I was trying to think of politicians who are well known as actors: Reagan, Thompson, Eastwood, Bono, Grandy, that guy Cooter from Dukes of Hazzard… and noticed they’re all Republicans.
Are there any other actors/actresses (cameo appearances aside) who’ve held elected political office - and if so, which party ?
(If there aren’t, or if the thread gets jacked, I foresee a transfer to general debates as to why… But let’s get the facts in first ?)
Isn’t that weird. I thought the Hollywood crowd was mostly Democrats.
It may have to do with getting a broader base of voters. Think about it. Who was the first female prime minister of Britian. Margaret Thacher, a woman who was also a conservative. You think a liberal female could have pulled it off? Colin Powell has a better chance of being president, if he ever runs, than Jesse Jackson ever had.
We’ll have to ask a Georgia Doper to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Cooter was a Democrat. A Southern-style conservative Democrat, but a member of the Democratic party nonetheless.
And there’s also the reformed-turned-independent Jesse Ventura. I think he’s still considered to be right of center, though.
“Cooter” was Ben Jones and he was a Democrat who served a term or two in Congress I believe. He later tried to take on Newt Gingrich in his district, but lost. He was hurt by the House bank scandal.
Ralph Waite has run as a Democratic candidate for Congress in California a couple of times, but not successfully.
It does seem to be true that the American actors who have been elected to office are mostly Republican. The OP mentions Ronald Reagan, Clint Eastwood, Sonny Bono, Fred Grandy, and Fred Thompson. There’s also George Murphy and Shirley Temple (Black) (although she only served in appointive positions). On the Democratic side, there’s just Ben Jones and Helen Gahagan (Douglas). I would consider Jesse Ventura’s positions to be closer to Democratic than Republican. (Incidentally, can anybody tell us about the political positions of actors running for office in other countries?)
I think the notion that people in Hollywood are more liberal than conservative is at least a big overstatement. But that’s a matter for Great Debates, not General Questions. Start a thread there if you want to talk about that.
No one’s mentioned Tom Selleck, although what any self-respecting conservative is doing on Friends I have no idea.
Let’s see, foreign countries. Isn’t the President of the Phillipines a former actor? He’s a liberal populist, is he not? I believe India has a few former actors in politics, and then there’s that MP in Italy who’s a former porn star. Oh, wait, we’re talking about actors…
Tom Selleck may be conservative, but he never ran for office. If you want to list all the actors known for their conservative political positions, that would be a different question (and there are in fact quite a few conservative actors). Oh, and one other actor who’s served in national organizations, although not actually in government, and who’s known for his conservative politics, is Charleton Heston.
“Friends” is a hotbed of liberal idealogy?
What subtext have I been missing?
I think Friends only fits into a liberal ideology according to this rule which some conservatives have: Any movie or TV show which is annoying to them must be so because it offends their political sensibilities. Actually, most movies and TV shows are as offensive (or at least as irrelevant) to liberals as to conservatives. Most movie and TV producers have no fixed principles except to make as much money as possible.
Two more examples of actors that I can think of who’ve had a political post are Jane Alexander, who was head of the National Endowment for the Arts, and John Gavin, who was an ambassador.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how few actors have gotten anywhere in politics. Look at the list: Reagan (president), Ventura (governor), Murphy (senator), Thompson (senator), Grandy (representative), Bono (representative), Gahagan Douglas (representative), Jones (representative), Eastwood (mayor), Temple Black (ambassador), Gavin (ambassador), Alexander (agency head), Heston (president of the NRA). This list goes clear back to the 1940’s (when Gahagan Douglas was in office), but it’s still every actor that I know of who can be reasonably said to have been in a significant political office. (Can anyone add somebody else to this list?)
I’m being generous by including some of these people. Charleton Heston hasn’t held any offices, but it’s arguable that the NRA has major political power. Shirley Temple Black, John Gavin, and Jane Alexander were never elected to any offices. Clint Eastwood was only the mayor of a smallish city, hardly an office of major importance. Jesse Ventura was only an actor as a sideline to his prior jobs. He spent nine years as a professional wrestler and eleven as a radio show host. Fred Thompson is really just a lawyer who got a part in a movie by accident and then worked as a character actor a couple of months a year for the next decade while spending most of his time as a lawyer. I don’t think any of these people except for Reagan could be said to have been of major influence in their political careers.
I was going to correct the error about Ben “Cooter” Jones, but someone beat me to it. His campaigns against Gingrich were hostile and bitter, so the suggestion that he could have been a Republican is ludicrous to any Georgian, like him or not.
