I kind of understand where you’re coming from. If fame is your ONLY goal, that would be weird. But, I don’t see anything wrong with that being high on your priorities as an entertainer. Personally, I would choose fame over money. It’s far more intoxicating. As someone who has my material needs met as a kid, I can tell you that having a lot of “toys” is cool, but it won’t make you happy…at least for long. Of course, IMO, the biggest lure of being a entertainer or having any other unconventional career should be about doing what you like. Not fame, but that is cool too.
True, but an ego-driven businessperson is typically just unavailable - working late, puts meetings before ball games, etc. An ego-driven artist may write a novel featuring you (or a warped portrayal of you - fun!), steal your ideas and make art with them, aggressively pursue a dysfunctional relationship with you because, while it may be lousy for the relationship, it is good for their art, etc.
As for putting fame before money - and citing how money can’t buy happiness - well, fame can’t either. Fame can provide an adrenaline rush - I have been there in my own small-fish way, and it sure is fun - but it is not like fame can fill the voids in your life that are best occupied by a healthy sense of self and true purpose in life coupled with strong relationships.
Not only that, but an interesting aspect of fame is how it relies solely on other people wanting to acknowledge it for it to even exist. Whenever your happiness relies on other people, you’re going to be in for a lot of disappointment when those other people stop paying you attention.
And they will. If Brad Pitt stopped making movies this year, in less than ten years he would still have a handful of diehard fans, but most people would pass him on the street and say, “Hey, I think I remember that guy. He was famous for quite a few years.” That’s it. Despite the extreme amount of fame he has today, it would all but disappear within a few years.
If it’s power people want, money is a better way to get it. It’s easier to keep lots of money than it is to keep lots of fame.
The OP is somewhat of a straw man, but basically the less labor intensive and routine the job, the less “real” it is. To a blue collar guy, an office job is not a “real job”. I think celebrity jobs are not considered “real jobs” because normal “real” people generally don’t do them.
Of course, the more E! True Hollywood Stories and “where are they now” clips I see, the more Hollywood does seem like an actual job and celebrities are pretty much ordinary people who must maitain a persona pretty much all the time. It’s quite an eye opener seeing celebrity actors and rock stars 10-20 years after their hey day to find them working in an insurance firm or some such thing.
You know, I actually respect that she’s actually doing SOMETHING when she could just as easily sit at home all day and shop. She’s actually made a career out of being a rich pretty heiress - she models, makes mildly amusing tv shows, I think she has a clothing line. Granted, she is able to do this only because she is a rich pretty heiress, but if my dad was super-rich all I’d do is just drink and party.
The Kennedys are super-rich too, and yet they manage to do “something” more meaningful than Paris Hlton.
I feel obliged to reply to this. I am a semi-pro poker player. I’m currently working a full-time job, but play poker about 15-20 hours a week for extra income. The life of the pro gambler is often considered the epitome of the “non-real” job. You pick your own hours, are accountable to no one, can do the job from anywhere (thanks to the Internet), and contribute nothing to society except for taking money away from people with too much of it who might otherwise spend it on even worse addictions like drugs.
And now, with the exploding popularity of poker on TV, you can even become famous doing it.
The discussions I’ve had with other poker players reveal that people are generally split into two camps as to how they view the poker pro. Some are quite approving (and often jealous). They see it as a liberating, entrepreneurial endeavor, where long-term success is measured solely by your own talent, not politics, nepotism, classism, or any other favoritism. Some have compared it to the actions of John Galt in Atlas Shrugged–the ultimate “F___ You” to the masses. “I will use my intelligence entirely for my own benefit, not to do a job that helps anyone else in any way whatsoever.”
Those who disapprove often fall into the same trap as those who disapprove of artists, musicians, actors, etc. They fail to see it as “real work.” You tell someone you do one of these things for a living, and they instantly think–“Ya, but what do you really do for a living?” I suppose part of it is a lack of understanding–they think that if they haven’t heard your song on the radio, or seen you on TV, that you must not really be making money at it. But there are millions of people who support themselves in the arts, or by playing poker, who you’ve never heard of and likely never will. Bands that play local gigs, actors in touring theatrical groups, etc.
