Actors Who Sing
From BunzWiki
When you're a famous actor, you can get away with a lot of things. Vince Vaughn was involved in a fight, but charges were dropped; Hugh Grant received probation and a fine for a lewd conduct charge; Matthew McConaughey was arrested on drug charges, but those were dropped and he was fined $50 for disturbing the peace. But there's one thing actors get away with that may or may not be a good thing: actors who sing. Jennifer Lopez and Jack Black are established as both singers and actors, but some of the actors who cross over into singing do it just because they can.
Many of the singing actors come from a time when performers frequently needed a variety of talents to succeed in show business. Andy Griffith, best known for "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Matlock," got his start on Broadway, with 1955's No Time for Sergeants and Destry Rides Again from 1958. But although he is best-known as an actor, Griffith actually has a degree in music. He did not start recording albums until the 1990's, when he began recording gospel and spiritual music. He released four albums in 1996, from American Originals to Somebody Bigger Than You and I. Since then he has released several other albums, the most recent in January 2005 at the age of 79.
Hollywood star Bruce Willis has only recorded one album, "The Return of Bruno." The album was released in 1987, and was co-written and co-produced by Willis himself, with the funding coming from Dick Clark. The most amusing part of Willis's foray into singing is that even though it was not a top-of-the-charts hit, he continued to promote it by starring in the 1988 "mock-umentary" The Return of Bruno. The Bee Gees, Bon Jovi, Elton John, and Grace Slick all appeared in the film, lauding the talents of main character "Bruno Radolini," even though the album was released under Bruce Willis's name. The album itself continues to be popular among fans of Bruce Willis, and many of them acknowledge that there are better singers but that Willis's work isn't too bad either.
While Americans know Alyssa Milano for her performances on shows like "Who's the Boss" and "Charmed," she has an entirely different following in Japan. In the late 1980's, she released five albums to the Japanese market, where they all went platinum. Her first two, "Alyssa" and "Look in My Heart," were released in 1989 when she was 17 years old. The following year she released "Best in the World," and in 1991 she released "Look Inside a Dream"; her final album was 1992's "Do You See Me?" Although her albums were extremely popular in Japan - where she is recognized as a singer who acts, rather than the other way around - she was panned by Americans who got their hands on the albums; Playboy magazine described them as "teeny-pop mush" and said her musical credibility was "zilch."
Perhaps the best-known group of actors who sing is the Star Trek cast: actors from three of the five series have gone on to make their own records. William Shatner's 1968 album "Transformed Man" is probably the best-known of any Star Trek recording, but that wasn't his only album - his CD "Has Been" was released in 2004. Fellow actor Leonard Nimoy has actually produced several albums, from the 1967 "Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space" to 1993's "Highly Illogical." A 1997 compilation called "Spaced Out" featured songs from both actors, although none of them where they sang together. Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura on the original Star Trek, actually has a musical background - it is her own voice singing in the movie Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Her first album, "Down to Earth," was actually produced and released before Shatner's "Transformed Man." In 1991, Nichols released an album called "Out of this World" that was intended as a tribute to Star Trek. That same year, Brent Spiner released a collection of Frank Sinatra covers, linking the album forever to Star Trek by calling it "Ol' Yellow Eyes is Back." On one of the tracks from that record, backing vocals were provided by fellow Next Generation actors LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, and Patrick Stewart. While starring on the Voyager series, Tim Russ released a self-titled album in 2000 that was fairly jazz-focused; in 2001 he put out another album, entitled "Kushangaza."
Alyssa Milano may be big in Japan, but Germany loves David Hasselhoff! The ex-Baywatch star has been making music for almost 20 years, beginning with his 1984 album "Night Rider" which debuted while he was still starring in the TV show "Knight Rider." His next album, 1989's "Looking for Freedom," was the one that launched him into fame in Germany - he even performed a New Year's Eve concert at the Berlin Wall that year. He released albums on a variety of labels throughout the 1990's, with his most recent being the 2001 "Very Best of David Hasselhoff."
