I think that's a very simplistic view. While there are of course people who have been extremely successful relying on those two things alone (and they dominate

I think that's a very simplistic view. While there are of course people who have been extremely successful relying on those two things alone (and they dominate the headlines, of course), there are countless successful people who succeeded without either of those two things. It's pretty disingenuous, for example, to argue that Katherine Johnson's (admittedly delayed in recognition) success is the result of social connections or acting skills. An even more trivial example is that many pro athletes (in the US, at least) didn't achieve success because of their social connections to capital; most of them certainly aren't great actors either.