10. Donna Summer
She was disco's queen; her songs, including "Love to Love You Baby" and "Last Dance," were its defining tracks.
9. Ralph McQuarrie
George Lucas hired the artist/illustrator to help him sell a movie pitch. In the end, Lucas got the deal, the world got Star Wars and R2-D2, C-3P0, Chewbacca and Darth Vader got to be who've always known them to be.
8. Nora Ephron
Her influence, as a feminist, a chick-flick and -lit North Star, and a mentor, was unique. Her screenplay for When Harry Met Sally... was often duplicated, but rarely matched, except perhaps by her own films, including Sleepless in Seattle.
7. Phyllis Diller
She made herself and her appearance the butt of her own jokes, but she did so as she crashed comedy's boys' club, along with a glass ceiling or two.
6. Don Cornelius
His Soul Train empowered the black audience, informed the white audience and let everybody in on an array of musical acts and the singular "Soul Train line."
5. Steve Sabol
Running with the ball his father, NFL Films founder Ed Sabol, handed him, the younger Sabol scored as the chief storyteller and myth-builder of frozen tundras, mud-caked lineman and the must-watch TV show that is modern professional football.
4. Neil Armstrong & Sally Ride
He was the first man on the moon. She was the first American woman in space. On Earth, they were both inspirations.
3. Ray Bradbury
He knew the temperature at which books burn. He foretold the alien-invasion movie. He was, above all, a writer ahead of even sci-fi time.
2. Dick Clark
He may not have invented the American teenager or New Year's Eve, but he helped redefine, and maybe even refine, each.
1. Whitney Houston
Near the end of her troubled life, her voice was thrashed and frayed, but its force never diminished. It was, and is, heard at nearly everywhere, from the high-school talent show to the Grammys stage. It is forever the voice of dreams.