Famous Celebrity Teachers

By Ryan Crawley

Teachers are often local celebrities in the town that they teach in. People usually stop them on any trip to the grocery store or movie theater just to have a little chat. It’s as much part of the job of being a teacher as teaching in the classroom. An educator has to be a role model for adults and children in the area that they live. However, some teachers would go on to become much bigger celebrities than just in their own hometown. These former teachers would eventually become famous actors and singers not long after their time in the classroom.

Andy Griffith
Anyone that has had access to a television in the last 60 years should know exactly who Andy Griffith was. He was the star of several movies, his most notable was a film from 1957 titled A Face in the Crowd. But the role he is best known for is Andy Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show, also starring Don Knotts. Before he became a famous actor, he was a high school English, Music, and Drama teacher while he was in his twenties. It surely helped him when he was creating one of the most beloved tv shows of all time.

Gene Simmons
Most people know Gene Simmons as the co-founder of the band KISS. But the man with the extremely long tongue was a sixth-grade teacher in New York before hitting it big. However, most of his students wouldn’t recognize him because he taught without the makeup and platform shoes.

Sheryl Crow
The singer had a hit with her song "All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun", but a few years before that, she was a Music teacher in Missouri. In fact, some of her first songs she sang and sold were back-to-school jingles that she created.

Sting
The famous singer worked many odd jobs after graduating from high school. He would later teach Soccer, English, and Music at a Catholic school for two years. Sting later would recall those years, "I was the only man on the faculty. In fact, I was the only teacher not in a habit."

Stephen King
One of the most prolific writers of all time, Stephen King started out in the career of Education. In 1971, he was hired at Hampden Academy to teach English. He also married his wife Tabitha that year, another fellow writer. They struggled mightily the first few years of their marriage with finances. Their phone was often disconnected because they just did not have enough money to pay the bills.

By 1973, Tabitha was working at Dunkin’ Donuts while King kept teaching English in Maine. Finances continued to be so bad that he moonlighted as a janitor and gas pump attendant. They lived in a drafty doublewide trailer and drove around an old Buick held together by wire and tape. One day the Hampden Academy offered him an extra $300 a year if he would take the extra position of being the faculty advisor to the Debate Club. It was an offer he could not refuse, he thought, because it would allow his family to buy groceries. His wife, though, refused it for him when she realized it would not give him much time to write anymore. She was willing to risk it because she knew her husband had real talent. A year later, King sold his first novel, Carrie. It turned out to be a good call to turn down that Debate Club position!

Sylvester Stallone
While attending the American College in Switzerland during the 1960s, Stallone made some extra cash by teaching Physical Education. This was a perfect position for the health-minded future actor/writer. You can just hear him shouting out to his students, “You can do those pull-ups! Quitters can’t do pull-ups. And that’s not you! You are better than that! Now give me one more because Mickey loves you!”

Hugh Jackman
Wolverine was a teacher? He was! Hugh Jackman was a Physical Education teacher for high school students, and he remembers his time well. Don’t feel bad that your students don’t always behave. If Wolverine could not get his students to act like little angels, what chance do the rest of us have? Here is a little humorous video when Jackman ran into one of his former students on the red carpet. He was able to remember the man’s name and some of the things that he did in class that ticked him off.

Bob Denver
The Skipper might not believe it, but Gilligan was once a teacher. Bob Denver taught History, Math, and Physical Education at a Catholic school when he was 23 years old. He was allowed time off to audition for Dobie Gillis, and the rest is television history.

Dan Blocker
Blocker is best known for his role of Hoss Cartwright in the long-running show Bonanza, but he was a teacher first. This gentle giant was a high school English and Drama teacher. Dealing with troublesome students probably helped get him in the mood for handling troublesome outlaws in the series.



Ryan Crawley is a writer/educator from Illinois. Born into a family of eleven, he spent most of his childhood watching old reruns of Three's Company and Happy Days. He has his Masters in Reading and Literacy, and is a certified Reading Specialist. He spends his free time writing, working out, and hanging with his two dogs Flair and Smoosh Face.