I was surprised to find out that Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden is a licensed transport pilot who flew as captain for a charter airline company. He is also a published author, a competitive fencer, and has started a school for airline maintenance mechanics.
Queen guitarist Brian May holds a Ph. D. in astrophysics and was chancellor of Johns Moore University in Liverpool.
Mayim Bialik of Blossom and The Big Bang Theory has a Ph. D. in neuroscience.
David Lee Roth of Van Halen is a licensed EMT in New York City who has ridden on more than 200 calls.
Which other high - profile entertainers are accomplished in other fields of study?
Actress Danica McKellar (who was in The Wonder Years as a teenager, and now appears in many Hallmark Channel films) has a degree in mathematics, and has written several books about math for adolescents, particularly for adolescent girls, to make math more interesting and accessible to them.
It sort of works the other way these days: Jimmy Dean was a very successful country singer and host of a network TV show before making sausages. Younger people aren’t familiar with his entertainment background.
Queen is an interesting case, because all four of the members pursued non-musical fields in college, and they all earned degrees.
May earned a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1968, and had begun work on his PhD in the early '70s, but didn’t finish his degree at that time, leaving his studies when Queen became successful. He returned to his doctorate work in 2006, and received his PhD in 2008.
John Deacon earned a bachelor’s degree in electronics. Though I don’t think he worked much in that field, he did hand-make the “Deacy Amp,” which he and May frequently used, out of junk-picked parts.
Freddie Mercury earned a degree in art and design in 1969. Like Deacon, I don’t think that Freddie really worked much in that field, though he did use those skills to design Queen’s “heraldic” logo.
Roger Taylor initially went to college to study dentistry; he became bored with it, and switched majors, earning a bachelor’s degree in biology.
Not only licensed, I believe he actually owns one (or did at one time). Didn’t he have a 707 parked outside his mansion, much to the chagrin of his neighbors?
Tom Scholz, founder of the band Boston, holds an engineering degree from MIT. He worked at Polaroid, and on his own, he created the Rockman, a handheld electric guitar amplifier that outputs to a pair of headphones.
Roger Daltrey owns a modest little trout farm that’s open to the public, but Ian Anderson did salmon farming on a massive scale, saying at one point that “we had 11 fish farms, a smokehouse and two processing factories. At one point we were employing 400 people, mostly in the factories, and turning over GBP 12 million a year.”
Paul Newman was an accomplished race car driver, and of course created Newman’s Own products.
Walter Brennan was a rancher and owned a spread in Joseph, Oregon. He also owned a hotel there.
Harrison Ford has been a private pilot for over 40 years. He’s made some serious errors in that endeavor that prompted an investigation into whether his license should be revoked. He was also a woodworker in a prior existence.
Brigitte Bardot went from actress to animal rights activist.
Yeah, Harrison Ford is rated in both aircraft and helicopters.
John Travolta is type-rated to fly the 747, and was a promotional Qantas airline captain for a bit, actually flying the 747.
But Tom Cruise has to be the #1 hollywood pilot. He is rated in jets and helicopters, and did his own insane canyon flying in the last Mission Impossible. He owns and flies a P-51 Mustang for fun.
R. Lee Ermey was an actual Marine drill instructor. He was hired as a technical advisor for ‘Full Metal Jacket’, but was so good at showing how to be a drill instructor that they just let him do the part and it kicked off a long movie career.
Jackie Gleason was a professional pool player before acting.
Nick Offerman is a talented woodworker, and owns a commercial woodshop.
Travolta and his neighbors all share the landing strip that runs between their houses, just up the street from me. And if he doesn’t stop landing his planes at Paddock Mall parking lot, there’ll be hell to pay.
American musician Deniz Tek formed seminal Aussie band Radio Birdman while studying medicine at Sydney University. After he returned to the US he became a US Navy flight surgeon. As he recounts here, his call sign, Iceman , was appropriated by the producers of Top Gun.
He now mixes his time between working as an emergency department doctor in both Hawaii and Australia, and touring with whichever band he is currently in. He and his wife own a coffee orchard in Hawaii and produce their own coffee.
John Travolta’s house was built with two jet bridges. He could taxi up to the side of the house, and people could embark and debark directly from the house.
Promotional as in, dressed in the uniform and did photo shoots, he never flew for Qantas in any way. I believe he got the 747 type rating as a gift from Qantas in return for the donation of the ex-Qantas 707 that JT owned.
