Famous Homeless People
Just about every day I hear about another “famous” person who was once homeless. So I’m going to start listing them here so you guys can see that it’s not the end of the road if you keep the right perspective. You may be surprised at the names you find here. I link to the original sites when and where possible! The names are in no particular order. I add more as I get them. And yes, Benji (a dog) is a “famous person,” according to his trainer he was so smart he WAS human. And he was “homeless” when he was “discovered.”
May 1, 2010 update. Most of this information was taken from [Wikipedia] or other online news sources and needs to be fact-checked before you quote it. I’m cleaning it up myself but just to give you a heads up, check before YOU quote! Thanks!
For those who disagree that a dog can be “homeless” since it is an animal, please be aware this page and site is to start a conversation about homelessness, what it means, its impact and so on - and is NOT an argument to “PROVE” what is or is not homeless. It’s about a conversation, not a debate or about whose definition is right or wrong. Thanks!
Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D. -
Dr. Teitelbaum discovered a treatment program for Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue while he was homeless! Dr. Teitelbaum had to drop out of medical school when he came down with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue. He managed his condition, returned to medical school and graduated with an M.D. and now runs the Fatigue Clinic in Hawaii, and also has a website and a Facebook page with great information on how others (including me!) can help their own Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue symptoms.
After his body shut down while under stress in medical school a professor advised him to “take time off” and “regroup,” which he did. He hitch-hiked around the country looking for a cure for his fatigue. He found it, obviously, and returned to complete his degree and then devoted his life to helping others with the same condition. Who says God doesn’t have a plan!!
After years of looking for answers to my own fibromyalgia I was THRILLED to find him, even more thrilled to learn that HE gets it and has been there himself. Check out his book:From Fatigued to Fantastic
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23-year-old Blair Griffith Miss Colorado - 2011
Watch the video clip on MSNBC: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/41778312
In 2006, the year I became homeless, Blair Griffith became Miss Teen USA. In the years that followed however, Griffith’s father died and her mother had a heart attack that their insurance wouldn’t pay for. The $800 a month in medical expenses, her mother not being able to work any more, and other rising expenses forced Blair and her mom out of their home. Colorado sheriff’s showed up with an eviction notice, giving the women two-hours to get their belongings and leave. Being homeless didn’t stop Blair. In June 2011 she went on to enter the Miss USA Beauty pageant, but, as Denver’s popular magazine WestWorld noted, Griffith was defeated by “fembots” who fit the definition of bland and boring and non-controversial more than Griffith. I have no doubt she’ll make it - even though her current job at a retail store is ending soon. The cost of living in Denver is ridiculous - and even hard for a beauty queen to find a living wage job.
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Suze Orman - Oprah’s Financial Wizard
Suze has been called “a force in the world of personal finance” and a “one-woman financial advice powerhouse” by USA Today.
USA Today called Suze Orman “a force in the world of personal finance” and a “one-woman financial advice powerhouse.” She’s also a two-time Emmy Award-winning television host, New York Times mega bestselling author, magazine and online columnist, writer/producer, and one of the top motivational speakers in the world today. With her own shows on television, radio and the internet, plus regular appearances on Oprah, Orman is undeniably America’s most recognized expert on personal finance.
However, she dropped out of college shortly before graduating. According to her most recent book, “Women & Money,” she borrowed $1,500 from her brother, bought a used Ford Econoline Van, and with the help of a friend converted it for sleeping. Then she and two friends took off to “see America.” Shortly after that they got jobs clearing trees from a field. Suze said she lived in the van for two months before getting her next job - as a waitress at the Buttercup Cafe. Although Orman never uses the word “homeless” to describe her stint in the van, the US Census Department would.
Steven Pressfield
“It is one thing to study war, and another to live the warrior’s life.” - Pressfield
Pressfield, a Marine, author and once homeless - living in his Chevy van with his cat, struggled to the top of his field, but is firmly ensconced there after writing “The Gates of War, The War of Art, and The Legend of Bagger Vance, among others. His website, his philosophy and his books are well worth the read, as any military man will tell you. The Gates of War is considered the bible of war for any one entering the military.
