20 Famous Stars Who Got Discovered In The Most Unexpected Ways

While spraying fire retardant on drone planes at the Radioplane Company in Van Nuys, Calif., in 1945, Norma Jeane Dougherty was spotted by a photographer, David Conover, who had come to take pictures of war workers for an Army magazine. He persuaded her to model, and she signed on with a modeling agency, then went to Hollywood for a screen test that led to the stage name Marilyn Monroe. The commander of Conover’s Army unit, Ronald Reagan, has been credited with “discovering” her, but he was not present that day.

Elvis Presley, then an 18-year-old truck driver from Memphis, Tennessee, walked into Sun Studio on July 18, 1953, and paid $3.25 to record a private two-song disc. It was Marion Keisker, Sun’s studio manager, who oversaw that recording session, not Sun’s boss, Sam Phillips, who was actually away that day. When Keisker asked Presley if he sounded like anyone, Presley replied, “I don’t sound like nobody.” She wrote in the studio log, “Elvis Presley, good ballad singer. Save this,” and did just that, continually pitching him to Phillips for the next year.

In 1937, when Judy Turner, then 15, skipped out of her typing class at Hollywood High School and went into the Top Hat Cafe across the street to buy a bottle of Coca-Cola, she was noticed by William Wilkerson, publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, who asked if she wanted to be in pictures. He brought her to see an agent, and soon after, she made her debut as Lana Turner in “They Won’t Forget.” Publicists at the studio later concocted the legend that she was discovered at a soda counter at Schwab’s, which Ms. Turner spent many years trying to set straight.

Marion Morrison, 22, who played football at USC, worked for $35 a week as a prop boy at Fox Studios in late 1929, dragging furniture from set to set. While he worked, director Raoul Walsh spotted his rolling stride and heavy build and arranged a screen test. Walsh changed Morrison’s name to John Wayne and cast him as the hero of “The Big Trail” (1930), which was his first leading role. Before that, director John Ford had given Morrison bit parts, but Walsh made him a star.

When the French novelist Colette saw Audrey Hepburn, 22, in the lobby of the Hôtel de Paris, she already had a credited supporting role in “Monte Carlo Baby.” “Voilà! There is our Gigi!” Colette said. She made Hepburn play the lead in the Broadway stage version of her novella. The play was a hit, leading a couple of years later to “Roman Holiday” and the actress’s first Oscar.

Johnny Cash was a 22-year-old Air Force veteran who’d become an appliance salesman when he auditioned for Sun Records producer Sam Phillips in Memphis with his band, the Tennessee Two. Cash and his band played a set of gospel songs. Phillips told Cash he couldn’t sell religion, so Cash went home and brought back “Hey Porter,” a song he’d composed while stationed in Germany, and Phillips put him on the label. The idea that Phillips told him to go home and sin is from a movie; Phillips didn’t say that.

3-year-old Shirley Temple was taking dance lessons at Meglin’s Dance Studio in Los Angeles when a talent scout arrived to find a child of any preschool age to star in a short-film series. Temple hid behind the piano, but the man still noticed her curls and smile, and hired her for $10 a day. This wasn’t exactly a path to stardom. But a few years later, her Fox film, “Bright Eyes,” made her the biggest moneymaker of the decade.

Clint Eastwood, age 21, was drafted during the Korean War but never left the United States. He was assigned to Fort Ord in California, where he worked as a swimming instructor. One day Chuck Hill, an army buddy of Eastwood’s, brought the 6-foot-plus lifeguard up for inspection by a visiting Universal-International production team. Director Arthur Lubin wasn’t all that impressed by Eastwood’s acting, but liked his presence, sent him for some speech lessons, and signed him soon after.

At 21, Roy Fitzgerald was a Navy vet, delivering vacuum cleaners in Los Angeles. He would loiter by the back gate of Hollywood studios, sending his photos to various agents. In 1947, an agent named Henry Willson saw one, signed him, and decided to make him an actor despite the fact that he had zero experience as such. Willson rechristened him Rock Hudson, paid for dentistry, and coached him in acting, voice, and posture. But even then, it took Hudson 38 takes just to deliver one line in his debut film, “Fighter Squadron” (1948).

Sammy Davis Jr. was only 25 and still billed as part of his father and uncle’s Will Mastin Trio when he was scheduled to open for the headlining act at Ciro’s, a nightclub on the Sunset Strip. But instead of a quick opening act, he gave a 40-minute show of singing, dancing, and impressions that earned a standing ovation from the crowd. Eddie Cantor, a popular entertainer who happened to be in the audience, championed Davis afterward, setting off a successful solo career that included appearances on national television.

