Appearances on the U.S. version of the TV hit Dancing With the Stars by former UFC champ and mixed martial artist Chuck Liddell and rodeo great Ty Murray have helped erase the stereotype that tough guys don’t dance. But for boys growing up in the 1940s, taking dance classes was a sure way to become the go-to target for neighborhood bullies. So Richard Beymer might have called it quits if fate hadn’t intervened with a paying job on a local L.A. television program. After that, when the bullies started their rants, he smugly told them they’d dance, too, if it meant earning $200 a week. Impressive chutzpah for a kid really making only $8 a week.

But that local television program was a beginning. Soon Beymer started getting acting roles. At 15, he made an impressive film debut in director Robert Wise’s So Big, based on Edna Ferber’s classic novel. At 21, he starred in The Diary of Anne Frank. But his real break came when Wise called on him to play Tony—the modern-day Romeo in the film version of the smash Broadway musical West Side Story.

Based on their previous work, Wise—producer and co-director of the film with choreographer Jerome Robbins—knew Beymer could handle the acting challenges. But he was concerned about the young actor’s ability to master the dancing requirements. He didn’t know Beymer had ignored neighborhood jeers as a child to pursue his love of dancing … and had kept up his practices ever since. A brief audition quickly relieved his mind—and won Beymer the most famous role of his career.

It’s amazing what opportunities can come your way when you follow your heart.

“Do what you love, the money will follow.”

—Marsha Sinetar, psychologist

“No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.”

—Napoleon Hill, motivational writer

“I’d rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate.”

—George Burns, comedian

“There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way.”

—Christopher Morley, writer

“When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.”

—W. Clement Stone, businessman and author

“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.”

—John Ruskin, critic and social theorist

“Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.”

—Samuel Butler, poet and satirist

“There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality. And then there are those who turn one into the other.”

—Douglas Everett, American Olympic hockey player