Francis O’Dea (born 1945 in Montreal) is a Canadian entrepreneur, humanitarian and author. He left a lifestyle of homeless panhandling and in 1975 co-founded the Second Cup chain of coffee stores with Tom Culligan. Second Cup is Canada’s largest specialty coffee retailer, and operates more than 360 cafés across Canada. He is currently the Chair of PureRay Corporation President of ARXX Building Products and Chair of Royal Roads University Foundation[1], and regularly speaks professionally on the subjects of his personal and business life.
He was involved with the founding of Proshred Holdings Ltd. an international document destruction service (1986) and Samaritan Air Service, a regional air ambulance service (1989).
O’Dea became founding President of Renascent Treatment Foundation, (1983), founded Street Kids International, with Peter Dagleish, (1988), and the Canadian Landmine Foundation (1999). Supported by Colin Powell, Sir Paul McCartney and Kofi Annan, he initiated the international charity, Night of a Thousand Dinners (2000).
A pilot since 1983, he commutes to work in Toronto and Cobourg from his residence in Ottawa by air in his own plane.
John Drew Barrymore
Actor; father of actress Drew Barrymore spent many years living on the streets and in shelters, becoming more and more reclusive and eventually disappearing into the wilderness maintaining very little contact with friends and family.
Halle Berry
In an interview with magazine, US Weekly, Berry stated that she had stayed in a shelter for a time.
Jim Carrey
Actor, writer, producer and comedian lived out of a VW van in various locations across Canada with older brother John Carrey, older sister Rita Carrey, and parents Percy Carrey and Kathleen Carrey. Also camped in a tent with his family in the backyard of the home of his older married sister, Patricia.
Charlie Chaplin
Oscar-winning actor,writer,director and producer; British-born author; knighted. Lived on the streets of London during his childhood after his father died and his mother, Hannah suffered a mental breakdown. After Hannah Chaplin was again admitted to the Cane Hill Asylum, her son was left in the workhouse at Lambeth in south London, moving after several weeks to the Central London District School for paupers in Hanwell. Chaplin’s early years of desperate poverty were a great influence on his characters. Themes in his films in later years would re-visit the scenes of his childhood deprivation in Lambeth.
Kelly Clarkson
Grammy Award-winning singer; American Idol television talent show 1st-season winner 2002. Lived out of a car and in a shelter, with her female roommate after a major structural fire forced them out of a 71-unit apartment building in West Hollywood, California in March 2002. In an interview with Inside Edition television news magazine, September 5 2002, her roommate-fellow Texan, actress/singer Janet Harvick was quoted as saying, “It was really, really rough because we had just moved here, and we had just moved in the day of the fire. We knew nobody here—I mean nobody, so the night of the fire, the next day, and night, we stayed in our car.”
US Weekly magazine, September 23, 2002; print story: “‘My apartment [building] burned down; my car got towed twice,’ recalls Clarkson, who, with nowhere to go, lived in a homeless shelter for several days.”
Kurt Cobain
Grammy Award-winning singer,songwriter, musician; lead vocalist of the band “Nirvana” camped under a bridge in Aberdeen, Washington USA and slept in a cardboard box on the porch of a drummer friend; hallway floor of an apartment building, hospital waiting room and old couch in a garage. (source: book, Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, by Charles R. Cross, 2001).
Daniel Craig
Actor; James Bond in the 007 movies, is reported as having slept on a park bench in London while a struggling actor. (source: Daily Mail newspaper, October 14, 2005).
Bobby Driscoll
Oscar-winning actor (as child star); the original voice of Walt Disney’s 1953 Peter Pan animated movie died alone and destitute of a heart attack at age 31. The body was discovered by boys playing in a vacant tenement building in New York City and was buried in an unmarked grave, unidentified until several months later.
George Eads
Actor; star of the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation lived out of his car, in Los Angeles while a struggling actor.