Whether or not Jennifer Love Hewitt has any musical talent is up for debate. Her dramatic debut was on the variety show "Kids Incorporated," and one year after leaving the show, she recorded her first album, "Love Songs," under the name Love Hewitt. She was just 13 years old at the time, and the album was not much of a sensation in the United States - after all, it was initially released in Japan, and would not make it to the U.S. until 1997. Her first U.S.-released album was 1995's "Let's Go Bang," which drew some negative press because of the raunchy-sounding title on an album made by a 16-year-old. Her third album, self-titled, was released in 1996, and after that her acting career began to take off. She took a break from recording music until 2002, when she released the album "BareNaked," which climbed to #37 on the Billboard charts.
And then there's Billy Bob Thornton. Fans and critics alike were pleasantly surprised by his 2001 album "Private Radio," but like Andy Griffith, Thornton had a musical background. He was a drummer in high school, and as an adult he also sang for the band Tres Hombres, which never achieved particular acclaim. He left Arkansas in 1981 to pursue writing and acting in Los Angeles, but even then he continued drumming on the side. And yet even with the 2003 album "The Edge of the World" and 2005's "Hobo," he is still primarily seen as an actor, starring in multiple movies annually.
More commonly called a "television personality," talk show host, or broadcaster rather than an actor, Regis Philbin is nevertheless also a singer. His 1968 album, "It's Time for Regis," failed miserably and he didn't try his hand at music again until he released "When You're Smiling" in 2004. When that recording did reasonably well, he released "The Regis Philbin Christmas Album" in late 2005. He has said that he has always wanted to be a singer - his style has been compared to famous crooners Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra (perhaps it helps that they are all from the same era?) - and now that he is wealthy and well-established, he can live his dream.
There are several well-established actors who are in bands, either a band fully made up of celebrities (such as the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rotating group of authors at times including Dave Barry and Stephen King) or featuring just one famous person. Actress Juliette Lewis is the lead singer for Juliette and the Licks, a punk rock band which released the album "...Like a Bolt of Lightning" in 2004 and "You're Speaking My Language" in 2005. James Marsters, who starred as Spike on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," provided lead vocals and played acoustic guitar for the band Ghost of the Robot. Formed in 2002 and dissolved in June 2004, the band was primarily known for featuring James Marsters, but also achieved a small following of its own. After the band broke up, Marsters began a solo career and went on tour in Europe in 2005. Another short-lived band was 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, which was led by Russell Crowe and released four albums. Teen actor Corey Feldman led his own group, the Corey Feldman Truth Movement, for the 1999 album "Still Searching for Soul." Feldman had previously released his own album, "Love Left," in 1994 as his acting career was fading. Unfortunately the Corey Feldman Truth Movement was not particularly successful; in a concert report from Atlanta a reviewer described the show as "a big joke that everybody in the building was in on - except Corey."
Don Johnson, star of "Miami Vice" and "Nash Bridges," released two albums in the late 1980's - "Heartbeat" in 1986 and "Let it Roll" in 1989. Perhaps in part because of his television fame at the time, the title track from "Heartbeat" was quite successful and Johnson filmed a full-length music video for the song. "Let it Roll," unfortunately, was not a hit, and his music career came to an end.
Teen actress Lindsay Lohan hoped to multiply her earning opportunities (and, reportedly, emulate her idol Ann-Margret) and became a singer in 2002. She was signed for a five-album deal by Emilio Estefan, but her first album was not released until December 2004, when her record "Speak" was rushed into stores and rode the Billboard 200 charts to #4 before going platinum. Her next album, released a year later, was "A Little More Personal (Raw)" but it did not go above #20 on the Billboard charts and quickly fell below 100.
Eddie Murphy released five comedy albums between 1982 and 1998, but only one musical album: "Love's Alright," from 1993. His own singing skill seems dubious, considering how many famous singers he pulled in to assist with the project: Garth Brooks, Janet Jackson, Julio Iglesias, Paul McCartney, and even the Boys' Choir of Harlem. Murphy's voice was described by reviewers as "thin" and without much vocal range, which is probably why his first two records were never released. Despite his lack of musical talent, though, Murphy is a voice artist as well as an actor; his voice credits include Shrek and Mulan.
