Odd facts about celebrities

Fretwired

Tommy Cooper was a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards and served for 7 years. I can't imagine Cooper on a horse with the big shiny helmet, red jacket and polished boots ... no fez.

The fez became a prop when he served with the 8th Army in WW2 and pinched one from a waiter whilst entertaining soldiers in a bar.

Any other odd celebrity stories ..

Handsome_Chris

So it was Trooper Cooper?  They never saw him at camouflage training.

stimpsonslostson

Steve Buscemi was a firefighter before he started acting. On 9/11 he went back to his old firehouse & reported for duty.

Dave Lee Roth is an ambulance paramedic in NYC. 

Dolph Lundgren won a Fullbright Scholarship to go to MIT to do chemical engineering (hence several jokes on the subject in one of the Expendables films). 

jonnyburgo

The part of grasshopper in the TV show Kung Fu was written for Bruce Lee but producers cast David Carradine as Lee was “too Chinese looking”

maltingsaudio

Skunk Baxter from Steely Dan worked for NASA and is now chairs a confessional advisory board on missile defence

ftumch

Joseph Stalin used to joint own a badger taming business in Dunstable with Julie Walters. When he realised his venture was never going to pan out he moved abroad and went into politics.

Sporky

Former Wheel of Fortune co- hosts Carole Smilie and Jenny Powell now run a glass-blowing school in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. 

prowla

Jack Osbourne is a part-time police officer.

thermionic

Welsh football legend Barry Horne has a degree in chemistry and is now a chemistry teacher in a posh private school in Chester.

MrBump

Christopher Timothy - who played James Herriot in the Beebs All Creatures Create And Small, once bought a porn mag from a newsagents where my mate was working.

Fretwired

Handsome_Chris said:

So it was Trooper Cooper?  They never saw him at camouflage training.

That was his first stage act - I jest not. Cooper the trooper.

munckee

Newsreader Jan Leeming is a dolphin from the waste down so went into newsreading so she could sit down for a living.

ftumch

I did my work experience with school at my local Theatre in Hayes, Middx. It was crap.
One of the jobs they gave me was calling round the local schools trying to sell group tickets for the upcoming 'Johnny Ball think of a number' show.
Nobody was taking the tickets because apparently (the staff there told me) the last time he was there he was swearing at the kids.

proggy

Michael McIntyre said something funny once.

ICBM

Hedy Lamarr was not only an early Hollywood screen star - famous for appearing nude in 'Ecstasy' in the early 1930s - she was also an inventor and electronics pioneer who worked on military radar guidance during WWII and developed a system of frequency-hopping whose descendent is in use today as part of the way Bluetooth works.

https://image.afcdn.com/dossiers/D20120802/hedy-lamarr-124510_L.jpg

ftumch

ICBM said:

Hedy Lamarr was not only an early Hollywood screen star - famous for appearing nude in 'Ecstasy' in the early 1930s - she was also an inventor and electronics pioneer who worked on military radar guidance during WWII and developed a system of frequency-hopping whose descendent is in use today as part of the way Bluetooth works.

https://image.afcdn.com/dossiers/D20120802/hedy-lamarr-124510_L.jpg

It's Hedley,,,

prowla

ftumch said:

ICBM said:

Hedy Lamarr was not only an early Hollywood screen star - famous for appearing nude in 'Ecstasy' in the early 1930s - she was also an inventor and electronics pioneer who worked on military radar guidance during WWII and developed a system of frequency-hopping whose descendent is in use today as part of the way Bluetooth works.

https://image.afcdn.com/dossiers/D20120802/hedy-lamarr-124510_L.jpg

It's Hedley,,,

Hedley, Hedley, Hedley!

Kilgore

ftumch said:

Joseph Stalin used to joint own a badger taming business in Dunstable with Julie Walters. When he realised his venture was never going to pan out he moved abroad and went into politics.

Stalin did actually stay in a Whitechapel  doss house during the 1907 Party conference.

Lenin and Trosky were of course middle class and preferred the more refined atmosphere of Bloomsbury.

Supposedly Lenin, Stalin et al spent nights in various london pubs plotting the revolution.

57Deluxe

at the height of their fame as10cc, Kevin Godley and his missus used to come into Waitrose daily in the HOT summer of '76 to buy their salad stuff fresh each day and always came through my till. They liked spring onions with it.

Got to the point where I was tempted to hum I'm not on Love...

Fretwired

Simon Cowell started life as a runner in the film business. He polished Jack Nicholson's axe in the Shining ...

Octafish

Fretwired said:

Simon Cowell started life as a runner in the film business. He polished Jack Nicholson's axe in the Shining ...

Fnarr, fnarr....