Richard Fagan
American songwriter; wrote six number one hit songs. Albums featuring his songs have sold over 25 million copies. Became homeless twice in the 1970s after being discharged from military service in the Vietnam War. On April 26, 2008, Fagan, then a Nashville songwriter, was arrested and charged with the murder of Gaetano Tom Oteri, father of former Saturday Night Live star Cheri Oteri.
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella spent years as a struggling, homeless teenager before she was discovered in a singing competition. In 1932, her mother died from a heart attack. She was taken in by her aunt, Virginia. Shortly afterward her sister’s guardian also died of a heart attack and Frances joined Ella at Virginia’s home in New York City.
Following these traumas, Fitzgerald’s grades dropped dramatically, and she frequently skipped school. At one point, she worked as a lookout at a bordello and also with a Mafia-affiliated numbers runner. After getting into trouble with the police, she was taken into custody and sent to a reform school. Eventually she escaped from the reformatory, and became homeless.
Chris Gardner
Multimillionaire stockbroker (net worth $65million (2006)); American author; the 2006 movie the Pursuit of Happyness starring Wil Smith was based on his life. He slept in subway stations, trains, bathrooms, church-run shelter with his son in California.
Kelsey Grammer
Emmy Award-winning actor; star of the television series Frasier camped out the back of a theater behind his motorcycle (source: Entertainment Tonight, December 12, 2001, celebrity ‘Rags to Riches’ story segment.)
“Benji,” the dog. Los Angeles trainer Frank Inn was a true animal lover who was always taking in animals from shelters to save them from euthanasia. When he couldn’t train them, he would work to find them a home with his friends or fans. He found Higgins in the Burbank Animal Shelter. Higgins was only a puppy at the time, but Inn saw a world of potential in the little critter.
His first role was in “Petticoat Junction,” where he appeared in six of the show’s seven total seasons. During that time, he also made guest appearances on “Green Acres” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Directors and co-stars quickly noticed his ability to convey broad range of facial expressions and his aptitude at learning new tricks on a regular basis. Inn said he was the most talented dog he ever worked with and that Higgins could learn a new routine every week. Some of his tricks included climbing ladders, opening mailboxes, and yawning and sneezing on cue. He was such a capable animal actor that he was featured on the cover of TV Guide and won the Picture Animal Top Star of they Year (Patsy) award in 1967.
In 1971, he starred in “Mooch Goes to Hollywood” with Zsa Zsa Gabor and Vincent Price. He retired after this movie, but he came back at age of 14 to star in “Benji,” his best known role. His daughter, also trained by Inn, continued his legacy in the following “Benji” films.
Cary Grant
Oscar-winning actor slept rough on the streets of Southampton, England during a summer in his youth at the time of World War I. (source: book, Cary Grant: A Biography, by Marc Eliot, 2004, page 31: “Archie then volunteered for summer work as a messenger and gofer on the military docks, often sleeping in alleys at night if he didn’t make enough money to rent a cot in a flophouse.”).
Harry Houdini
Magician, escapologist and actor; Hungarian-born American author slept rough and in temporary shelters; left home at age 12 in search of work and traveled for two years on his own, making his way from Wisconsin to Missouri and settling finally in New York City.
Djimon Hounsou
West African-born (Beninese) Oscar-nominated actor and model slept on the streets and in subways near the Eiffel Tower for two years beginning at age 13 before being discovered and offered modeling contract.
Eartha Kitt
She slept in subways and on the roofs of apartment buildings. “When I see the homeless now, I empathize,” she told Kaufman in the New York Times. “I know there but for the grace of God go I,” she continued. Eartha Mae Kitt (January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American actress, singer, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her 1953 Christmas song “Santa Baby”. Orson Welles once called her the “most exciting woman in the world.”[4] She took over the role of Catwoman for the third season of the 1960s Batman television series, replacing Julie Newmar, who was unavailable for the final season.
David Letterman
Emmy Award-winning television writer, comedian, author and talk-show host of the television talk-show Late Show with David Letterman spent time living out of his Chevy pickup truck while struggling to establish his career.
