Bob Newhart was an accountant until he was 39 or 40. That brings me great comfort, somehow, and has always made me look at him with a little more respect. Not that I have a thing about accountants, but rather that it’s nice to know that people can make big changes to their lives.
A few years ago I found out that Bobby Sherman, on the old TV show “Here Come the Brides,” was a paramedic and quite happy to be one. (In LA he occasionally visits the local news shows and does PSA’s for this or that safety issue).
One of the guys on the MASH TV show is currently some sort of real estate mini-tycoon.
What other careers have celebrities had, either before or after they became celebrities? And could we not include “waiter/waitress” and “office temp” and other stereotypical waiting-for-my-big-break jobs? Please note: I don’t think I’m being snobbish – my sister’s an office temp.
Character actor Vincent Schiavelli (Ghost) writes cookbooks as a sideline. I think he’s had three published so far.
The MAS*H real estate tycoon is Wayne Rodgers.
Julie Andrews, Princess Fergie, and a bunch of others have written children’s books – but all were basically moonlighting. I loved Andrews’ “Mandy” when I was a child.
Daniel Day-Lewis went on a seven-year shoemaking sabbatical in Italy, where he learned the time-honored craft of making shoes, the old-fashioned way.
Francis Ford Coppola is serious about his family winery.
Jamie Lee Curtis has also written at least one best selling children’s book.
Harrison Ford was a carpenter, and got his first acting job when he was spotted installing a door for some hollywood director, as I recall.
Fred Thompson was a lawyer, and he was heavily involved in the Nixon Watergate hearings. Then he became an actor, co-starring in movies like “The Hunt for Red October”. Then he became a Senator. Now he’s an actor again.
Hedy Lamarr was an engineer, and filed the first patent for spread-spectrum radio - at the time used for encryption in WWII, but now in widespread use in almost everything.
R. Lee Ermey, who played the drill instructor in “Full Metal Jacket” (along with many other roles), was in fact a career drill instructor in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Rodney Dangerfield sold aluminum siding and didn’t break into showbiz until he was 41 years old.
> Hedy Lamarr was an engineer, and filed the first patent for
> spread-spectrum radio - at the time used for encryption in
> WWII, but now in widespread use in almost everything.
No, not quite. Hedy Lamarr never worked at anything professionally except acting. However, she had heard about the problem that radio engineers were having coming up with some kind of radio communication that would be hard to jam. One day in the 1940’s, when playing around at the piano with film composer George Antheil, she came up with the idea of jumping around in frequency in radio communication. Antheil suggested using player piano rolls to control the jumping. It turns out that this system was useful not just for avoiding jamming, but it also made it hard to even find the radio signals if you didn’t know about the frequency-jumping. She and Antheil patented the idea.
Unfortunately, their idea of mechanical control of radio frequency made the system too clumsy to be practical. The patent ran out before anyone tried to put the idea into practice. In the 1960’s, when electronic control of radio frequency was possible, the idea was rediscovered. It was found that it had already been discovered by Lamarr and Antheil. I think that the idea was first used just with the idea of jamming and hiding communication, but later it was realized that it could be applied to encryption.
> Rodney Dangerfield sold aluminum siding and didn’t break into
> showbiz until he was 41 years old.
No, not quite. Dangerfield worked as a comedian in his twenties and maybe thirties under a different stage name. He dropped out of show business and sold aluminum siding for some years. Later he decided to get back into comedy and chose Rodney Dangerfield as his new stage name.
Jimmy Stewart’s parents owned a hardware store in Pennsylvania, and whenever they needed help with it he’d take a break from acting and go home to work there.
Among the people I can think of who had to start “real” careers or get “real” jobs after leaving show biz/ sports:
Byron “Whizzer” White led the NFL in rushing twice, but quit after getting his law degree, became a successful lawyer, and eventually ended up on the U.S. SUpreme COurt.
Tenley Albright, who won a gold medal in women’s figure skating at the 1960 Olympics, went to medical school and became a surgeon.
Scott Powell, who went by the name “Santini” in the band Sha Na Na, is now an orthopedic surgeon.
Donna Douglas found that, after playing Ellie Mae for years on “The Beverly Hillbillies,” she was all but unemployable in show biz. She’s been selling real estate almost ever since.
Ken Osmond, who played Eddie Haskell on “Leave It to Beaver,” became a Los Angeles police officer (he’s retired now).
Alex Desert from TV’s Becker used to be (still is?) one of the singers of the great ska band Hepcat.
Brandon Cruz, who starred as Eddie in The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, later sang for the punk band Dr. Know, and last I heard, was touring as the lead singer for the Dead Kennedys.
Peter Ostrum turned down a five picture deal after his only film role as Charlie Bucket in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and later became a veterinarian. Thanks IMDB!
Jeffrey Cohen, who was great as “Chunk” in The Goonies, gave up acting to become an entertainment lawyer. I watched my Goonies DVD the other night, and Chunk still cracks me up
Okay, maybe they’re not A-list celebrities, but Desert (who I knew about from Hepcat before he appeared in movies like PCU and Swingers) has a job on a prime time sitcom and the other three all put in memorable roles in the movies and TV before abandoning the biz for other careers.
[Homer Simpson] Doh!
[/Homer Simpson]
And me being a resident. Politicians just jumped clean out of my head. However, in my defense, I think it shows more character to become a paramedic than, say, President of the United States (or Governor of Minnesota). At least paramedics and accountants have to take written tests…
Fascinating stuff about Hedy Lamarr.
A guy from work reminded me about Mark Spitz.
That’s what’s really fascinating. At some point, a future-celeb or past-celeb looked in their mirrors and said, “Today, I am a dentist/accountant/realtor/peace officer. And it’s a good thing.” (Okay; I’m speculating on that last part).
I suspect that there have been no more actors, singers, professional wrestlers, etc. going into politics than you might expect for a job that occasionally leaves you with a substantial income if you decide to quit and try something else. In other words, look through the biographies of the current American senators, representatives, governors, and big-city mayors. Many of them already had careers as businessmen, doctors, lawyers, etc., and in their late thirties or early forties they gave it up to go into politics. It’s not surprising that some actors might also do this. It’s also interesting that the actors who have won significant political office in the U.S. have tended to be Republicans rather than Democrats. We’ve discussed this fact in several threads already, which you can find by doing a search on, say, “actor,” “politics,” “Democrat,” and “Republican.”
Graham Chapman never worked as a doctor. He had written and appeared in comedy sketch shows while a college student and while in medical school. When he finished medical school, John Cleese, who had written sketches with him, said to him something like, “Hey, let’s try to make a go of writing for TV and movies.” So instead of getting a job as a doctor, Chapman, along with Cleese, started writing sketches and scripts for TV and movies. So although he was trained as a doctor, he never worked as one. Same thing is true of Michael Crichton, incidentally. He was trained as a doctor but never worked as one.
Okay, but Jonathan LaPaglia of Seven Days and other shows, not only is trained as a doctor but also worked as one, an ER doctor, for several years before shifting gears and following his brother Anthony into acting.
Peter Garrett, lead singer of Midnight Oil, was an attorney.
NFL quarterback Steve Young has a law degree, but I don’t know if he’s using it or ever plans to.
