Celebs with talents everyone (but you) knew about

[commasense]

@kenobi_65

Then, how about this one (and I’m surprised it hasn’t been mentioned yet, since it comes up on this board fairly often):

Actress Hedy Lamaar was also an inventor, and held a patent for a torpedo guidance system, the idea of which proved to be instrumental for modern telecommunications.

That’s a great one, but it’s Lamarr.

(I resisted the temptation to say, "It’s Hedley!")

[kenobi_65]

@commasense

That’s a great one, but it’s Lamarr.

(I resisted the temptation to say, "It’s Hedley!")

facepalm

[WordMan]

I have posted this in other threads, but Amy Winehouse in addition to being a brilliant singer, was a great guitar player. In the documentary Amy, there is some wonderful video of her playing in the studio - just dialed in and tasty. What a loss.

[Xema]

Tommy Lee Jones attended Harvard University. He was offensive guard on the varsity football team. He played in the famous 1968 Harvard-Yale game, in which Harvard scored 16 points in the final 42 seconds to secure a 29-29 “victory”.

(His college roommate was a guy named Al Gore.)

[Dewey_Finn]

@commasense

I was expecting most responses to this thread to be of the Geena Davis type: a skill, talent, or expertise that is entirely unrelated to the person’s main claim to fame, and therefore surprising. You might have seen all Geena’s movies but unless you followed her personal life outside her body of work, you would have no reason to expect her to be a near-Olympic-level archer. (Unless she’s used archery in some of her movies? Anyone?)

So some of the posts above have surprised me because people seemed to be surprised that someone could do something that is not only in their general area (entertainment, mostly), but is among the things they are best known for.

Someone upthread mentioned Justin Bieber being an excellent drummer, as if that was surprising. But he first came to attention from YouTube videos of him as a young child, playing the drums really, really well. It was only later he turned into a douche.

[Loach]

@commasense

So some of the posts above have surprised me because people seemed to be surprised that someone could do something that is not only in their general area (entertainment, mostly), but is among the things they are best known for.

Like Jason Lee. It is no secret that he is a great skateboarder since his first fame came as a professional skateboarder. That is niche enough that most people will only know him as an actor.

ETA: However if you look at the OP “Celebs with talents everyone (but you) knew about” it’s no surprise that people are mentioning things than a large number of people already know.

[kenobi_65]

@WordMan

I have posted this in other threads, but Amy Winehouse in addition to being a brilliant singer, was a great guitar player. In the documentary Amy, there is some wonderful video of her playing in the studio - just dialed in and tasty. What a loss.

A couple of years ago, on the cable music channel Palladia (now called MTV Live), I caught an all-star concert called “The Strat Pack”, from 2004. This young woman was playing, and I was stunned to learn that it was Amy Winehouse – this was before the beehive hairdo, the heavy make-up, and the tattoos, and she looked quite different.

I think that this photo is from that concert: Amy Winehouse (32 matches): Phone Number, Email, Address - Spokeo

[terentii]

@commasense

Maybe this is all down to me being old, and knowing more about these people than you young whippersnappers.

Hey, I’ll turn 62 in January! :dubious:

[Robot_Arm]

@commasense

Likewise Steve Martin playing the banjo. He included banjo in his earliest standup work,…

There’s probably a whole generation that doesn’t know Steve Martin used to do standup.

[Robot_Arm]

@xizor

I recently learned Mark Harmon was quite the football quarterback at UCLA.

@astorian

He was- but he’s only the 2nd best football player in his family! His Dad won the Heisman trophy.

This is rather off-topic, but I recently discovered that the prosecutor who tried Randall Woodfield (the I-5 Killer) in Oregon was Dick Van Dyke’s son.

[commasense]

@Loach

ETA: However if you look at the OP “Celebs with talents everyone (but you) knew about” it’s no surprise that people are mentioning things than a large number of people already know.

Yeah, I just noticed that. :smack:

@terentii

Hey, I’ll turn 62 in January! :dubious:

You’ll be nine months ahead of me!

@Robot_Arm

There’s probably a whole generation that doesn’t know Steve Martin used to do standup.

There’s the oft-repeated story of a teenager (in the late 1980s or '90s) who comes to her parents and says, “Did you guys know that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?”

[Loach]

After a very successful career as a child actor, Kurt Russell was a professional baseball player who made it to the AA level. A rotator cuff tear cut short his career and he returned to acting.

[astorian]

@Loach

After a very successful career as a child actor, Kurt Russell was a professional baseball player who made it to the AA level. A rotator cuff tear cut short his career and he returned to acting.

One of his teammates was Ron Shelton, who actually wrote “Bull Durham” for Russell.

[Intergalactic_Gladiator]

Kate McKinnon is a pretty good comedic actor.

But can she sing and play the piano?

- YouTube Yup.

[BrotherCadfael]

@Gyrate

I was watching old Muppet Show episodes and (re-)discovered that Lynda Carter had a proper set of pipes too.

[Obligatory]Yeah, and her costume just about covered them![/Obligatory]

[terentii]

@commasense

There’s the oft-repeated story of a teenager (in the late 1980s or '90s) who comes to her parents and says, “Did you guys know that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?”

I once mentioned Carly Simon to my daughter (19 at the time*), and she very innocently asked “Who’s Carly Simon?”

I was gobsmacked! “Oh, shit. Am I **that **old?!?” :smack:

*This was 3–4 years ago.

[Knowed_Out]

Bob Hope used to be a boxer named Packy East.

Pierce Brosnan got his start in show business as a fire eater.

Ricky Gervais used to be in a Europop group called Seona Dancing.

[Mahaloth]

So…more seriously this time, did this just turn into “lesser known talents of famous people” or did I misread the OP?

It’s OK, I shared the Michael Bolton one and I don’t really believe everyone knows that already.

[furryman]

Before playing the Riddler, Frank Gorshen was a fairly well known impersonator. He even appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.