Lil’ Kim:
In an interview with USA Today Weekend, she was quoted as stating at 8, she and her mom left Kim’s abusive father. “There was a time when my mother and I were living out of the trunk of her car”. “We slept in the back seat.”
Harry Edmund Martinson
Nobel Prize-winning Swedish author (abandoned by his mother at an early age along with his sisters when his father died; later as an adult, he traveled for a time on a “homeless tramp” as a vagrant and vagabond, experiences that provided the basis for some of his writings). Martinson was born in Jämshög, in the Swedish county of Blekinge in south-eastern Sweden. Having lost both his parents at a young age, he was put into foster care. At the age of sixteen, Martinson ran away, and enrolled on a ship where he spent the next years sailing around the world. A few years later, lung problems forced him to set ashore in Sweden. He proceeded to travel around Sweden without a steady employment, at times living as a vagabond on country roads. In the city of Malmö, he was arrested for vagrancy, at the age of 21.
Rose McGowan
Quoted in Interview Magazine in 1997: “I was homeless for a year. I teamed up with this other girl - I met her the first day I was on the streets - and we roamed all over Oregon and Washington.” Rose Arianna McGowan[1] (born September 5, 1973)[2] is an American actress best known for her role as Paige Matthews in WB Network supernatural drama series Charmed. She has also appeared in several major Hollywood films including The Doom Generation, Scream, Jawbreaker, and Grindhouse. She was until recently the co-host of TCM’s film-series program, The Essentials; in the most recent season, Alec Baldwin has replaced her as co-host. She played Ann-Margret alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis Presley in the CBS mini-series Elvis.
Jim Morrison
Singer, songwriter and poet; lead singer and lyricist for the 1960s rock band The Doors; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (with The Doors), slept on rooftops, in cars and under the pier at Venice Beach, California and ‘couch surfed’ at friends apartments. A music icon of the 60’s he was ranked number 47 on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”.
George Orwell
His real name was Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), but he’s better known by his pen name George Orwell. Blair/Orwell was an English author. His work is marked by a profound consciousness of social injustice, an intense, revolutionary opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism.
Considered “perhaps the 20th century’s best chronicler of English culture,” he wrote works in many different genres including novels, essays, polemic journalism, semi-sociological literary criticism, and poetry. His most famous works are Homage to Catalonia (1938); his personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War, the satirical novel Animal Farm (1945), the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), and his numerous essays. Orwell’s influence on popular and political culture remains apparent, with numerous of his literary concepts, and the term “Orwellian” entering the popular vernacular. The origin of his pseudonymic surname “Orwell” can possibly be derived from the river Orwell which, due to being a massive port and having the largest town near his fathers home in Southwold, was a favored place of his. He stayed in homeless shelters either to research material for his work or more likely, out of necessity.
Charles Sanders Peirce
Harvard University educated genius scientist, mathematician, logician, philosopher and author; first psychologist elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Peirce spent much of his last two decades unable to afford heat in winter, and subsisting on old bread kindly donated by the local baker. Peirce died destitute in Milford, Pennsylvania.
Sally Jesse Raphael
It is written in her biography, ‘An Unconventional Success’ that she lived in her car for a time. For a while, her financial situation was so dire that she was on food stamps.
Debbie Reynolds
Wrote about having to literally live in her Cadillac for a while after divorcing Harry Karl.
Harland ‘Colonel’ Sandersstrong>
Businessman; founder-spokesperson of the Kentucky Fried Chicken fast-food restaurant chain. Became homeless at age 10 when his mother remarried and he left home due to altercations with his stepfather. As an adult he slept on the back seat of his car because he could not afford lodging as he traveled around the United States and Canada, sometimes with his wife Claudia, trying to sign up restaurants to use his special fried chicken recipe for a franchise licensing fee.
Tupac Shakur
Actor and rap music star. Impoverished throughout most of his childhood, with his mother and half-sister, he moved between homeless shelters and low grade accommodations in New York City.
