Good Deeds

• Despite good intentions, not all would-be good deeds work out. In 2009, actress Anne Hathaway saw a shabbily dressed woman sitting on a bench at a bus stop. Thinking that the woman was homeless, she offered her a doggy bag of leftovers — gourmet leftovers. Rather than being pleased, the woman was outraged: "What do you think I am — HOMELESS?… I'm just waiting for the bus!… Just because I'm not all dressed up, you think I'm a homeless woman?" Ms. Hathaway apologized and left. (She does get credit for her attempt at a good deed.)

Other good deeds do work out, but are not rewarded. In 2010, Keifer Sutherland, who served 30 days in jail in 2008 for DUI and gained several IQ points as a result (he now has a chauffeur when he drinks), left Hollywood's Piano Bar and saw an attendant urging an insistent drunken man not to drive. Mr. Sutherland walked over to the drunken man and spent 15 minutes talking to him before persuading him to accept a ride home in his limo. He then gave the man a ride home, going approximately 45 minutes out of his way to do so. Unfortunately, when he and his driver delivered the drunken man home, the drunken man's wife thought that they were her husband's drinking buddies and strongly criticized them for being a bad influence on her husband.

Here's a third deed by a movie star: in 2005 Jessica Alba boarded a plane whose take-off was delayed because a plus-size passenger could not fit his butt into his seat in coach. Ms. Alba paid the money for the man's ticket to be upgraded to first-class, so that he would have a wider seat. (She did not want him to be told about her good deed.)

• Rosie O'Donnell has been incredibly generous. Ms. O'Donnell helped Jaren Millard, a Hollywood hairdresser and makeup artist in 1997, when he was recovering from pneumonia. Mr. Millard said, "Not only did Rosie pay my medical bills, but after I was released from the hospital — and had no place to go — she flew me in her own private jet to her Florida home and provided for my round-the-clock nursing care. Until the time I was back on my feet and able to care for myself, she continued to help me. If not for her, I would've been out on the streets or in a shelter. And I knew a hairdresser whom she moved into her home after he was stricken with AIDS. He stayed there — and she paid all his bills — until his death. I have also met several women battling breast cancer whom Rosie has helped." Mr. Millard added, "Lots of stars are happy to lend their name to or donate money to a cause. They're happy to have the press coverage, but most don't want to become personally involved. Rosie is not like that. She not only gives the money directly — she also stays in constant touch with you, wanting to know how you are doing. She really cares and doesn't ask for anything in return."

She also helped Jason Opsahl, her co-star in "Grease" on Broadway, when he developed a brain tumor. She paid for his medical care, and for his food and rent when he could not work after he left the hospital. He died on Oct. 25, 2002, at age 39. Mr. Opsahl's mother, Muriel, said, "Jason had many friends who loved him. But Rosie was a special friend. She even sat with us at the funeral service, like family."

• In 2009, actress Salma Hayek breastfed a hungry African child while on a UNICEF mission in Sierra Leona. Many years earlier, her great-grandmother had used her breast milk to feed a starving infant. Ms. Hayek said, "My great-grandmother was in a Mexican little village and they found a woman on the street inconsolably crying and the baby was also crying, crying, crying, and my great-grandmother went up to her and said, 'What is the matter?' [She said,] 'My baby is very hungry and I have no more milk,' and, in the street, my great-grandmother took the baby from her, took her breasts out and breastfed that baby, who instantly stopped crying and went peacefully to sleep." Ms. Hayek had a good reason for breastfeeding the child. The world's highest rate of infant mortality is in Sierra Leone, in part because of malnutrition. Doctors want women to breastfeed their children for their first two years of life but that does not happen because of a cultural taboo that says that husbands should not have sex with wives who are breastfeeding. Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, an OB-GYN expert on , said that Ms. Hayek did something good by starting "a conversation about how breastfeeding is good."

• In 2001, in Toronto, actress Renee Zellweger saw a homeless man lying on a sidewalk on a cold winter day. She pulled her SUV over, walked over to the homeless man, and gave him her gloves. After chatting with him briefly, she went to a restaurant and ordered a hot take-out meal. The homeless man told his friends that a famous actress had given him the warm gloves, and an eyewitness related, "Renee walked right up to the homeless man and handed him the food she bought for him at the restaurant, and once again his face lit up with joy. The stranger's friends were so impressed by Renee's kindness they gave her a flower to take with her. Then they waved goodbye to Renee as she drove away, and huddled together to feast on the hot meal."

• South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament. Germany's World Cup team performed a remarkable good deed by inviting 300 schoolchildren from poor areas of Durban, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg to each of its first-round games. In addition to buying the tickets, the team gave the children and their teachers transportation to and from the games and bought them food at the stadiums. A spokesman for the team said the cost of the good deed was more than $100,000. In addition, Italian captain Fabio Cannavaro and the other members of the Italian World Cup team made a donation to fund a ceremony in 2011 marking an important anniversary of Italy's unification — the 150^th anniversary.