she had more than fifty by 2003) developed new products. Her bar soaps, laundry soaps, body washes, non-chlorine bleaches, and all-purpose cleaners were sold at stores like Trader Joe’s, Linens ’n Things, and Hudson Bay Companies. Her success had been covered on Winfrey’s show as well as on The Early Show on CBS, and she was a much-sought speaker for business conventions and parenting groups. And most importantly, her son David had lived the past seven years without discomfort.

The comeback:
For two years, Antonetti watched as her son’s condition remained unchanged. She listened to his doctors and hoped he would somehow improve. At last, she’d had enough and took matters into her own hands. She began to keep a detailed journal of her son’s life, trying to discover some sort of pattern or trigger that might explain his condition. Soon, she noticed that her son was always worse on the days of the week that she cleaned the house. For the first time in her life, she read the labels on her cleaning products and began to research some of the chemicals they contained. In the course of her reading, she found cases of other children who experienced adverse reactions to common household cleaning supplies. Immediately, she stopped cleaning the house. Dishes piled up and the laundry stayed dirty, but for the first time in his life, David was sleeping peacefully through the night and was noticeably less ill.

Unable to find soaps or cleaning products that were free of the chemicals that seemed to provoke her son, Amilya Antonetti began experimenting in her own kitchen sink. She collected soap recipes from the nineteenth century and, before long, had developed a line of homemade products—hand, dish, and laundry soaps—that did not make her son sick. She began to meet other mothers facing similar problems, and she realized the products she was making might have a wider application. And so, in November of 1995, Antonetti launched Soapworks, a small company that produced nontoxic soaps.

When grocery stores elected not to stock her products, she took out ads in local newspapers and sold directly to mothers who were concerned about their kids’ allergies. When an advertising executive at a local radio station saw Antonetti’s newspaper ads, he offered her airtime to promote her products. With a good radio voice, Antonetti was soon offered a guest slot on a weekly talk show, and with two hundred fifty thousand listeners, she quickly found herself swamped with orders. None of this would have happened if Antonetti hadn’t taken charge of the situation and realized that she was the best expert on her child’s well-being. “We are taught to look to ‘experts’ for our answers,” she writes, “only to find out that they often have no real-life experience on the subject. When all is said and done, change begins with you. Strength, willpower, responsibility, commitment and integrity grow from within and blossom only under your direction.”