William Shatner
Emmy Award-winning actor, director and best-selling Canadian-born American author. After the cancellation of the television series Star Trek, in which he starred, he travelled the east coast of the U.S. appearing in a play on the summer theater circuit and sleeping in a camper with his dog, a Doberman pinscher. “I now had three children and an ex-wife to support and I was just about broke,” he told the Daily Mail in May, 2008. “I lived out of the back of my truck, under a hard shell. It had a little stove, a toilet, and I’d drive from theater to theater. The only comfort came from my dog, who sat in the passenger seat and gave me perspective on everything.” (Details magazine, January 2008.)
“I’d been a working actor for decades, I’d starred in three failed TV series [Star Trek the most recent] , and I was a divorced father of three children living in the back of a truck.” (Up Until Now: The Autobiography, by William Shatner with David Fisher, 2008, page 159. ) Also, earlier in his life, he hitchhiked across the U.S. with a male friend during a summer break after their freshman year in college. (From the same above autobiography, page 32) “We had no money, so we made signs reading ‘Two mcGill Freshman Seeing the U.S.’ and hit the road. We spent three months living in cars and sleeping on the grass and on the beach.”
Martin Sheen
Emmy Award-winning actor,director and producer; slept in New York City subway while a young struggling actor. Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez, (born August 3, 1940) better known by his stage name Martin Sheen,[1] is an actor best known for his performances as Captain Willard in the film Apocalypse Now and President Josiah Bartlet on the television series The West Wing. As well as the critical acclaim he has received as an actor, he has become known as an activist. Born and raised in Ohio, United States, with Irish and Spanish parents, Sheen is also an Irish citizen.
He is the father of actors Carlos Irwin Estévez (Charlie Sheen), Emilio Estévez, Ramón Estévez and Renée Estévez, and is brother of the actor Joe Estevez.
Marc Singer
British-born director, documentary filmmaker and former model slept in subway tunnels in New York City for two years while making a documentary on the city’s homeless. Singer has appeared in several fantasy adventure films and series, such as The Beastmaster and its sequels, in which he played the title role, and as Mike Donovan in the 1983 mini-series V, the 1984 sequel V: The Final Battle, and the TV series V: The Series.
Other roles include the 1982 film If You Could See What I Hear (where he portrayed blind musician Tom Sullivan), Body Chemistry, Something for Joey (as football star John Cappelletti), Watchers II, High Desert Kill, The Fighter, Go Tell the Spartans and Dead Space.
Singer voiced the character of Man-Bat on Batman: The Animated Series. He has guest-starred on television series, such as Dallas, The Twilight Zone, The Hitchhiker, Murder, She Wrote, The Young and the Restless,The Ray Bradbury Theater and Highlander: The Series.
Singer is active in theater and played Petruchio in the American Conservatory Theatre production of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. He also played Christian in ACT’s Cyrano de Bergerac. Both Taming of the Shrew and Cyrano were filmed.
Singer is currently teaching kids inter-disciplinary tactics at the Heifetz International Music Institute, which is located in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.
In 1989, when she was 15, Swank and her mom packed up their Oldsmobile Delta 88 and, with just $75, headed to Los Angeles. They lived in the car until a friend [evetually] gave them a place to stay. Swank’s mom used a pay phone to book her daughter for auditions. (Readers Digest)
Chinese-born film director (Mission Impossible 2, Broken Arrow, Windtalkers, etc.) Lived in a crude shelter having been made homeless for a year and losing everything at age seven, along with his family, after a major fire in Hong Kong on Christmas Day 1953 destroyed his home and those of 50,000 other residents.
Actor THOMAS JANE lived on the streets of Los Angeles for months before he made it big in Hollywood, surviving as a busker.
The Punisher star slept on park benches in between street performances, and he is convinced that his tough times gave him the hunger he needed to finally succeed.
He says, “You have to sacrifice everything you have. I was homeless for a couple of months there. I stayed in welfare hotels in downtown L.A. and when I wasn’t doing that I was living off of food stamps.
“I bought a guitar and I would sit on Hollywood Boulevard or on Santa Monica Boulevard and I would busk.”
