Surprisingly Deep Celebrities

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not all celebrities are as troubled or vacuous as the current crop of A-listers sometimes seems to be. Some of them have more than just charisma, and are genuine intellectuals, or are prominent in fields other than what makes them famous.

I was reading this article about geniuses in Hollywood:
http://webcenters.netscape.compuserve.com/celebrity/becksmith.jsp?p=bsf_notdumbblondes

Of course, it wasn't a comprehensive list...

Two celebs not on that list that spring to mind for me:

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, guitarist for the Doobie Brothers & Steely Dan --> Defense Consultant & chairs a Congressional Advisory Board on missile defense.

Brian May, guitarist for Queen --> PhD in Astrophysics.

Any other (not neccessarily genius) celeb surprises out there?

 

[jaerdaph]

I think the biggest surprise for me was Marilyn Manson when I first saw him interviewed in Bowling for Columbine. He gave a great interview on Henry Rollins' show too.

 

[kenobi65]

You beat me to Brian May, Danny. He also built his own electric guitar (with help from his father) when he was a teenager -- a guitar that he still plays today.

Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe in "Friends") got her degree in Psychobiology from Vassar, and was going to go into medical research with her father (a doctor), when she got sidetracked into acting. The irony, of course, is that she's now best-known for playing a complete ditz.

Curt Schilling, pitcher for the Red Sox, is a wargamer, and one of the founders of Multi-man Publishing, which puts out Advanced Squad Leader, among other games.

 

[Zander]

I saw an interview with Morgan Freeman once that impressed me. I don't know if he's a genius per se, but he's certainly articulate and came across as very bright.

Hugh Grant has an upper second class degree in English from Oxford (my alma mater!). There are a number of other British actors who are very smart but perhaps not well known outside of the UK, Stephen Fry for example.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I knew about May's guitar- I've been trying to acquire an Burns' Guitars authorized Red Special for some time now...

Rollins & Schilling I'd heard about as well.

I knew about Kudrow, and I also recall there were some similarly gifted "ditz-cast" blonde-bombshell actresses from the days of B&W film...unfortunately, their names escape me at the moment.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Jayne Mansfield supposedly had a genius-level IQ (163), despite a career as a "poor man's Marilyn Monroe." She is most famous today as the mother of Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: SVU).

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

and I also recall there were some similarly gifted "ditz-cast" blonde-bombshell actresses from the days of B&W film...unfortunately, their names escape me at the moment.

See my previous post.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

THANK YOU!

That is EXACTLY whose name I was trying to recall!

 

[kenobi65]

II knew about Kudrow, and I also recall there were some similarly gifted "ditz-cast" blonde-bombshell actresses from the days of B&W film...unfortunately, their names escape me at the moment.

I've read that Gracie Allen (George Burns's wife), whose "in-character" persona was a ditz, was actually quite intelligent in real life.

 

[bento]

When Peter Weller (Robo-Cop)'s acting career hit a wall in the mid-1990s he decided to go back and get a post-graduate degree in art history. He's now a part-time lecturer at Syracuse University.

http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2007/01/robocop_phd.html