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36 Famous Folks Who Could Go Pro in an Entire Second Career

February 14, 2024

These celebrities either made it out of the late 20th century without consuming any lead, or they had a hero dose as a baby and turned into a friggin’ X-Man.

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36

CRACKED REAL ME WITH В Bill Maher has a double major from Cornell University. After graduating from Cornell with a double major in History and English, Bill Maher confessed his comedy dreams, began performing all over NYC and quickly landed The Tonight Show. — Source

35

Demetri Martin

CRACKED Demetri Martin left NYU Law School for The Comedy Cellar. After turning down Harvard twice, and leaving Yale for a full scholarship to NYU Law, Martin saw the Comedy Cellar right across the street, dropped out and never looked back. — Source

34

CRACKED Ken Jeong is still a licensed physician. A doctor specializing in internal medicine by day, comedian by night, Jeong booked a slew of bit parts in TV and film before his role in Knocked Up caused him to fully transition into comedy. — Source

33

Poetry

CRACKED David Duchovny was an aspiring poet at Yale. With a В.А in English from Princeton and a master's from Yale, he planned to be a poet and novelist before abandoning his Ph.D studies after booking a beer commercial. — Source

32

CRACKED Lisa Lampanelli: from Harvard to Rolling Stone to stand-up comedy. Lisa Lampanelli studied journalism at Boston College and a graduate program at Harvard. She was a copy editor at Popular Mechanics, and assisted at Rolling Stone before becoming The Queen of Mean at celebrity roasts. — Source

31

CRACKED Lisa Kudrow was following in her doctor dad's footsteps. With a Bachelor of Science in Biology, she worked at her father's medical practice for 8 years while dabbling in acting. While booking roles, she was researching cluster headaches. — Source

30

CRACKED Edward Norton consulted for the Enterprise Foundation in Japan. After studying history at Yale, he moved to Osaka, Japan to consult for his grandfather's non-profit - which helped provide affordable housing. — Source

29

Ron Shock

CRACKED Ron Shock was a vice president of a fortune 500 company. After a stint in prison for jewel theft, he was a regional vice president of MacMillan Publishing and owned a successful computer software company before starting stand-up at 40. — Source

28

CRACKED H FOR IV. James Franco could have designed and engineered weapons. Labeled a math wiz, he interned at Lockheed Martin while still in high school. Against his parents' wishes, he began acting but later made it up to them with 4 master's degrees and a Ph.D. — Source

27

Jerry Springer

CRACKED Jerry Springer was an advisor to Robert F. Kennedy (and a mayor!) In 1968, he was a campaign advisor for RFK, then even after a prostitute related scandal, he became mayor of Cincinnati in 1977. After a failed run for Ohio governor, he got into broadcast journalism. — Source

26

Greg Giraldo

CRACKED Greg Giraldo was an intellectual prodigy. After earning a Bachelor's from Columbia, he got a near-perfect score on Harvard's Law School Admission Test. Не graduated and worked as a lawyer for 8 months before quitting for stand-up. — Source

25

CRACKED Ali Wong leaned heavily into cultural diplomacy. She was an Asian-American major at the University of California who graduated summa cum laude, and studied as a Fulbright Scholar in Vietnam before ever trying stand-up. — Source

24

CRACKED Gulla A Award James Woods was almost an eye surgeon. With a reported IQ of 184, James Woods got a full scholarship to MIT, but his love of acting had him drop out one semester before graduating into his intended field of eye surgery. — Source

23

John Krasinski

CRACKED John Krasinski taught English. At Brown, he taught English in Costa Rica, and cited Management of Industrial and Nonprofit Organizations as his favorite class before acting in a play and never looking back. — Source

22

CRACKED Lewis Black was a Yale educated playwright. With a master's in Drama from Yale, he became a playwright and artistic director of West Bank Cafe Downstairs Theater Bar in NYC. Не began stand-up by warming up crowds before plays. — Source

