# Actors who only acted dumb **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 10, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799 "2013-01-10T21:26:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/121 "2013-01-23T14:19:49Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > I suppose Suzanne Somers had a more successful career than one would have guessed after leaving “Three’s company”. Maybe a more successful career, but if anything, her character (Chrissy?) on Three’s Company was smarter than she is. She is REALLY into pseudoscience, “natural cures” and other BS. > [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > **Victoria Jackson** always acts dumb. But I do not think she’s dumb. Really? Not dumb? Have you seen her recently? All she does is do interviews/blog about how Obama is a Muslim terrorist sent to infiltrate our government, and “the gays” are causing America to crumble. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/122 "2013-01-23T16:24:55Z")
[quote=“bouv, post:121, topic:646799”] Maybe a more successful career, but if anything, her character (Chrissy?) on Three’s Company was smarter than she is. She is REALLY into pseudoscience, “natural cures” and other BS. She made a bundle off the Thighmaster infomercials of a couple decades ago, is mainly what I had in mind. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/123 "2013-01-23T17:30:54Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > Really? Not dumb? Have you seen her recently? All she does is do interviews/blog about how Obama is a Muslim terrorist sent to infiltrate our government, and “the gays” are causing America to crumble. I do not think that you are going to convince CrafterMan that this is dumb. That is why I linked to the article written by her so people can come to their own conclusions on whether or not she was dropped repeatedly on her head as a child. ---
**Author:** ![FrankJBN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@FrankJBN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrankJBN)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/124 "2013-01-23T19:31:54Z")
Another diversion of smart playing smart. Mayim Bialik playing neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on “Big bang Theory” actually has a PhD in neuroscience. ---
**Author:** ![FrankJBN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@FrankJBN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrankJBN)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/125 "2013-01-23T19:38:52Z")
So if Judy Holliday had an IQ of 172, that would have made her one of the 442 smartest people in the US. Forgive me if I fail to see the connection here that should eliminate this possibility - you have a list with the 442 smartest and her name is not on it? ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/126 "2013-01-23T20:20:56Z")
The character of Fonzie started out as somewhat unintelligent although he became somewhat smarter as “Happy Days” progressed. Henry Winkler is absolutely nothing like Fonzie. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/127 "2013-01-23T20:51:00Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > I do not think that you are going to convince CrafterMan that this is dumb. That is why I linked to the article written by her so people can come to their own conclusions on whether or not she was dropped repeatedly on her head as a child. She’d be great for a thread about “Actors who only acted like decent human beings,” though. ---
**Author:** ![corkboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/128 "2013-01-23T21:56:46Z")
I’m pretty sure that very, very few of the really successful actors & actresses these days are anything but smart, or at least savvy. You might find lightning in a bottle a couple times if you’re truly an idiot, but anyone with any real staying power (and not just name recognition from regular exposure in Us Weekly) has to know what they’re doing. ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/129 "2013-01-23T22:31:50Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > A little off-topic but Kevin James, who plays Doug Heffernan on “King of Queens” is actually very disciplined, incredibly physically fit and has some advanced martial arts training. > > Occasionally it comes through. There is an episode where his wife takes up pole-dancing and can’t really get the hang of it so he jumps on the pole to show her how it’s done – It’s an amazing few minutes. Mick Foley and Kevin James went to the same high school, or maybe it was neighboring high schools, I can’t remember now, but anyway, both were wrestlers – but poor Mick was the worst wrestler at school and Kevin was the best. Mick said he was so jealous of Kevin’s conditioning and skill back in the day! Marilyn Manson is another one who is quite intelligent, something every interviewer breathlessly reports like they’ve just discovered a lost pharoah’s tomb – even after almost 20 years, I guess people are still astonished that he doesn’t start foaming at the mouth. He has staggeringly in-depth knowledge of anything that intrigues him (cinema, Weimar Germany, archaic medical instruments). I’ve noticed in interviews that he sometimes is very reticent – it seems like if Manson picks up on the interviewer talking down to him, he’ll shut down. Put him with someone who gives him a little respect, and he’ll open up. Anyone interested should youtube his appearance on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, when Manson was very young and at the height of the Antichrist Superstar controversy. Manson acquits himself very well against one of the other, very judgey, guests. His bandmate, Twiggy Ramirez, however, always seems to be on another planet. Two other ex-bandmates – Pogo and Daisy Berkowitz – are supposed to be quite intelligent (Pogo has a degree in engineering; I’ve talked to Daisy a couple of times and he’s of at least above-average intelligence). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/130 "2013-01-24T02:45:36Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#): > > Mick Foley and Kevin James went to the same high school, or maybe it was neighboring high schools, I can’t remember now, but anyway, both were wrestlers – but poor Mick was the worst wrestler at school and Kevin was the best. Mick said he was so jealous of Kevin’s conditioning and skill back in the day! Another surprising athlete was John Belushi. He was apparently in top shape when he was young and was one of the best athletes in his school. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/131 "2013-01-24T02:56:57Z")
