7. Fred Friendly
The man born as Fred Friendly Wachenheimer took the professional name of Fred W. Friendly when he went into broadcasting. Friendly was pals with the aforementioned Ed Murrow. In fact, they co-created the See it Now program. Friendly worked his way up the ladder to the president of CBS but still felt he didn’t have the autonomy he needed to do his job. When an episode of I Love Lucy preempted the Senate hearings on Vietnam, per CBS top brass, Friendly resigned over the decision. His complaints at that time had always been about the ceiling separating him from the real decision makers in the network. CBS lost a great leader who went on to spearhead the creation of PBS.