They Did THAT? Odd Jobs Of Stars Quiz

Answer: Christopher Walken

In 1959, at age 16, Walken took a summer job with a small, one-tent traveling circus owned by a man named Terrell Jacobs. Jacobs would tame about 12 lions and then send 11 of them out. At that point, Walken, dressed as Jacobs' son, would enter and "tame" the last lion. It was a real lion, but it was an aging, sweet female who, Walken later said, "acted more like a dog than any lion".

Walken said it was a job opportunity he could not turn down. He credited the circus job with helping give him a jack of all trades approach to later selecting various acting gigs. It also endeared this Deer Hunter actor to cats, although he prefers the more domesticated types.

Answer: Whoopi Goldberg

Whoopi Goldberg, in 1974, moved with her infant daughter to San Diego to pursue acting. At age 19, she found herself having to do odd jobs in order to support them. She was a licensed beautician who had attended beauty school, and after seeing an ad in the paper for a morgue beautician, she took the job. According to her own accounts, she approached the role with a lot of empathy, noting that you have to "love people" to give them a worthy final send-off.

Typical of Whoopi, she also found humor in the situation and would say the "customers never talked back or complained about their hair". She said the job not only gave her empathy for people, but allowed her to face fears and come out even stronger. This star of "The Color Purple" and "Ghost" said the early job gave her a grounded view of life, knowing that every day is a precious gift.

Answer: Rod Stewart

In the early 1960s, Rod Stewart left school and needed odd jobs to get money while he pursued music and football (soccer). He famously took a job on at Highgate Cemetery in North London. He was a manual laborer and was responsible for using string and tape to mark out where graves would be dug and to prepare the area for burial. Stewart revealed in his 2012 autobiography that he was actually a grave-marker and not the gravedigger that popular myth had created.

Stewart recounted that this early job gave him one key lesson: he realized he hated physical work. This was the impetus for him to find a role that did not force him to get his hands dirty on a daily basis. The star rocker, who also played himself in several cameo movie parts, says the time spent alone doing this job helped him learn quite a bit about himself and kept him grounded (no pun intended).

Answer: Brad Pitt

In 1986, Pitt had famously dropped out of the University of Missouri just two credits shy of a journalism degree, loaded up his car, and headed to Los Angeles with only $325 in his pocket. Needing money, the aspiring actor took a job with the restaurant chain El Pollo Loco. His job was to stand on the sidewalk in a heavy, feathered yellow chicken suit and wave at passing cars to draw them into the restaurant's grand opening. Pitt has joked that in the heat of a California summer, that suit was basically a "portable sauna".

Pitt later said that standing on a street corner being jeered at by people, or being totally ignored, was great training for the future rejections an actor probably faces. His most famous quote about the role is simply, "No shame. Man's gotta eat." It taught him the humility and grit needed to stick it out in LA for the five years it took before his breakout role in the movie "Thelma & Louise".

Answer: Hugh Jackman

Hugh Jackman was in his mid 20s in the late 1980s and was living around Sydney, Australia. He knew he had to work odd jobs in order to earn money while he continued to break into acting. He took the role as Coco, a clown who entertained at children's birthday parties. He did this for two to three years, earning around $50 per party. He admitted he was a "terrible clown" as he did not juggle, do balloon tricks, or know any magic. He limited his gigs to parties for children turning no more than three years old.

His clown career ended when he did a party for 8 year olds, where he ended up getting booed, humiliated, and the wrong end of egg throwing. Jackman said the job helped him realize an actor needs actual skills and not just raw enthusiasm. It encouraged him to continue his acting education. He also said it cured him of having an ego since he'd been paid almost nothing to have eggs cracked on his head by a child.

Answer: Eva Mendes

In the early 1990s Eva Mendes worked at the Glendale Galleria mall in Glendale, California. While attending high school and later while briefly studying marketing at California State University at Northridge, she was a team member at the chain Hot Dog On A Stick. She wore a vividly colored uniform and one of her tasks was "stomping" fresh lemons with a large manual press to make the chain's signature lemonade. She also spent time dipping the hot dogs in batter and frying them.

She was actually fired from the job after she gave an inappropriate gift to a co-worker during a Christmas gift exchange. She never owned up to what was in the present. She later said she could finally collect unemployment benefits while she focused on her acting auditions. The future star of "Training Day" and "Hitch" said the hot dog job taught her about work ethics and humility.

Answer: Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy left school at age 15 in 1964 with no qualifications and spent the next few years bouncing between manual labor jobs. One of these was a worker in a slaughterhouse, a job that he did for almost two years. He was responsible for slicing open the stomachs of cow carcasses to remove the internal organs. The smell was so repulsive that he later said he vomited every day for weeks before he became accustomed to the horror. He was deep in the bloody and gory mess for hours on end.

Ozzy would often cite this job as the origin of his Prince of Darkness persona. It also turned him into a vegetarian for stretches of his life. The sheer misery of the job was also a massive motivator. He knew that if he didn't make it in a band, his only other option was manual labour. Finally, he developed a dark sense of humor from the slaughterhouse which he would utilize on the stage and in television shows.

Answer: Geena Davis

Around 1979, Geena Davis graduated from Boston University with a drama degree and moved to New York City. She got a job as a sales clerk at the Ann Taylor store there. One day, she noticed a window display featuring mannequins sitting at a table eating plastic food. There was one empty chair, and she asked her coworkers if she should go sit in it. They told her no, but she rebelled and did it anyway.

Geena discovered she had a natural ability to remain perfectly still for long periods of time, and soon people were flocking to the window to see if she was real or not. She was so popular that the store officially hired her to be a Live Mannequin every weekend. Geena has said that this job was the first time she realized she could command the attention of a large group of people and be comfortable with people staring at her. It also encouraged her to go into modeling, which eventually led to her first movie role in "Tootsie" after the director saw her in a Victoria's Secret catalog.

Answer: Mick Jagger

Mick was almost 18 years old in 1961 and had just finished his A-levels at Dartford Grammar School and was about to enroll at the London School of Economics. He took a job for several months at Bexley Mental Hospital, where he was responsible for moving patients and heavy equipment between wards and treatment rooms. It was during this summer that he began the shift from being Mike, the middle-class schoolboy, to Mick, the musical rebel. Dealing with the environment of a 1960s mental hospital helped this transformation.

Mick would later say that working in a psychiatric facility gave him a front-row seat to people on the edges of society and would help influence some of the Rolling Stones' songs. The future celebrity also noted that manual labor was a great motivator to make his Plan B (aka The Stones) a success so he wouldn't have to spend his life in a service role.

Answer: Helen Mirren

In the early 1960s, Helen Mirren worked at the Kursaal amusement park in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. At the time, it was one of the world's first purpose-built amusement parks. Helen was still in school and just beginning her training with the National Youth Theatre when she became a blagger there. This is basically a barker-someone who stands outside a ride or attraction and uses a microphone (or just a loud voice) to shout and entice people to spend more money. She had to be quick, loud, and outgoing. She would watch the crowds and tailor her shouting to get people to stop and buy a ticket.

Helen said this role taught her how to project her voice and hold an audience's attention using nothing but her tone and presence. This was the very foundation of stage acting in her opinion. She also learned how to read an audience which would help her in future years. This future icon of the movies (e.g. "The Queen" and "Elizabeth I") also said it taught her that "show business" is mostly just business and work".