In March 1943, 18-year-old Betty Joan Perske, an aspiring New York model, landed on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar. Nancy “Slim” Keith, a socialite, saw the cover and handed it to her husband, director Howard Hawks, urging him to test her. Even though a secretary mistakenly mailed Perske a train ticket to Los Angeles, Hawks tested her anyway, renamed her Lauren Bacall, and cast her opposite Humphrey Bogart in “To Have and Have Not” (1944).

A teenage dream of dancing was shattered for Doris Kappelhoff, 15, when, on October 13, 1937, she was riding in a car near Cincinnati, Ohio, when it was hit by a freight train. The accident badly fractured her leg, making dancing impossible. She spent the next year confined to bed, singing along with the radio. She then took voice lessons and began to appear on the local radio station WLW. Bandleader Barney Rapp heard her sing and, in 1939, made her the vocalist in his band, giving her the name Doris Day.

In 1940, Ava Gardner, age 17, traveled to New York to visit her sister. Her brother-in-law, photographer Larry Tarr, put a photo of her in the window of his Fifth Avenue studio. A theater clerk named Bernard Duhan saw the picture and came to the studio claiming he was an MGM scout, asking for her phone number. Tarr refused to hand it over, but the encounter prompted him to send her photos to MGM’s New York office anyway. She received a screen test offer in 1941 and signed a seven-year contract with MGM.

In 1945, Burt Lancaster, then 31, was an ex-circus performer and World War II Army vet who had never studied acting. He was on an elevator in the RCA Building in New York, on his way to meet his wife, Norma, when his large size attracted the attention of Jack Mahlor, a friend of a Broadway producer. He was invited to audition for “A Sound of Hunting,” which lasted only three weeks but earned Lancaster seven screen offers, including “The Killers” (1946).

Jeanette Morrison, aged 18, was a college student. Her father, Frederick Morrison, worked at the front desk of the Sugar Bowl Ski Resort in Soda Springs, California, and kept a photograph of Jeanette hanging behind him. In February 1946, the retired MGM star, Norma Shearer, spotted the photograph, took it home, and sent it to her friend, talent agent, Lew Wasserman. He arranged a screen test for Morrison, and she was soon under contract with MGM and cast as Janet Leigh in “The Romance of Rosy Ridge” (1947).

17-year-old Angela Lansbury, a recent arrival from England, was working for a modest wage at the cosmetics counter of Bullock’s Wilshire department store in Los Angeles when she caught the eye of screenwriter John Van Druten, who met her off duty at a social event thrown by her mother, the actress Moyna Macgill. Van Druten knew her story and suggested her to the director George Cukor. Cukor chose her for “Gaslight,” and the teen got an Oscar nomination.

Issur Danielovich, 28, had recently returned from a stint in the Navy. He was looking for work on Broadway when he was seen by a former classmate, Lauren Bacall, who was already a movie star, in an Off-Broadway production in 1945. She insisted that Paramount producer Hal Wallis come out and watch him. Wallis did, and put him in “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” (1946). He had taken the name Kirk Douglas.

Mary Frances Reynolds, age 16, entered the Miss Burbank contest in May 1948 primarily because of the promise of a free blouse and scarf. She appeared in a swimsuit that had been mended by her mother and shoes with paper padding. But her comedic charm won her the competition in front of Warner Bros. and MGM talent scouts. According to Reynolds, the two studios tossed a coin for her services, Warner Bros. winning the toss, paying $65 a week and naming her Debbie.

Sofia Scicolone, a 15-year-old living in poverty outside of Naples, Italy, was Candidate No. 2 in the Miss Italia competition held in Rome in September 1950. She didn’t win. Producer and judge Carlo Ponti, however, was impressed with her appearance and coaxed the other judges to give her a special “Miss Eleganza 1950” prize. Ponti signed her and paid for acting and speech classes, renaming her Sophia Loren.

Sean Connery, 22, a milkman from Scotland, took third place in the Tall Man class at the Mr. Universe competition in London. While backstage, another contestant suggested the show was looking for beefy men to sing in a chorus in the West End production of “South Pacific.” So Connery auditioned, joined the chorus, worked his way up to a featured role with speaking parts as the show toured, and got into television, which is how he wound up in front of the men who wanted to make “Dr. No.”

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