30 Once-Famous People Fans Spotted Working Regular Jobs
Fame doesn’t always last forever, and sometimes famous people who were once on screens or stages end up working regular jobs like everyone else. A recent AskReddit thread shared stories from folks who suddenly realized the person helping them or sitting across from them at work used to be well-known. Literally, some are doctors now. Pretty wild.
The stories are casual, surprising, and a good reminder that life takes people in all kinds of directions. Here are some of the most interesting “celebrity” encounters people shared.
1.
Danny Lloyd who played the kid in The Shining was my biology professor when I was in community college. Great professor, super nice. Doesn’t like talking about his childhood acting.
2.
My 4th grade teacher was the bassist for Joan Jett. When she got into the rock n roll hall of fame he was there. Weird seeing him on tv lol.
3.
My oncologist used to be the drummer for The Offspring.
4.
The kid who played Charlie Bucket in the original Willy Wonka is a veterinarian in Lowville, NY… an *extremely* small town in nowhere, USA.
He is pretty tired of talking about it.
5.
The other lead kid from Weird Science (the one who isn’t Anthony Michael Hall) was my medieval literature professor in college .
6.
My small, leafy mid Michigan liberal arts college had requirements in order to get a degree. I put the arts requirement off until my senior year and decided to take intro to theater. The professor turned out to be Jeff Daniels who lived a half hour away in Chelsea. His career was in a lull in the early 2000’s and the boredom was starting to get to him.
7.
I roomed in college with the kid who was the voice of Charlie Brown for many years. He works for the department of public works in a small town now.
8.
Owner of a local bike shop has an olympic gold medal in cycling. Still does repairs on bikes or sells bikes.
9.
Back when it was still a sweet little bar with great gumbo, Great Jones cafe in NYC was my favorite spot to grab a bite and a beer and listen to a quality jukebox. Awesome bartender. Marc was always good for an interesting chat. After years of doing this one day he says he’s gonna be out of town on tour with his band.
“Oh what’s your band called?”
“Sonic Youth”
Edit: correction for the record store nerds it’s Mark (with a k) Ibold better known as the bassist from Pavement. But toured with Sonic Youth in the 2000’s.
10.
My friend Kyra. She played Karen Cooper…the little girl in the basement in the original Night of the Living Dead. She went on to become an art teacher for many years. Now, she sticks to doing the horror convention circuit. She’s a phenomenal artist! She’s also a wonderful human who rescues hard to home animals. I love her dearly
11.
One of the creators of The Oregon Trail fixed our cable connection at our house in the late 1990s.
12.
I once saw Tommy Lee Jones working at a post office. I don’t remember what he did before that.
13.
Former Olympic gold medal swimmer Beth Botsford used to bartend at the bar next door to my condo. She was a genuinely nice person.
15.
Jenette Goldstein who played Vasquez in Aliens and John Connor’s adopted mom in T2 opened a bra store for plus sized women called Jenette Bras. “The alphabet starts at D”.
I did a play with her in 2004. She is rad.
If you’ve got a larger than average bust and live in L.A. go to Jenette Bras.
16.
I went to school with Jake Lloyd, the child actor who played Anakin skywalker. I’m not sure what he does now, last I heard he move to the Carolina’s and was having some mental health issues.
People liked to talk nonsense about him, but he was always kind to me, I think it was mostly just petty highschool bullying type stuff.
17.
I used to work EMS in NYC. There was a former jersey shore cast member who was briefly on the job.
Also the keyboardist for Type O Negative is a phenomenal paramedic working in central Brooklyn. Really cool, laid back dude. He also had the Highest tolerance for hot peppers I’ve ever seen.
18.
I met Eliza Dushku in my master’s program.
19.
Rogers Stevens, who was the lead guitarist of the band Blind Melon throughout the 1990s (and a few other smaller bands after Blind Melon broke up following Shannon Hoon’s death) is now practicing attorney in Philadelphia.
20.
When I was a store manager for Gamestop, I hired a guy from my hometown that was a former NFL player. He had retired due to injury, but was never a big name. He floated around the league playing for 4 teams in 6 seasons before the injury. He didn’t need the money. He had been smart with his money in regards to investments and savings and our hometown is pretty rural (i.e. poor). He just wanted to get out of his house and do something. He was a huge gamer and he was honestly a great employee. He never asked for special treatment or anything. I still talk to him every now and then even though we haven’t worked together in almost 15 years.
21.
My chemistry professor was in a punk band in the 80s that was self sufficient for several years. He was one cool dude and made chemistry interesting and fun to learn. I think I still have one of his band shirts he gave to us all.
22.
When I lived in Los Angeles, I took yoga glasses taught by the actress who played Libby on Lost, and the actress who played ~~Roz I think was the character’s name~~,Scarlett, who slapped Johnny Depp in ~~each of~~ the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
23.
My chemistry lab partner in college was Olympic skiing medalist Hillary Lindh. It was after she retired. She always came prepared and knew what she was doing, unlike me. Hillary was super nice and helped me a lot.
24.
Not long after mean girls aired, the actor who played Kevin G was one of the actors in the “village” on my class field trip to Pioneer Village in Toronto (if you live here, you know what I’m talking about lol). He was acting as an old timey lawyer, and when they asked if we had any questions, we asked “are you KEVIN G?!” He said yes and we were all screaming
25.
The guy who played Ogre in Revenge of Nerds worked at a bar near me.
26.
Lauren Tewes (Julie from *The Love Boat*) worked the fancy cheese section at the Capitol Hill/Broadway QFC (Seattle) when I used to live there. Very pleasant person.
To clarify: I used to live in Seattle, not the fancy cheese section of the Capitol Hill/Broadway QFC.
27.
Moe Tucker, the innovative drummer for the Velvet Underground was working at Walmart, when I met her in the 1970’s in Douglas, a little rural town in South Georgia. She left music to raise her kids.
I was a fan. She was just ordinary folks.
She later returned to music.
28.
The guitarist from Seven Mary Three is a bartender at a little Irish pub in Boston. He’s a cool dude and loves the jukebox playing Cumbersome 15 times in a row.
29.
In the 90s, Darius Rucker painted my grandmothers tv room.
30.
I worked at a call center with a very talented UFC fighter. He bought his mom and baby momma a house and a car. A couple times he started having nose bleeds at his desk. Like a spigot.