My point is, FrankJBN, that people are always lying about I.Q.'s. There’s nothing you should be more dubious about in someone’s supposed biography. If they give a wrong figure for a height (and a lot of people also lie about height), it’s much easier to look at the person and check it. For an I.Q., all you’ve got to go on is someone’s claim that at some point they were given an I.Q. test and that that was the score they got. Think of it this way. If her I.Q. were really 172, she would be probably smarter than anyone you have ever talked with in your life, assuming that you’ve talked with less than 294,048 people. You mention Mayim Bialik’s Ph.D. Yes, she’s quite smart. The fact though is that having a Ph.D. is vastly more common than having an I.Q. of 172. There are approximately two million Ph.D.'s in the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/132 "2013-01-24T23:19:03Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Another surprising athlete was John Belushi. He was apparently in top shape when he was young and was one of the best athletes in his school. That’s all down to the [little chocolate donuts](http://vimeo.com/46513050). ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/133 "2013-01-25T01:16:58Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Think of it this way. If her I.Q. were really 172, she would be probably smarter than anyone you have ever talked with in your life, assuming that you’ve talked with less than 294,048 people. Or it could be a test taken as a child. Marilyn vos Savant has made a nice living saying she has the highest recorded IQ, which was around 220, based on a test she took when she was ten years old. Since the score at that age is determined by mental age divided by physical age, what she is bragging about is being as smart as the average 22-year old. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/134 "2013-01-25T02:52:03Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > Or it could be a test taken as a child. Marilyn vos Savant has made a nice living saying she has the highest recorded IQ, which was around 220, based on a test she took when she was ten years old. Since the score at that age is determined by mental age divided by physical age, what she is bragging about is being as smart as the average 22-year old. Note: this chronological age stuff means that she took the WAIS at age 10 (a test now intended for adults 16+), and at that time they used the method above. Now, most IQ tests are based upon one’s percentile within the population, and the old methods can barely be converted. Nowadays, she would’ve done the WISC (ages 6 - 16), and I bet it would be less inflated. She later did the “Mega test” as an adult. Apparently people criticize the methods, but it is at least based upon standard deviations from mean IQ in the population. She got a 186 here, hardly something to be ashamed about and she’s probably smart, but then it doesn’t translate to many other aspects of intelligence necessarily. When I was TAing for psych classes, occassionally a student would mention the mental age/chronological age formula on exams, despite it not being mentioned in the class, and IQ has not been calculated that way in decades. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/135 "2013-01-25T16:48:27Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > The character of Fonzie started out as somewhat unintelligent although he became somewhat smarter as “Happy Days” progressed. Henry Winkler is absolutely nothing like Fonzie. And from what everyone who knows him have said and what I have heard from him, he may be the nicest guy on the planet. Which means he probably tortures puppies in secret. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2013, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/136 "2013-01-25T19:36:05Z")
> [@FrankJBN](#): > > Another diversion of smart playing smart. Mayim Bialik playing neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler on “Big bang Theory” actually has a PhD in neuroscience. And she’s the show’s consultant on the topic (they have a UCLA prof for the physics stuff). However, Bialik’s character is even smarter than \*she \*is, so maybe she still counts. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/137 "2013-01-26T03:15:12Z")
> [@FrankJBN](#): > > So if Judy Holliday had an IQ of 172, that would have made her one of the 442 smartest people in the US. > > Forgive me if I fail to see the connection here that should eliminate this possibility - you have a list with the 442 smartest and her name is not on it? It’s a matter of likelihood, not possibility. But I agree it was probably done when she was young under an old method. If real. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/138 "2013-01-26T10:18:57Z")
I just looked at the table that I linked to before: [http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx](http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx) I now realize that I was giving the probability of a 172 I.Q. from the Stanford-Binet part of the chart (which is based on a standard deviation of 16 points), rather than the Wechsler part of the chart (which is based on a standard deviation of 15 points). On the Wechsler chart, an I.Q. of 172 only happens once in 1,258,887 people. So in a U.S. population of 129,824,939, we can only expect to see 104 people with an I.Q. of 172 or greater if the Wechsler score is used. Most people don’t understand how a measure based on standard deviations works. They think that small changes in the numbers don’t make much of a difference, when they actually do. So if you are told that someone has an I.Q. of 140 (on the Wechsler scale), that’s what one person in 261 has, which means that someone in your high school graduating class if you went to a large high school (or in your entire high school if you went to a small one) probably has at least that I.Q. So you’d think that an I.Q. of 150 is only a little smarter. But only one person in 2,330 has that I.Q. or greater, so in your town or neighborhood of that size there might be one person with that I.Q. An I.Q. of 160 is even rarer, since only one person in 31,560 has that I.Q., which means that you’d have to search an entire small city to find a person with that I.Q., and it means that you may well never have talked with anyone with that I.Q. An I.Q. of 170 only happens once in 652,598 times, which means that you’d have to search most of a big city (or a small state) to find someone with that I.Q., and you’ve probably never talked with someone with that I.Q. An I.Q. of 180 only happens once in 10,016,587 times, so there are only about 31 people in the U.S. with that I.Q. An I.Q. of 190 is ridiculously improbable. Only one person in 1,009,976,678 has it, so there are only 7 people in the world with that I.Q. An I.Q. of 200 is even more ridiculously improbable, since only one person in 76,017,176,740 has that I.Q., which means that only about one or two people in the entire history of humanity was at that level, since the usual estimate of the number of people who have ever lived is about 100 billion. I would use the following rule of thumb: If someone claims to have an I.Q. greater than 160, they’re probably lying. The normal I.Q. tests can’t measure higher than that. There are special tests that claim to measure higher I.Q.'s, but they are not generally acceptable as reliable. It’s also possible that a claim of a higher I.Q. comes from the older tests which use the quotient definition rather than the standard deviation definition, but that could only be if someone was tested at least fifty years ago and is still quoting their score from that test. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/139 "2013-01-26T17:39:23Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > Really? Not dumb? Have you seen her recently? All she does is do interviews/blog about how Obama is a Muslim terrorist sent to infiltrate our government, and “the gays” are causing America to crumble. I certainly don’t agree with her political opinions. None-the-less, I do not think Victoria Jackson is a dumb person in RL, and think her on-screen persona is a fabrication. It’s obvious she tries to play the “dumb blond,” even during interviews. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799/140 "2013-01-26T17:45:23Z")
Yeah, because getting in good with the most rabid of the birthing teabaggers is smart publicity… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actors-who-only-acted-dumb/646799.md?page=8)