Samuel Coleridge: 10

A heavy burden of guilt that becomes an obstacle to success, as in The failed real estate scheme became an albatross around her neck, for now she could not interest other investors in a new project. This idiom comes from Samuel Coleridge's narrative poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798), which is based on the widespread superstition that it is unlucky to kill this large white sea bird. In the poem a sailor does kill an albatross, and when the ship then is becalmed near the equator and runs out of water, his shipmates blame him and force him to wear the dead bird around his neck.

www.answers.com/topic/albatross-around-one-s-neck

Paco Rabanne: 9

Apart from his dress designs and line of fragrances, Rabanne also has an interest in paranormal phenomena, and became infamous for his false prediction of the Russian space station Mir falling to Paris in 1999. Some media referred satirically this episode as "Pacolypse".


Mentioned in the Star (johannesburg) article in "book of the week" Yhe year 1000 by lacy and Danziger - in 2000

Rodulfus Glaber: 8

"Especially significant is his treatment of the end of the first millennium. He is the primary source for claims of widespread fear and divine omens (famines and eclipses) anticipating the end of the world. Nineteenth-century historians relying too heavily on this one monk of ill repute popularised the notion that the people of the late tenth century lived in superstitious fear of nonevents."

Wikipedia.

...Sure there were prophets of doom, like the monk Rodulfus Glaber, who had the unpleasant experience of having the devil appear at the end of his bed several times, 'a shaggy, black, hunched up figure with pinched nostrils, a goats beard and blubbery lips'. But few people listened to his predictions and he was shown the door of monasteries across France. (The Star - Johannesburg 2000: Book of the week - The year 1000 by Robert Lacy & Danny Danziger)

Phil Spector: 8

Da Do Run Run

Legendary music producer Phil Spector was convicted Monday of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of actress Lana Clarkson in his Alhambra mansion six years ago. The verdict means Spector, famed for his work with Tina Turner, The Beatles, The Righteous Brothers,The Ramones and others

Dick Fosbury: 7

As a young high jumper in the early 1960s, Dick Fosbury had trouble mastering the standard technique, called the straddle. Instead he began doing the high jump by approaching the bar with his back to it, doing a modified scissor-kick and going over the bar backwards and horizontal to the ground. As goofy as it looked, it worked. Dubbed the "Fosbury Flop" by a Medford, Oregon reporter, Fosbury caused a sensation when he won the gold medal in the 1968 Olympics, jumping a height of 2.24 meters. The Fosbury Flop has since become a standard technique for high jumpers.

http://archives.starbulletin.com/1999/02/13/sports/story2.html

Richard Douglas Fosbury (born March 6, 1947) is a retired high jumper, who is considered one of the most influential athletes in the history of track and field.

Javier Sotomayor (Cuba) is the current men's record holder with a jump of 2.45 m (8 ft 01⁄4 in) set in 1993 – the longest standing record in the history of the men's high jump. Stefka Kostadinova (Bulgaria) has held the women's world record at 2.09 m (6 ft 101⁄4 in) since 1987, also the longest-held record in the event.

Manfred Mann: 6

Manfred Mann (born Manfred Sepse Lubowitz,[1] 21 October 1940, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa) is a professional keyboard player, best known as the founding member of Manfred Mann and Manfred Mann's Earth Band.

Helen Joseph: 5

For forty years Helen Joseph dedicated herself single-mindedly to opposing apartheid. Her commitment earned her the ANC's highest award, the Isitwalandwe/Seaparankoe Medal. It also led to a relentless government campaign to silence her, a campaign which ultimately failed - for generations of South Africans, Helen was an inspiration and a symbol of defiance, integrity and courage.

Helen Beatrice May Fennell was born in Sussex, England, in 1905. She graduated from King's College, University of London, in 1927, taught for three years in India, then came to South Africa in 1931, where she met and married Billie Joseph. Her service as an information and welfare officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force during the Second World War, and her subsequent decision to become a social worker, exposed her to some of the realities of South African life.

for more see the ANC website