Four Celebs Who Belong to Mensa (and two who don't)
Update:I originally listed James Woods as a member of Mensa, and although multiple sources corroborated this fact, the Mensa Director of Operations contacted Alex to say that they have no evidence of it. They’ve tried to contact Woods to see what the deal is, but neither Woods nor his publicist have responded. So there you have it! And now we have proof that Neatorama has some very intelligent readers (we already knew that, though).
We all know them – the celebrities who are certainly pretty to look at but would probably be better off keeping their mouths shut lest they expose their stupidity. But they aren’t all that way – here are four famous people who are so smart they belong to Mensa, an international intelligence society that only admits people who score in the top two percentile of their approved intelligence tests (the Stanford-Binet is one, the Cattell is another). Translation: they’re really dang smart.
Asia Carrera
Some of you might be familiar with porn star Asia Carrera and some of you might not be. You don’t have to identify yourselves. But just because she’s in the pornography industry doesn’t mean she’s not smart. As a kid, she got grounded every time she got a “B” in school. Her grades and SAT scores were so high that she got a full ride to Rutgers, but turned to stripping to make some cash during school. She soon found her way into porn and became a big hit in the industry, but I bet you not many other big porn stars learned HTML so they could design and program their own website. Asia did. Her IQ, she says, has tested at 154 and 156.
Julie Peterson
Julie Peterson was the Playboy Playmate of the Month in February 1987, but she’s done a lot since then as well. For starters, she’s now Dr. Julie Peterson and has her own chiropractic practice now. For four years, she had a syndicated radio show for CNN called “Health Watch” that she produced, wrote and recorded. She’s an active member of The Society for Neuroscience. And, obviously, she’s a member of Mensa. But we might have guessed at her intelligence by her Playboy profile – her favorite books include Shibumi, Maia, Ramtha, and East of Eden. To compare, Anna Nicole Smith’s favorite authors were “The people who write my favorite soaps.” I know, I know, that’s not a very fair comparison.
Geena Davis
It’s not enough that she’s gorgeous and a successful actress – Geena Davis is also an accomplished athlete and, yes, a Mensan. She’s fluent in Swedish and her I.Q. has been reported at about 140, which is on par with George Washington. OK, we obviously don’t know Washington’s I.Q. for a fact, but a study was conducted in the 1920s that estimated the intelligence quotient of a bunch of leaders and scholars from the past. And when you think about it, isn’t being the lead actress in Earth Girls Are Easy just as brilliant as developing and leading the United States? (I kid.)
Glenne Headly
Yep, Tess Trueheart is super smart. Glenne is another member of the multiple languages club – she’s fluent in French and Spanish. She’s probably pretty well versed in American Sign Language as well, because she studied it intensely for her role in Mr. Holland’s Opus. Also, this has nothing to do with her intelligence (or does it?), but she was married to John Malkovich for six years in the ’80s. I don’t know about you, but I never would have made that connection.
Sharon Stone
Despite popular belief, Sharon Stone is not a member of Mensa. After she started to get a reputation as a bubbly blonde, Sharon told reporters that she was so smart that she belonged to the society that only admits people who score in the top two percent of their intelligence test. She maintained the story until 2002, when Jim Blackstone, Mensa’s national marketing director, called her out. After admitting that she wasn’t actually a member, she claimed that she did, however, go to a Mensa school. Blackstone says that couldn’t be true either, because no Mensa schools have existed since the early 1960s – Stone was born in 1958. That’s not to say that she wouldn’t qualify for Mensa, Blackstone pointed out – she reportedly has an I.Q. of 156 (higher than Abraham Lincoln’s supposed score).
