FILM STARS’ STRANGEST CAREER CHANGES
As big screen muscleman Dolph Lundgren prepares to try his hand as a game show host, Dan Beavan looks at other actors who took to very different jobs
1 IF you were an action movie director in the 80s needing to cast a monosyllabic, hulking beefcake (and Arnold Schwarzenegger was busy) Dolph Lundgren was your man. As roidedout Russian Drago, he pumelled Stallone in Rocky III; played the live action He-Man and a reanimated rogue G.I in Universal Soldier. But if you were after a genial game show host with a good line in pithy banter... not so much. So news that the Swede will host ITV4’s new Take The Tower (think Gladiators meets The Crystal Maze) this month came as a shock. 2 ARNOLD Schwarzenegger also made an unexpected left turn after quitting Hollywood, with the former Mr Universe, going into politics and serving two terms as Governor of California (2003-2011). 3 FRANKIE Muniz found fame early in sitcom Malcom In The Middle and the Agent Cody Banks films. But as soon as he was old enough to drive, he put acting on the back burner to pursue his love of stock car racing, competing with various teams in the notoriously dangerous motorsport. His racing days are now behind him and in 2017 he revealed he still feels the effects of a serious back injury sustained in a crash. 4 METHOD actor Daniel Day Lewis was known for disappearing into his roles, living off the land in preparation for Last Of The Mohicans and dressing in 19th Century garb before shooting The Age Of Innocence. But in the mid-90s he quit films to spend five years in Italy, making shoes. He returned to win two more Best Actor Oscars, suggesting his side career was utter cobblers. 5 GENE Hackman was known as one of Tinseltown’s best character actors in classics like The French Connection. His eye for an exciting yarn came in handy in his next career – as a writer of historical fiction. He’s collaborated on three books and in 2011, released his first solo effort, Payback At Morning Peak. 6 ALREADY Hollywood royalty, Grace Kelly took early retirement at just 26 to become a real-life Princess, marrying Prince Rainier of Monaco, pictured. Sadly, this meant the end of the Rear Window star’s acting career. When Alfred Hitchcock tried to cast her again in Marnie, there was an outcry in Monaco at the prospect of the princess playing a kleptomaniac – Tippi Hedren took the role. 7 THE angelic Shirley Temple, pictured, was one of Hollywood’s most famous child stars in the 1930s thanks to cutesy roles in Curly Top and Bright Eyes. As an adult she handled far more serious duties, as one of President Richard Nixon’s UN delegates and later as US Ambassador to Ghana. 8 CYNTHIA Nixon, who played Miranda Hobbes in Sex And The City, was another star who went into politics, but failed in a bid to become Governor Of New York in May. Her platform included the legalisation of marajuana. 9 BEFORE he was an 80s heartthrob, Mickey Rourke was an amateur boxer. The star of Diner and The Wrestler sought to relaunch his fighting career in 2014, aged 62, winning a exhibition bout against a 29-year-old. 10 BEST-KNOWN for his martial arts flicks, Steven Seagal has also been a blues musician and a reserve Deputy Sheriff. But the Buddhist actor’s most unusual side career came in 1997, when a Tibetan Lama revealed the Under Siege star was a spritual vessel for a 17th Century Buddhist Master named Chungdrang Dorje. Nice work if you can get it.