Entertaining Brainiacs: Intelligent Celebrities Aren't Endangered Species (They're Just Under-Covered)

It is almost a common wisdom now for many to dismiss outright the brain potential of film and music stars as being inversely proportional to their good look and popular success. While many of the well-paparazzied Hollywoodsters do seem to have a knack for stumbling spectacularly (both literally and metaphorically) on camera, there are as many less well-covered ones who are quietly doing well on and off the spotlight. Here are a few of the latter, in alphabetical order:

1. Milo Aukerman: The enigmatic lead singer of the LA-based punk rock group 'The Descendents' really did go to college! In the 90's Aukerman took periodic hiatus from his beloved band to further his education before coming back to the rock music scene armed with a fresh voice and a PhD in biochemistry from University of Wisconsin - Madison. His good pals at Descendents made room for him by maintaining two bands: they are 'Descendents' with Milo around, and 'ALL' when he is off doing plant DNA research (Chad Price is ALL's lead singer).

2. Brian Cox: The soft-spoken ageless hipster joined the pop rock band 'Dare' in 1986 as a keyboardist before heading off to study physics in 1992. He joined up with another band, 'D:Ream', from 1993 to 1997 (the band's hit tune 'Things Can Only Get Better' was Tony Blair's official election anthem). Juggling music with his love for science, Cox finished his first class honors degree in physics from the University of Manchester, and went on to earn a PhD in High Energy Particle Physics at the DESY laboratory in Hamburg. Dr. Cox is now a Royal Society University Research Fellow, and when he isn't consulting film-makers or doing pro-science television programs he works with the ATLAS research project that uses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.

3. Jodie Foster: As secure and successful as this Hollywood A-lister is now, she had a rather tough start in life. Foster's father left the family and she had to go into acting at the tender age of five in order to help support her household. The child star turned twice Oscar-winning actress (as Sarah Tobias in 'The Accused' and as Clarice Starling in 'The Silence of the Lambs') and acclaimed film maker reportedly learned to read by age three and has been on an over-achieving spree ever since. She is one of the elite few who have won all four major motion picture acting awards (Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild). Fluent in French and Italian aside from her native English, Foster was class valedictorian at the Lycée Français de Los Angeles and graduated magna cum laude with a BA in literature from Yale University.

4. Greg Graffin: the lead singer of the rock band Bad Religion is one multi-dimensional dude. Graffin founded Bad Religion, one of the most influential punk rock bands of the 80's while in high school. He juggled music making with his love for natural science; studying ants, reptiles, and mammals for his BS in anthropology and geology at UCLA before earning his PhD in Zoology from Cornell University in 2003. Out spoken in his views on politics and religion, Graffin recently co-authored a book with Steve Olson called Anarchy Evolution about evolution and how we value science in society. Love the man or hate him, but you can't deny he does his homework and knows the heady stuff he talks about!

5. Art Garfunkel: One half of the legendary music partnership 'Simon and Garfunkel', he is a man of many talents. Garfunkel first paired up with his neighborhood friend, Paul Simon, in 1957 as 'Tom and Jerry'. The duo enjoyed a respectable popular success with their recordings, but went their separate ways when Garfunkel left to become a college singing jock (aside from singing in an all males a capella group he made Columbia College's tennis, skiing, fencing and bowling teams). After earning his BA in Art History at Columbia College and masters degree in Mathematics at Columbia University, Garfunkel teamed up with Paul Simon again in 1963... and the rest is pretty much stuff of rock music legend. Garfunkel also tried his hand at acting in the 70's and was nominated for Golden Globe Award for his supporting role in Mike Nichols' 'Carnal Knowledge'.

6. Kiralee Hayashi: The pint size gymnastic champion from Hawaii won scholarship to UCLA where she excelled in gymnastics (was 9 times All American) and earned a degree in neuroscience, did well-published research at the UCLA Neuro Imaging Laboratory before turning to acting. Hayashi is a sought after stunt actress and has appeared in hit films like 'Balls of Fury' and 'The Book of Eli', along with some high profile commercials and photo shoots.

7. Brian May: Queen's lead guitarist is every bit as accomplished in academic star-gazing as he is in making his Red Special electric guitar sing on the stage. Aside from his music success (18 chart-topping albums with Queen, #39 on Rolling Stone's List of Top 100 Guitarists of All Time, and the author of the ubiquitous sport anthem 'We Will Rock You'), May earned a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College in 2007 with his thesis on the Zodiacal dust cloud. His love for physics is actually apparent in one of Queen's hit songs, '39', from 'A Night At The Opera' album. The lyric tells of space travelers whose internal clock suffered from space-time dilation during their rocket trip, and they came home to find that time had passed by a lot faster on earth in their absence.

8. Danica McKellar: Who would have guessed that wholesomely cute Winnie Cooper of 'The Wonder Years' would grow up to be a math geek in real life? Not Kevin Arnold, at least! After wrapping The Wonder Years, McKellar guest starred in several television series while attending college. She co-authored a mathematical-physics paper that formulates what is now known as the Chayes-McKellar-Winn theorem as a senior and graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Mathematics from UCLA in 1998. She has since authored three math-made-easy-for-teens books; 'Math Doesn't Suck', 'Kiss My Math', and 'Hot X: Algebra Exposed'.

And so you see how unfair it is to lump any of these very intellectually well-endowed (and well-honed) celebrities in with the ones who can't tell chicken from tuna just to justify the desire to dismiss what they have to say that one may not agree with. Not all rockers are oversexed drug junkies and not all movie stars are air-headed plastic surgery addicts. There are many good apples in the show biz orchard, just as in other factions of society. The media spotlight may gravitate toward the spoiled wrecks, but that doesn't invalidate the wholesome ones that are (more) quietly going about being brilliant at what they do.

Sources:
- Tim Stegall. The Return of the Descendents. CMJ New Music Monthly. February 1997.
- Milo Aukerman interview at Medicinal Reverence For You blog. October 2010.
- David Smith. Putting the Fizz into Physics. The Observer 14 September 2008.
- Jodie Foster's ImDb biography
- Art Garfunkel's official website
- Greg Graffin bio at Goodreads.com
- Steve Olson. Greg Graffin: Punk Rock PhD. Paste Magazine, August 1, 2007.
- Exclusive Interview with Greg Graffin About Anarchy Evolution. The Bad Religion Page, July 2010.
- UCLA Bruins website
- The Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time List
- Queen's Brian May Rocks Out to Physics, Photography. National Public Radio Music Interview, August 2010.
- Refiloe Serai. Hollywood's Brainy Bunch. Heat Magazine, July2008.
- Sally Croft. Rock Stars with Extraordinary Brain. Student Loan Blog
- Danica McKellar's July 2000 Congressional Testimony before the House Committee on Science Sub-Committee on Technology