W never would’ve been elected dogcatcher in Bumfuck, TX if not for his daddy’s connections.
For what it’s worth:
In 2001, YES YOKO ONO, a forty-year retrospective of Ono’s work, received the prestigious International Association of Art Critics USA Award for Best Museum Show Originating in New York City. (This award is considered one of the highest accolades in the museum profession.)
I think based on “Gentle Ben,” Clint Howard is disqualifed from consideration. If he didn’t have any ability, he couldn’t have managed that.
*Van Dyke began his stand-up comedy career while still in high school in Danville, and was already a veteran of strip joints and nightclubs when he joined the Air Force Special Services in 1952. During the mid-Fifties, Van Dyke worked at WTHI-TV in Terre Haute, Indiana. The “Jerry Van Dyke Show,” which included future CBS News Today Show news anchor Joseph Benti, Nancee South and Ben Falber, was popular fare. In the service he performed at military bases around the world, twice winning the All Air Force Talent Show. *
His appearances on Dick Van Dyke came later…clearly he was already working in the biz.
I think Brian Doyle-Murray is a pretty good entry in this contest. Maybe they cast him as a straight man or maybe he’s a great writer, but I don’t see the funny and never have.
George W. Bush
Someone had to say it.
Absolutely true. Getting close to a casting director is half the fight. When my daughter was acting a casting director asked her little sister who had come along if she were interested - which is a lot closer to getting a job that an lot of people ever get. (She wasn’t.) And someone asked me once if I was there to audition for the role of the father. I was honest. But dealing with the child or sibling of an actor is dealing with a known quantity, and if they are around enough they might just hit a director as being right for a part.
I’m surpised it took more than 40 posts for someone to mention him. If his daddy hadn’t been POTUS, or for that matter rich to begin with, he would probably have been lucky to get a mid-level management position at a Dundler-Mifflin-like company.
I was just reading IMDB where angry nerds were complaining about Rob Zombie putting his wife in every movie he does.
Bit late to bid a Billy Carter, then…
Just about every First Lady.
Post #8 -
And #41 -
Jimmy “Hey, I’m Stevie Ray’s brother!” Vaughn.
I don’t think that’s fair at all. Jimmie was one of the founders of The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and was known around Austin, Texas prior to Stevie Ray’s rise to (well-deserved) fame. It’s true enough that Jimmie concentrated somewhat on working with Stevie’s unreleased catalog after Stevie’s death (producing and releasing material), but he also released albums of his own. If nothing else, he’d be known as the guitarist on “Tuff Enuff” and “Wrap it Up”, both Top Ten hits for the Thunderbirds back in '86.
Nancy Sinatra definitely was famous! Not so much now, but people would definitely recognize her pic more than Frank Jr’s.
Gwyneth Paltrow. I know she’s been in a lot of A-level movies, but she has never brought anything but her appearance to any movie she has ever appeared in.
Linda Eastman was well known as a photographer before she married Paul.
Do you think anyone would know who she was today if she hadn’t become Linda McCartney? I doubt it. Ditto Yoko Ono. I’m not saying they had no merit as human beings, nor careers before they married their famous husbands, but they would not be celebrities decades later.
Janet Jackson was an actress before she was a singer with hits. Her biggest role was on Good Times when she was around 13-16.
As I’ve some experience in small town local politics, I can attest that this is not true at all. W is the type of shrewd, venal, hail-fellow-well-met guy who could get elected mayor for life in many a small American town.
He sure wouldn’t have risen to owner of a MLB team, governor or POTUS without family connections though.
Janet is definitely talented, but would she herself have been noticed if she weren’t part of the Jackson clan? I mean, she was first noticed when she’d perform on stage with her family. Not saying she should have been, but even the most talented seven year old usually doesn’t get to perform on stage at Vegas.
Impossible to say. Probably not a household name - artists seldom are. But the reason these two women were in a position to even meet their husband’s is because they’d achieved some success on their own. Although both also came from wealthy families - and perhaps owe their pre-husband success to the freedom and connections of wealth.
Neither of them is famous for her art. Both are famous for being famous, and I thought that’s what the OP wanted. We could equivocate about every single person who’s been mentioned in this thread this way, since everyone was or is doing SOMETHING with their lives, and it’s impossible to know what they might be doing without the fame connection. But, if you had to guess, would they be a household name, a celebrity and not just a respected artist/photographer/whatever in their small niche? I think not.