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Hollywood loves a uniform on screen. Behind the camera, a surprising number of well known actors wore a real one first, often as teenagers or young adults with no acting plans at all.
Their stories differ a lot. Some were drafted, some enlisted early, and a few went on to serve long after their careers began. Here are ten who put on a uniform before the movies came calling.
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman joined the United States Air Force in the mid 1950s. He had dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot, but he ended up working as a radar technician instead. He served for about four years before leaving in 1959.
Afterward he moved to Los Angeles and began picking up stage and television work. Decades later he won an Academy Award for Million Dollar Baby. He has often spoken about how the Air Force gave him early time to think about what he really wanted to do.
Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood was drafted into the Army in 1951, during the Korean War. He was stationed at Fort Ord in California, where he worked as a swimming instructor. It was a quiet assignment compared with what many of his peers faced.
Even so, he had a close call. A Navy plane he was riding in as a passenger ran low on fuel and went down in the Pacific near Point Reyes, and he swam several miles to shore. He later broke into films through Universal, then became a star in Westerns and an Oscar winning director.