Then I was going to mention Jane Alexander (appointed by a Democratic President, I believe). But someone beat me to that too
So all I’m left with is the minor, but important, point that Reagan began his political career as a Democrat. he became a Republican later on.
Lot’s of sex without consequences. But then a lot of sitcoms are like that. And they had Newt’s sister officiate at a gay wedding on the television show. Maybe not hotbed but still.
Marc
Reagan was a Democrat while he was president of the Screen Actor’s Guild, but by the time he became a spokesman for General Electric in the '50’s he was already a Republican (and the speeches he gave were certainly closer to Republican in principles). None of his political career was as a Democrat.
This is a matter for Great Debates, but, like most TV shows, Friends is, if anything, more libertarian than liberal. Yes, it’s friendly to homosexuals (although notice that no significant cast member has been gay) and there’s has arguably been casual sex (but see below), but there’s nothing that’s been even remotely close to economic liberalism. Has anyone on the program tried to help a homeless man? Or show any sort of sympathy to the poor? Or talked about how they want higher taxes? Or discussed how they hate consumerism? Or advocated environmental causes? For that matter, has anyone on the show even made a significant mention of racism? Doesn’t it ever remotely occur to conservatives that many liberals despise the politics of most TV shows as much as conservatives do?
Also, by most standards, has the cast of Friends really been sexually promiscuous? Yes, by my standards, and perhaps by your standards too, they were promiscuous, but are they promiscuous by the standards of most single thirty-something people of the past decade? I haven’t watched enough of the show to be able to tell, but my impression was that the relationships on the program were ones which lasted for months, if not years. How often do they appear to have one-night stands? Yes, perhaps they are promiscuous by my standards and by yours, but by most people’s standards? Now Sex and the City . . . there’s a show where people are promiscuous.
There’s also Gopher from Love Boat who is a Republican from Iowa. Can’t think of his real name.
Also, didn’t Miss Jane from The Beverly Hillbillies run for office? I don’t know her party affiliation.
Oh wait; is Fred Grandy (mentioned in the OP) the guy who played Gopher?
Miss Jane from ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ is a Democrat.
There is a woman who was on ‘Dobie Gillis’ who is now in politics. She is a Democrat (and a lesbian).
Didn’t Warren Beattie run for President for about 15 minutes? And Tom Laughlin (Billy Jack) ran for President with pretty much the same level of success. Beattie is certainly a liberal, and Laughlin is sort of outside the standard political spectrum.
Most Hollywood liberals tend to support candidates rather than run themselves. Linda Bloodsworth-Thomas, for instance, (produced ‘Designing Women’ on TV) and her husband ran a travel agency. The reason Bilary fired the White House travel office personnel (and had them indicted on criminal charges - all were acquitted of all charges, although not until after Clinton saddled them with ruinous legal bills) was so that they could assign the Bloodsworth-Thomas travel agency this business.
And of course Algore is collecting lots of contributions from the limousine liberals with one hand, and scolding them for marketing violence to children with the other.
Then there was whatshisname- the guy who played ADA Ben Stone on Law and Order- who dropped off the show to run on the Paranoid Schizophrenic ticket (specifically, a right-wing Republican who felt that Janet Reno was bugging his office or some such).
Shodan:
No, Nancy Kulp, who played Miss Jane Hathaway, is dead. But yes, she did run for Congress as a Democrat in 1984. She lost the (Pennsylvania) race in part because her costar Buddy Ebsen made a commercial for her opponent.
Yes, Fred Grandy was the one who played Gopher. I wasn’t counting Nancy Kulp because she never won an office. I wouldn’t count Warren Beattie either, nor would I count Cybill Shepherd. Both Beattie and Shepard made jokes about running for President this year, but it was probably never serious (and maybe just a publicity stunt) on their part. Was anybody even listening to Tom Laughlin when he said he was running for President. Sheila James (Kuehl), who played Zelda Gilroy on The Dobie Gillis Show, did indeed became a lawyer and came out as a lesbian. She’s now in the California legislature. Like Eastwood’s job as mayor, that’s a minor enough position that I’m not sure I would count it.
If we were to name all the actors who lost elections or were major party contributors or who just mouthed off a lot about politics, it would be a long list, and it would include large numbers both of liberals, conservatives, and some whose politics are off the map. But the same would be true of any group of middle-class to rich Americans with about the same number of members. If we don’t include Clint Eastwood and Sheila James Kuehl, whose positions were fairly minor, I only count twelve actors who ever achieved significant political office or other jobs with significant political influence, and I still don’t think any of them except for Reagan had major influence on things.
The travel office people were acquited of the charges, but it’s also clear that they were incompetent at their jobs. They had the travel office accounts so badly screwed up that it’s no wonder they were suspected of theft.