Les Brown

Leslie Calvin Brown was born on 17 February 1945 in Liberty City, a low-income section of Miami, with his twin brother, Wesley. At about six weeks old the twins were adopted by Mamie Brown, a single cafeteria cook and domestic worker.

In grade school Brown was labelled “educable mentally retarded”, which he says damaged his confidence for years. A high school teacher, Mr. Washington, rebuked him for accepting the label, telling him that someone’s opinion of him did not have to become his reality.

That moment, and his adoptive mother’s love, became recurring themes in his later speeches.

In the early 1960s Brown worked as a sanitation worker in Miami Beach. In the mid-1960s he talked his way into Miami radio station WMBM as an errand boy.

He studied the disc jockeys closely and practised their style, and was eventually hired as a part-time and then full-time disc jockey.

Brown moved to Columbus, Ohio, where in the late 1960s and early 1970s he worked as a disc jockey and later broadcast manager at a local radio station.

His energetic on-air style made him a well-known local voice, and the public profile he built in Columbus preceded his move into politics.

In 1976 Brown was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives as a Democrat for the 29th district. He served three terms and, in his third term, chaired the Human Resources Committee.

In 1981 he left the legislature to care for his ailing mother in Florida. The experience of public office later informed his talks on leadership and service.

After leaving politics, Brown turned to public speaking. By 1986 he was speaking full time and had founded his own company, Les Brown Unlimited, Inc.

He drew heavily on his own story: his adoption, the school label and his rise through radio and politics. His core message was that people should not let others’ opinions define them, and that it is possible to achieve far more than they believe.

In 1989, just three years after going full time, he received the National Speakers Association’s Council of Peers Award of Excellence (CPAE).

In 1990 Brown recorded the first of a series of motivational programmes for PBS, including It’s Possible, Live Your Dreams and You Deserve with Les Brown. You Deserve won a regional Emmy in Chicago in 1991.

In 1992 Toastmasters International named him one of the top five speakers in the country, and in 1994 it gave him its Golden Gavel award. By the early 1990s he was among the highest-paid speakers in the United States.

Brown’s first book, Live Your Dreams, was published by Morrow in 1992, followed by It’s Not Over Until You Win! in 1996.

In autumn 1993 he launched The Les Brown Show, a nationally syndicated talk show distributed by King World, which ended later that year. He later hosted morning radio at WBLS in New York (1996 to 1997) and a syndicated programme on KFWB in Los Angeles (2011 to 2012).

He was married to singer Gladys Knight from 1995 to 1997. In 1997 he announced he was being treated for prostate cancer.

Brown continues to speak and to train new speakers through Les Brown Enterprises, including his Hungry To Speak programme. His official site reports thousands of keynotes delivered in dozens of countries.

Clips of his speeches, with lines such as “It’s possible” and “You’ve got to be hungry”, are among the most widely shared motivational content online, keeping his message in front of new generations.