Eddie Cantor said, “It takes twenty years to make an overnight success.”
No one proves this better than Nate Bargatze (see the video above).
Watch how his timing improves, rhythm gets tighter, and confidence grows. Even his haircut got upgraded.
That’s the compound effect of years on stage and thousands of sets.
Here’s what’s funny about that quote: Eddie Cantor was the Nate Bargatze of his day.
Eddie was a comedian, actor, and radio performer. He landed his first role in 1908. Twenty years later he was on top of the world. He’d won awards, published an autobiography, and was worth the equivalent of $75 million today.
Then he lost everything in the 1929 stock market crash.
So what did Eddie do? He went back to work.
Eddie wrote a short book making fun of himself and the crash. It was called, Caught Short! It was funny, honest, and a hit.
He didn’t stop and kept rebuilding and he leaned into a new medium: radio. He kept creating comedy, kept experimenting, and kept getting better.
And Eddie wasn’t afraid to fail again and took risks. As a Jewish performer, he spoke out against antisemitism and the Nazis. It cost him radio sponsors and ultimately a radio show, but he didn’t give up.
In 1937, Eddie Cantor faced a new challenge. President Roosevelt asked Hollywood to help raise money to fight polio. In a meeting, Eddie pitched his idea: Have every Hollywood radio show run a 30-second commercial asking the American public to give.
But it was the name that sold it.
Eddie suggested they call it The March of Dimes, and ask everyday Americans to send a dime to the White House to fight polio.
The ads launched, and America responded. The White House received nearly 2.7 million letters filled with dimes and dollars. The money raised funded polio research, including the work of Jonas Salk, who created the polio vaccine a little over a decade later.
What I love about Eddie Cantor’s story is that it shows how those first 20 years of effort are really just preparing you for the next 20.
You’re able to weather a crisis.
You’re able to take on more risk.
You’re able to do bigger things.
All because of who you became during the first 20 years.
Sources:
Video created from clips from this YouTube video and this YouTube video.
The Eddie Cantor Story: A Jewish Life in Performance and Politics by Historian David Weinstein
Cantor, Eddie. Caught Short! A Saga of Wailing Wall Street (Function). Kindle Edition.
Origin of our name. (2025). Marchofdimes.org https://www.marchofdimes.org/about-us/mission/history/origin-our-name
Note: There is some debate on whether this quote is original to Eddie Cantor or if he was sharing a more accepted belief in show business. Other versions of the saying by various actors and actresses say it takes 8-15 years. But the 20-year quote was attributed to him in two instances while he was still alive, in a book in 1957 and a New York Times article in 1963.
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