James Woods
Although James Woods is certainly very accomplished, he is NOT a member of Mensa (see the disclaimer at the beginning of the article). However, his SAT scores put mine to shame (and probably yours, too), coming in at 1580, including a perfect 800 in the verbal section. After high school he moved on to MIT, where he was planning on majoring in political science. He didn’t quite make graduation, though – after joining the school’s drama troupe and acting in and directing a number of plays, James decided to drop out of MIT just shy of graduation to jumpstart his acting career. “It was a very wrenching and painful decision for me–in my senior year at MIT, on high dean’s list and full scholarships–to decide that maybe I wanted to be an artist,” he said. “Whether I’m making 30 grand a day or union scale, I have found something that I truly love, and that is something [my father] would have admired.” He dropped out of school in 1970 and just two years later he had his first major film role in Elia Kazan’s The Visitors. He followed that up with The Way We Were the next year and hasn’t really been hurting for roles ever since, so it looks like his decision to switch careers worked out. We’re hoping to hear his response to the Mensa issue!
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Movie Trivia: Beetlejuice
I love most Tim Burton movies, but I have a special fondness for Beetlejuice. It still kind of blows my mind to see the young, skinny Alec Baldwin, and I can’t quite reconcile that Beetlejuice is Michael Keaton. Mr. Mom? Jack Frost? C’mon. It’s pretty hard to argue that he’s not totally amazing in this film. It must have been a blast… which brings us to our first bit of trivia.
• Michael Keaton has said that out of all of his films, this one is his favorite.
• …Which is perhaps because he only spent two weeks filming. Even though Keaton plays the movie’s title character, Beetlejuice is only in 17.5 minutes of the whole film.
• The screenplay was originally written by Michael McDowell, who also wrote the script for an episode of The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents . The episode, “The Jar,” was directed by Tim Burton. McDowell also went to on write for Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.
• Warner Brothers really didn’t care for the original title, which happened to be Beetlejuice. They suggested House Ghosts, which Burton hated, so he retaliated with the equally horrible Scared Sheetless, just to annoy them. He was mortified when they loved it and considered using it.
• After the movie’s success – it grossed $73,707,461 in North America alone and was made for only $13 million – a sequel was considered. It was called – brace yourself – Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. The premise: the Deetzes move to Hawaii to develop a posh resort. Construction begins, and it’s quickly discovered that the hotel will be sitting on top of an ancient burial ground. Uh-huh. Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder were in, but Tim Burton was busy making Batman Returns and lost interest in the campy sequel. Thank God. I don’t think I could deal with Beetlejuice in a lei and flip-flops.
• The film won the Oscar for best makeup. It was up against Scrooged and Coming to America.
• Betelgeuse is a star in the constellation Orion – more specifically, it’s the star that represents his armpit. No coincidence, I’m sure.
• In the waiting room of the afterlife is a sign that says “No Exit” instead of “Exit.” That’s a reference to the Jean-Paul Sartre play, which is about three people stuck in a room together after they bite the big one.
• Tim Burton lobbied hard for Sylvia Sidney to play Juno the caseworker. She turned him down on multiple occasions, but finally said yes after some of the other stars (Michael Keaton in particular) confirmed. As an aside note, Sylvia Sidney’s first husband was Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss’ editor. And Sidney was certainly no newbie to the horror genre – she was the star of Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage in 1936.
• The guy who plays Otho, Glenn Shadix, can be found in some other Tim Burton productions as well. He’s the voice of the mayor in The Nightmare Before Christmas and was Senator Nado in Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake. He was also in the 1996 Michael Keaton movie Multiplicity. Photo from GlennShadix.com.
• Be sure to check out all of the guests at the famous dinner party scene – Bernard, the snobby dude who is clearly unimpressed with Delia’s “sculpture,” is played by Dick Cavett.
• Beetlejuice features our first-ever look at Jack Skellington, five years before Nightmare came out. He’s on the top of Beetlejuice’s carousel hat when he comes out during the seance.
As of 2005, Michael Keaton said he was still up for a Beetlejuice sequel. A year later, however, Tim Burton, said sequel plans were all but dead. What do you think? I could handle a sequel, just not a Brady Bunch-esque Hawaiian holiday. Maybe Lydia has grown up and our favorite Ghost with the Most comes calling again? Hmm. Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments.
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