Acting is glamorous? Many started way at the bottom. Hugh Grant: “I cleaned toilets at IBM in London. I was good at it. Nothing I don’t know about cleaning a loo. I can get right down the pipes. I can get crystalline urine out. I might even have been happier in those days. Maybe one day I’ll go back to it.”
Look out, Ed Asner. Could be we have a Loo Grant.
And with Steve Buscemi: “At 18 I was a Valley Stream movie usher who maybe 40 times caught bits of Al Pacino’s ‘Dog Day Afternoon.’ I once saw the whole thing.” (He didn’t know that, at $4 a week, Al cleaned powder rooms. Nicole Kidman’s beginning was similar.) … Some stars went to the dogs. Sandra Bullock an animal beautician. Cyndi Lauper kennel cleaner … Once a grocery store clerk, Michelle Pfeiffer says “I even learned how to take stems off maraschino cherries.”
Willem Dafoe: “As a teen I bound Penthouse and Hustler magazines in a Midwestern factory. Never once looked at those erotic pictures. For me could’ve been National Geographic or Popular Mechanics.” … Gloria Estefan. Customs interpreter at Miami Int’l Airport. She told the Daily Mail: “I once caught a nun trying to smuggle contraband salami.” … Paul Rudd DJ’d bar mitzvahs … Graydon Carter: Railroad lineman … John Malkovich: School bus driver … Ozzy Osbourne worked in a slaughterhouse.
James Brown shined shoes outside Augusta, Georgia’s WRDW — then bought that whole radio station … NYC zoo attendant Sly Stallone quit after a lion’s share of pee reached him … Kelsey Grammer: Denny’s dishwasher … Ashton Kutcher: General Mills factory sweeper … Sinéad O’Connor: Kiss-o-Gram girl in Dublin … Julianna Margulies packed dead people’s belongings.
She struck real gold
It’s true. Before she hit it big in the acting world, Lucy Lawless was a gold miner in Australia’s Outback … Taye Diggs: Made $100 a week as a pizzeria worker. Then, clad in bananas, sang “Day-O” in Tokyo Disneyland’s “Little Mermaid” attraction.
Camryn Manheim: Deaf interpreter in a hospital delivery room … Harrison Ford: Carpenter. Built a studio for composer Sergio Mendes … Wolf Blitzer: “In Buffalo I drove a cab. When they wouldn’t pay I didn’t know what to do” … Warren Beatty, 17, caught mice behind DC’s National Theatre as Helen Hayes played “The Skin of Our Teeth” … David Duchovny: NY lifeguard at age 14. Mortifying at that age to make mature women cover up.
Working actors
Woody Harrelson: “Fired 17 times one year.” … Javier Bardem played rugby, then was a bouncer, writer, construction worker and stripper … Alfre Woodard: Giftwrapper. Then, for helping the homeless, fired as Penney’s perfume spritzer. Also dumped as a receptionist “for saying I could operate a switchboard — and couldn’t.” … Wilfred School of Beauty grad Danny DeVito’s specialty? Beehive hairdos … James Michener? Chestnut salesman… Wilford Brimley: Howard Hughes bodyguard … Popcorn seller Carol Burnett’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star was put at the door of the theater manager who axed her.
Jack Nicholson, cinema usher, “watched people necking then pointed my flashlight to embarrass the hell out of them.” … Dennis Quaid: “I was job challenged. At Astro World amusement park some kid kicked me. I complained and got laid off. Also dumped as a waiter in LA for dropping sour cream on some society lady’s head. Listen, I’m clumsy.” …
Penn and Teller’s Penn Jillette: “Hospital orderly. Worst was to prevent ‘skin flecks’ and ‘human giblets’ from clogging the drains.” … Brad Pitt dressed as a chicken for El Pollo fast food place at $8 an hour.
Dining at today’s sidewalk outdoor cafes what you can get for dessert is mugged.
For sure, mostly in New York, kids, mostly in New York …