| Roscoe Arbuckle
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A comic genius from the golden age of the silent cinema, the Prince of Whales was the first comedian ever to be hit by an on-screen custard pie. He was working as an overweight plumber in 1913 when he was discovered by Mack Sennett. He had come to unclog the film producer’s drain but Sennett had other plans for him. He took one look at his hefty frame and offered him a job as a Keystone Kop. Eight years later, Roscoe signed a three-year contract with Paramount for $1 million – an unheard of amount at the time, even in Hollywood. To celebrate, Arbuckle and his pals booked into a room at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. It was to be his undoing. It was there that he was falsely accused of the rape and murder of starlet Virginia Rappe. The courts eventually cleared him but the public never did. After a huge media witch-hunt, Fatty never regained his popularity and died of a heart attack aged 46. |
Lee Marvin |
Born February 19, 1924, in New York City, Lee Marvin quit high school to enter the Marine Corps and while serving in the South Pacific was wounded in the Battle of Saipan. That sounds pretty heroic until you realize he was wounded in the buttocks. He spent a year in recovery before returning to the U.S. where he began working as a plumber’s apprentice in New York. The Marine’s loss was plumbing’s gain. He got his break when filling in for a sick actor and that inspired him to study at the New York-based American Theater Wing. He made his Broadway debut in a 1951 production of Billy Budd and also made his first film appearance in You’re in the Navy Now. Soon Marvin began appearing regularly onscreen, including a lead role in Stanley Kramer’s 1952 war drama Eight Iron Men. He then went on to a string of major roles including The Big Heat, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Dirty Dozen. He won the best actor Oscar for his dual role in Cat Ballou. Lee Marvin died of a heart attack in 1987 and was buried in Arlington cemetery next to fellow services’ veteran Joe Louis. |
| Art Carney
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Edward “Ed” Norton of The Honeymooners was a New York City sewer worker and Ralph’s best friend. His role was played by Art Carney. |
| Ozzy Osbourne
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Born in 1948 in Aston, Birmingham as John Michael Osbourne, the fourth of six children. The Osbourne family lived in poverty and a crowded house. Ozzy was beaten regularly by his father, mainly for behavior such as trying to kill his siblings. Constant fighting and arguing between Ozzy’s parents about their financial situation finally prompted him to try and do something about it. At the age of fifteen, Ozzy took his first job as a plumber’s assistant. Ozzy also tried some jobs in crime; this later landed him in Birmingham’s Winson Green prison for a short time for burglary. Once he was released, he never wanted to go back, so he decided to try and make a career in music. Ozzy joined and left many bands which never went anywhere before forming Rare Breed which became Earth which became Black Sabbath, named after a Boris Karloff movie. After a successful solo career he only became really famous when he let a documentary crew film his dysfunctional family and he became an MTV superstar. |
James Denton |
James Denton’s character on Desperate Housewives, Mike Delfino, poses as the friendly neighborhood plumber.The second of three children born to a dentist and his wife in Nashville, Tennessee, Denton attended Goodlettsville High School, played basketball at a junior college for a while, then went on to graduate with honors from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, snagging a degree in advertising as a television/journalism major on the way to Hollywood.
He never worked in real life as a plumber but his role on the television show “Desperate Housewives” has helped to glamorize the profession. |
Mario & Luigi  |
The famous plumbing brothers Mario and Luigi from numerous Mario video games from the 1980’s and 1990’s fought and were chased by creatures and dragons through complex mazes of pipes in order to rescue several princesses. |