The disapproval is partly jealousy based as well. I’m stuck working 9-5 in a job I hate to pay the bills, why aren’t you? Why do you get to work different hours, wear different clothes, and act differently than everyone else? So they conclude that your job must not be “real,” since “real” jobs involve suits, bosses, and fixed hours.
I’m not sure any of this made any sense; it’s just something I threw together on my lunch hour.
Most entrepreneurs aren’t famous. Most don’t make any money at all, but I suspect almost all work a lot longer than 9 - 5. I’ve noticed also that the higher you go in a company, the longer hours you work, and the more time you’re away from home.
I don’t know what the numbers are now, but when my daughter was in SAG the average income was very low. Fame and acting are not identical - one good way of making money in acting is doing commercials. The residuals beat most legit jobs, except when you’re in demand enough to make over union wages.
I would suspect a lot of 9 to 5ers think the kind of jobs you mention are money for nothing. I bet a lot wouldn’t want to gamble and work as hard as those people do. It’s easy to convince yourself you could act if you got around to it, or write that great novel if you had the time. Much harder to do it and succeed.
But a valid reason for dissing some people who say they are actors is that they are wannabes, without enough talent to really make it, and not enough smarts to see that. My favorite example, from a while back, were a married couple who worked as extras around New York, and posted in newsgroups about how smart they were and how agents were useless and just ripped actors off.
They were just in denial about not being good enough to get represented, far as I could tell.
I can definitely say writing a book is harder than anything else I’ve ever done. And nothing on this earth would convince me to be an actor. It looks hard! The hours alone would drive me out of the business.
You have to be able to handle a lot of rejection. Even if you’re successful, landing one job in 15 auditions is considered to be very, very good. And it is hard. My daughter, who didn’t have a big role or a lot of lines, was totally exhausted after a day of shooting. It takes an incredible amount of focus and concentration, and the ability to turn it on at command. Agents can tell this somehow. I know I don’t have it.
Has your book sold? That’s the second step. 
Anybody who works at anything is beholden to someone else. The entrepeneur has to satisfy investors and customers. Actors and musicians take orders from directors, producers, agents, studios, record labels, whoever has a piece of them. Athletes have coaches, GMs, owners, agents, on their backs. It’s just not possible that they have no one to answer to. That’s a fantasy.
+1. As I have said to my son “Life is Sales” - you may hate salesmen or feeling slimy as you try to get people to do something for you, but regardless of what you do - a priest trying to get parishoners to think differently, an artist trying to get a fair viewing, a businessperson trying to get you to buy something, etc. - all sales…
Some of them do, some of them don’t. Hilton has made one very amusing video, puts her way ahead of most Kennedys. Calling her a slacker is seriously wrong. Granted, her wealth has given her breaks that otherwise wouldn’t be afforded to her, but she uses those breaks.
I think the problem people have with the “Life is Sales” approach is that it assumes there is no meaningful distinction to make between someone who is trying to push blivets on you because he wants to buy more bling bling, and someone who is advancing a cause or idea or religion or what have you because they genuinely think it will help people and make the world a better place.
On one hand, I hear ya EC - on the other hand, from the standpoint of a person on the receiving end of someone trying to get my attention, sometimes they do blend together - I can be as annoyed at a person trying to reach me on a religious matter as someone trying to sell me something.
The way the “Life is Sales” thing plays out within the context of the OP is two-fold, near as I can tell:
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if you want to be famous and/or not have a real job, there still must be an acknowledgement that, as most other posters have already stated, you have to be willing to bust your ass and get yourself out there.
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if you are pursuing being famous - or at least recognized for an art you do - then your “Life is Sales” focus is, obviously, selling yourself. That can be tiresome to those around you because it can come across as self-absorbed, etc…
Why do you separate the two? Or, really, why give one a moral highground it doesn’t deserve? 
Blivets are useful and make the world a better place for their users.
Ideas/causes/religions can be pushed to buy more bling bling for their pushers.
The methodology to successfully “push” both requires a remarkably similar skillset: the ability to be conversant about your subject, the ability to be persuasive and logical using arguments of your own devising, the necessity to know your audience, the ability to close the deal, the wisdom to set the agenda in any meeting, and the patience required to “pick your own fights”.