"Can you imagine the pressure of being in high school when all your friends know you're homeless?" says Chris Gardner, CEO of Chicago-based broker Gardner Rich, whose life story inspired the 2006 movie The Pursuit of Happyness. Gardner, 53, recently spent time in Tennessee with a group of homeless teens who had seen the film and wanted to meet the man whose story it told. In the 1980s, Gardner spent several months living on the streets of San Francisco with his son, a toddler. But he managed to put himself through a brokerage training program at Dean Witter, now part of Morgan Stanley, eventually landing a job there. In an essay about the film, says Gardner, one student wrote, "If Chris Gardner can do it, so can I."

Now using his Hollywood fame to push for affordable housing and raise awareness about the working homeless, Gardner will be honored at a May 8 benefit dinner in New York for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's charitable foundations (see www.sifma.net).