21

Mike Judge

Mike Judge Creator of King of the Hill, Beavis and Butt-head, (and an entire list of other great f*cking shows and movies) Intel plays the Bass. Не is pretty good, too! Before his breakthrough with MTV, Judge quit an office job so he could play bass full-time with a blues band. CRACKED.COM — Source

20

David McCallum's acting career spans over 50 years, from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. to N.C.I.S. but he's also a composer of note. You'd recognize The Edge, if you heard it, since it's been sampled NCV extensively; most notably by: DR ORE THE NEXT EPISODE FEATURING SNOOP DOSO CRACKED.COM — Source

19

Thomas Jefferson is the father of American archeology. Не was the first person on Earth who excavated a prehistoric site to learn about its builders. Не used methods that became standard a century later. CRACKED.COM — Source

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18

Michael Dorn can fly military jets. The actor, who played Worf in the Star Trek franchise, started piloting in 1988 and he has since flown many different aircraft, including a Lockheed Т-33, an F-86 Sabre, an F-16, and an F-18. CRACKED.COM — Source

17

GRACKED.COM Richard Nixon was a multi-instrumentalist. Victoria Although he never learned to read music, Nixon could skillfully play the piano, saxophone, clarinet, accordion and violin. — Source

16

36 Famous Folks Who Could Go Pro in an Entire Second Career — Source

15

Condoleeza Rice is an accomplished concert pianist. She performed with the Denver Symphony at age 15, and has accompanied cellist Yo Yo Ma at Washington's Constitution Hall. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

Dr. Phil

CRACKED.COM Dr. Phil used to race moto- cross. Не can still pop a wheelie on a dirt bike. — Source

13

Prince has been described as a pool shark. The Purple One's personal photographer (who considered himself as a fairly decent pool player) told a story about how Prince beat him: He proceeded to basically clean the table two times in a row before I even had a chance to shoot. When I did finally have a chance, he beat the pants off me. Не was that good. And he was cocky about it, too. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

Susan Sarandon is good at ping-pong. SPiN NEW YORK She loves the sport so much that she co-founded SPiN, a chain of table tennis clubs and bars. It now has nine locations, including New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. GRAGKED COM — Source

11

36 Famous Folks Who Could Go Pro in an Entire Second Career — Source

10

CRACKED.COM The late Monty Python star, Graham Chapman, was also a qualified doctor although he obviously focused more on his comedy career. — Source

9

CRACKED.COM Justin Bieber can solve a Rubik's Cube in less than two minutes! RUBIK'S 4LIFE Yes, probably faster than you can! Bieber has been showing his puzzle-solving skills in many interviews through the years, for example on The Late Late Show with James Corden in 2015. — Source

8

Sir Anthony Hopkins paints canvases that sell for up to $80,000. BLIC Не paints four times a week, for hours and hours, and he's made more paintings than he can count. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

David Duchovny

DAVID DUCHOVNY IS A PUBLISHED NOVELIST. НЕ ALSO HOLDS A MASTER'S DEGREE IN LITERATURE FROM YALE. CRACKED.COM — Source

6

Richard Gere knows how to play multiple instruments, including the guitar, piano, and trumpet. And he composes. Gere would write the music for high- school productions he was acting in. Не even wrote the piano piece he played in Pretty Woman. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

Hilary Swank

GRAGKED.COM a BVLGAR n S Hilary Swank competed in swimming in the Junior Olympics, and was ranked the fifth all-round gymnast in her state. — Source

4

Margot Robbie

CRACKED COM days Consto Margot Robbie has given 100 tattoos to different people in her free time. — Source

3

ACTOR JASON MOMOA IS ALSO A PAINTER, HAVING STUDIED THE ART IN PARIS CRACKED.COM Which isn't strange, considering that his mother is a professional painter and photographer. — Source

2

Patrick Dempsey

Besides acting, Patrick Dempsey also has a career as a race-car driver. P. Dempsey TINI 911 Mot MARTINI M MARTIND MICHELIN CRACKED COM backer — Source

1

Plato was a well known wrestler In fact his name Plato (real name Aristocles) was given to him by his wrestling coach. CRACKED COM — Source

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