Looking at a thread in the Pit about Billy Bob Thorton and his band I wondered how many actors and/or comedians had tried the music route and been successful?
I remember Rick Springfield but I’m not sure if he was an actor first or not.
David Soul from the old Starsky and Hutch had a hit. He was a non successful musician before he found acting fame.
The Blues Brothers had some music success. I guess David Hasselhoff has great music success in Europe. Harry Conick Junior is successful at both.
Eddie Murphy had a hit.
Actually, Harry Connick Jr started as a musician and later started acting.
But you might also consider the stars of This Is Spinal Tap. Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean are going on tour (“Unwigged and Unplugged”), performing songs from This Is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind.
Didn’t Bruce Willis try his hand at a band, with limited success? Wikipedia says he also wrote the theme song for Hudson Hawk.
According to Wikipedia, Russell Crowe had a band from the late 80’s. His most recent musical adventure, 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts, has apparently been dissolved.
I think a number of stars who “turned” musician were singers/players/songwriters, etc. at some point before they hit the big time. They got a break and went into acting–but obviously a few of them still have the chops to pick up a guitar (or whatever) and play.
To turn it around, The Beatles were surprisingly entertaining in their movies.
Oh, and the Blues Brothers owe much of their success to that they hired one of the BEST EFFING! backup bands, ever. Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn, and Matt “Guitar” Murphy? Few compare.
Mandy Patinkin did some musical theatre work early in his career, but seems to have hit it fairly big as a vocalist after becoming famous as an actor. I thought he also played the piano, but Wiki doesn’t say.
Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley & solo album fame was a child actor in a bunch of bit roles on TV and a few movie roles. Rilo Kiley formed in '98 per Wikipedia which is the same year she was in Pleasantville.
Steve Martin, a banjoist since he was a boy, has in recent years performed with Earl Scruggs and released a CD of his banjo music. Of course he had a major novelty hit 30 years ago with the song King Tut, and I remember that the back of the 45 was a straight banjo number (Sally Goodin’s).
He also played banjo professionally on the old Glenn Campbell Goodtime Hour (in addition to being a writer and sometime sketch performer for the show).
Don’t forget that Rilo Kiley guitarist and frontman for The Elected, Blake Sennett was also a child actor. He was on Salute Your Shorts and Boy Meets World, along with some other small roles.
I think that is backwards. He became famous as a singer first. The first time I ever saw him was in commercials for the original Broadway Evita. The nonsinging acting roles came after he was famous for his singing.
