# Celebrities With Master Degrees Or More **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 7, 2010, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632 "2010-05-07T14:17:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gregorio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/fbc32d/32.png) [@gregorio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gregorio)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/21 "2010-05-07T15:39:02Z")
Peter Weller has a Master’s degree in Roman and Renaissance Art and working on a PhD. In 1974 Ken Dryden returned to the nets for the Montreal Canadiens after his law articling. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/22 "2010-05-07T15:56:06Z")
[Harold Gould](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0332390/), a successful character actor, has a Ph.D. in theater. Frank Ryan, the QB for the Cleveland Browns in the 1960s, had a Ph.D. in Mathematics. Moe Berg, a backup catcher in the 1930s, held a law degree (and worked as a spy for the US government). ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/23 "2010-05-07T16:01:15Z")
Ashley Judd should be near finishing a Master’s in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/24 "2010-05-07T16:01:53Z")
Tom and Ray Magliozzi (Click and Clack of NPR’s “Car Talk”) are both graduates of MIT. I’m not sure whether Ray has any advanced degrees but Tom has a PhD in Marketing. Tom Scholz of the band **Boston** has a Master’s in mechanical engineering from MIT. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/25 "2010-05-07T16:03:15Z")
Not sure if you want to consider only those with non-drama degrees, because Yale University has a very good drama program, only offering master’s degrees. Among its graduates are Patricia Clarkson, Charles Dutton, Henry Winkler, Paul Giamatti, Meryl Streep, Liev Shreiber, Chris Noth, Paul Newman, and a bunch of others. So all of those have at least master’s degrees. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/26 "2010-05-07T16:18:31Z")
Sheila James, my childhood crush as the brainy Zelda on _Dobie Gillis_, graduated first in her class at Harvard Law. Isaac Lidsky of _Saved By the Bell_ also graduated from there. Other actors with law degees include William Sanderson, Taylor Simpson-Wood, Josh Saviano, and Fred Thompson. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/27 "2010-05-07T16:21:36Z")
Charlie Korsmo, who was the kid in Dick Tracy and was also in Can’t Hardly Wait, received a law degree from Yale Law School, as did Ben Stein and Pat Robertson. ---
**Author:** ![Flip\_Pancake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f1d935/32.png) [@Flip\_Pancake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flip_Pancake)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/28 "2010-05-07T16:35:47Z")
James Franco has an MFA in Writing, and will be starting on his PhD in English at Yale. ---
**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:** [May 7, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/29 "2010-05-07T16:36:21Z")
Graham Chapman had a medical degree. In fact, I believe all of the members of Monty Python have degrees. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/30 "2010-05-07T16:46:27Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Porn star Ron Jeremy has a master’s degree in Special Education. there has got to be an obscene joke in there somewhere:eek: ---
**Author:** ![ErinPuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dbc845/32.png) [@ErinPuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ErinPuff)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/31 "2010-05-07T16:59:47Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > Barret Hansen aka Dr. Demento has a master’s degree in folklore and ethnomusicology from UCLA. I learned this a couple months ago when he did a lecture at UNC (where I’m a musicology student). There’s a huge collection of American music here that used to be at UCLA, and he worked on cataloging it back in the 60s. Rachel Maddow has a PhD in politics from Oxford. Richard Vranch, the pianist on the original British version of _Whose Line Is It Anyway?_, has a PhD in physics from Cambridge. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/32 "2010-05-07T17:00:34Z")
Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Wyatt in “Weird Science,” has a PhD in English and teaches at Cal State Long Beach. ---
**Author:** ![President\_Johnny\_Gentle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@President\_Johnny\_Gentle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/President_Johnny_Gentle)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/33 "2010-05-07T17:09:40Z")
Something I forgot about earlier - as long as we’re including athletes, we should mention pro football Hall of Famer Alan Page, who has a JD, and has been an Associate Justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court since 1992. He actually selected the panel which heard the Franken-Coleman election dispute. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/34 "2010-05-07T18:36:10Z")
Figure skater Debi Thomas (silver medalist at the 1988 Calgary Olympics) is now an orthopedic surgeon. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/35 "2010-05-07T18:43:17Z")
Former NFL QB Pat Haden is a Rhodes Scholar and also holds a J.D. from Loyola Law School. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/36 "2010-05-07T18:52:11Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Graham Chapman of Monty Python was a medical school graduate. His friend, sometime roommate (starting out and twixt divorces) fellow Python John Cleese was a law school graduate, and after the show Terry Jones attended and sometimes lectures in medieval history at Cambridge. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/37 "2010-05-07T18:52:21Z")
Another music guy, [Dexter Holland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_Holland) of The Offspring has a Masters in Molecular Biology from USC and abandoned progress on his PhD after the band hit it big. ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/38 "2010-05-07T19:05:40Z")
Do cartoonists count as celebrities? Stephan Pastis (creator of _Pearls Before Swine_) was a lawyer before he became a syndicated cartoonist. ---
**Author:** ![tbook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/df705f/32.png) [@tbook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tbook)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/39 "2010-05-07T19:08:22Z")
Dionne Warwick has a masters in Ed. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632/40 "2010-05-07T19:21:57Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > I believe Bill Cosby has a doctorate in education. I am pretty sure that Bill Cosby’s degree is only an honorary one, not an actual degree. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrities-with-master-degrees-or-more/538632.md?page=3)