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Dublin: 10 °C Monday 20 May, 2013

Rags to Riches: 7 homeless people who became famous

Halle Berry, Daniel Craig and Charlie Chaplin all came from difficult backgrounds…

IT’S HARD TO imagine famous people ever struggling for money.

But many of them were nor just poor – they were homeless.

Here are some more incredible stories of people who at some point in their lives had nowhere to sleep but on the streets.

The eventually turned their lives around and became an inspiration to anyone who dreams of a professional career starting from nothing.

Rags to Riches: 7 homeless people who became famous
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  • Halle Berry

    When she first moved to Chicago to become an actress, Berry ran out of money and her mother decided the best thing would not be to send her daughter money. During these struggling times, the actress admits to staying in a homeless shelter. In an interview with Star Pulse, the actress said: "It taught me how to take care of myself and that I could live through any situation, even if it meant going to a shelter for a small stint, or living within my means, which were meager. I became a person who knows that I will always make my own way." Tammie Arroyo/UK Press/Press Association Images
  • Jim Carrey

    Jim Carrey once lived out of a VW camper van and in a tent on his sister's lawn. Carrey said that it was during these tough financial times that he developed a sense of humour. Peter Kramer/Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC NewsWire via AP Images
  • Jewel

    After being fired, multi-platinum singer Jewel lived on the streets. She said she became homeless because her boss propositioned her and when she refused him he wouldn't pay her. She said because of ill health she ended up almost dying outside a hospital because she didn't have health insurance. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, file)
  • Daniel Craig

    Daniel Craig, aka James Bond, once had to sleep on park benches in London. Ian West/PA Wire
  • Ella Fitzgerald

    She would go on to sing for President Ronald Reagan in 1981, but before becoming "arguably the finest female jazz singer of all time," Ella Fitzgerald was abused by her stepfather when her mother died at a young age She worked with the mafia for some time before the police put her in a school for girls. Fitzgerald ran away from there and was homeless until debuting at the Apollo Theater in 1934. Her voice quickly won her fame and throughout her career, she won 13 Grammy Awards and received medals from both President Reagan and George H. W. Bush. PA/PA Archive/Press Association Images
  • Britain Charlie Chaplin

    After the early death of his father, Chaplin's mother was put in a mental hospital and the young boy and his brother had to try to make a living by themselves on the streets of London. As both his parents were in show business, Chaplin and his brother decided to follow suit. Today, he's known as one of the greatest actors during the silent film era. (AP Photo, File)
  • Michael Oher

    During his childhood and teenaged years, Oher was living on the streets while his crack-addicted mother lived in public housing. He was eventually taken in to live with a wealthy family, played college football at the University of Mississippi and drafted into the NFL in 2009 for the Baltimore Ravens. His inspirational story was turned into Michael Lewis's 2006 book "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game" and the movie "The Blind Side." (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Watch: Jim Carrey sings Radiohead in a New York nightclub>

First pic of new Bond film: Daniel Craig’s grown a beard>

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Comments (12 Comments)

  • In the pic above does Chaplin look like Jedward minus hairdo….?

    Reply
  • Wow, interesting, what was it Johnny Cash said “life is rough so you gotta b tough”

    Reply
  • Dmc 16/06/12 #

    These days, its more riches to rags!!!

    Reply
  • The story about Micheal Oher is real proof that people are still really doin good in the world an actually have a heart, an the film is great too!

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  • Chaplin movie “the kid” is supposed to be a representation of Charlie growing up. A brilliant movie and it made me cry!!!!!!!!

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  • Brilliantly written..

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  • Halle come on over to my place

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  • Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort.
    Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.

    Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?

    Terry Gilliam: You’re right there Obediah.

    Eric Idle: Who’d a thought thirty years ago we’d all be sittin’ here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?

    MP: Aye. In them days, we’d a’ been glad to have the price of a cup o’ tea.

    GC: A cup ‘ COLD tea.

    EI: Without milk or sugar.

    TG: OR tea!

    MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.

    EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

    GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

    TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

    MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, “Money doesn’t buy you happiness.”

    EI: ‘E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN’. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.

    GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

    TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!

    MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin’ in a corridor! Woulda’ been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.

    EI: Well when I say “house” it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.

    GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!

    TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.

    MP: Cardboard box?

    TG: Aye.

    MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o’clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

    GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o’clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

    TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o’clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

    EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing “Hallelujah.”

    MP: But you try and tell the young people today that… and they won’t believe ya’.

    ALL: Nope, nope..

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  • What about Seasick Steve ?

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  • The story about Jewel being homeless is apparently untrue. Her background story is probably the only reason she’s famous. Her family actually chose not to live in conventional housing.

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  • With Halle Berry & Jim Carrey it seems more like homeless tourism rather than through hardship – a completely different situation to that faced by Ella Fitzgerald or Charlie Chaplin. A tourist has the choice to leave – the rest don’t.

    Reply

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