With awards season well and truly underway, Gregor Cubie takes a look at where our favourite Oscar-winning actor-types started out in the world of work…
Sailor
Humphrey Bogart – Voted America’s greatest film star by the American Film Institute, Bogart’s reasons for joining the US navy as an 18 year-old are hotly disputed. Theories range from indulging his love for the sea to ‘it was the early 20th century and back then boys who had been kicked out of school joined the navy’. As it turns out, ferrying troops back from the allied front at the end of the Great War instilled a sense of loyalty and discipline in Bogart which had probably been lacking when he (allegedly) pushed his head teacher into a duck pond – resulting in the aforementioned scholastic expulsion. This work ethic led Bogart to be renowned for his diligence and commitment to acting roles in a career which saw him win the best actor gong for The African Queen as well as being scandalously passed over for his performance in Casablanca.
Call Centre Worker
Whoopi Goldberg – Having grown up scarcely believing that a poor black woman from Manhattan could break into the white-dominated acting industry, Whoopi built her confidence in the telecommunications industry as what can best be described as a customer advisor (although it’s probably best not to elaborate on exactly what she was advising people about). Her charisma and accessibility led to some of the great acting performances of the late 80s and early 90s including winning the Oscar for best supporting actress for Ghost having previously been nominated for The Color Purple.
Labourer
Marlon Brando – One of only two actors to be included on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century, Brando attempted a similar course to Humphrey Bogart after an equally unhappy ending to his school career, when he was expelled for riding his motorbike… inside the school building. However he was unable to join the army due to an injury sustained playing (American) football and so kept up a summer job as a labourer, which mainly consisted of digging ditches by the roadside. With his highly active imagination insufficiently stimulated by the constant digging, Brando decided to go to theatre school and ended up winning two best actor awards for On the Waterfront and The Godfather.
Dancer
Matt Damon/Charlize Theron – Better known for playing soldiers and amnesiac spies, rumours abound that Matt Damon actually worked as a break dancer while studying at Harvard. Damon has in the past been unwilling to expand on his (alleged) time as a dancer but it fits with the complete set of talents, which helped Damon to an Oscar for best screenplay and a nomination for best actor for Goodwill Hunting, and later to be immortalised in the form of a mentally infirm puppet in Team America. Charlize Theron, famed in equal measure for playing the hot girl and the raving lunatic, the latter of which earned her a best actress award for Monster, first pursued a much daintier career in ballet dancing before a knee injury forced her into modelling, which in turn convinced directors to cast her in movies.
Masseuse
Nicole Kidman – She was first nominated for an Academy Award for Moulin Rouge in 2001, before finally winning the Oscar for best actress for her performance in The Hours. Before she turned to acting professionally, a young Kidman worked as a massage therapist to help support her family through a serious illness her mother was suffering, a heart-wrenching experience which prepared her well for every film she has ever been in. Except maybe Bewitched.
Lifeguard/Milkman/(nearly) Footballer
Sean Connery – All done at different times before he turned to acting (to my knowledge he never saved anyone who was drowning in a huge vat of milk), Connery basically tried his hand at everything, including the navy, like Bogart and modelling like Theron. He also claims to have been a talented footballer, though evidence of this is limited… Like every other Scottish footballer. The future James Bond’s confidence, charisma and worldliness gained from mixing and matching experiences as a young man had far more to do with his staggering career than his (sorry if this is unpatriotic) acting ability. The Oscar came for his supporting role in The Untouchables, an award he won despite also receiving the ‘worst accent’ award from Empire Magazine.
Clown
Hugh Jackman – Ok, so he hasn’t actually won an Oscar yet, but good old Wolverine has been nominated for the best supporting actor gong this year so we shall see whether his time working as Coco the clown was fitting preparation for his bid to join the immortals of the acting industry…
So, aspiring actors; take courage from the fact that down any career path lies knowledge and skills that can come in handy in even the most glamorous and treacherous of professions. Though it would be remiss not to point out that even these salt-of-the-earth folk who knuckled down in a real job had designs on being Oscar winners all along, and that the majority of Academy Award Winners from the last twenty years come from families deeply entrenched in the world of show business which makes the whole process just a teensy bit easier. Still, if Sylvester Stallone can get nominated in two categories, anyone can.
