The Real Tough Guys
Hollywood actors like to play tough, but which ones can actually back it up?
Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin enlisted in the Marine Corps on August 12, 1942. After taking part in 20 amphibious assaults as a scout sniper in the Pacific Theater of WWII, he was struck several times during the assault on Mount Tapochau, but still fought on.
One of the few survivors from his company, Marvin earned the Purple Heart Medal, the Presidential Unit Citation, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the WWII Victory Medal, and the Combat Action Ribbon.
Christopher Lee
Before he was a legendary screen villain, Christopher Lee was an active spy with the RAF during WWII, leading missions behind enemy lines across North Africa and Italy.
While filming the Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson once tried to give Lee direction on how to sound when he gets run through. Lee replied, "Have you any idea what kind of noise happens when somebody’s stabbed in the back? Because I do”.
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James Caan
James Caan was known as "Killer Caan," both for sanctioned boxing matches and street fights. He later branched out into other fighting disciplines, becoming a Master (6th Dan) of Gosoku-ryu Karate.
Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi served as a firefighter with the NYFD's Engine Company No. 55 in Little Italy, Manhattan, from 1980 to 1984. Back then, he didn't want to admit to anyone that he was taking acting classes on the side. Well, those classes sure worked out for him.
On September 12, 2001, nearly 20 years since he left firefighting, Buscemi showed up at his old firehouse to volunteer. He spent the next week working 12-hour shifts, sifting through rubble and looking for survivors.
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Steve McQueen
Abandoned as a child by his parents, Steve McQueen had to get tough just to survive. He first lived on the streets when he was just nine.
Getting into street fights and working in a Dominican cathouse at age 16 were not good outlets for that toughness—but serving in the Marine Corps, performing his own stunts, and racing anything with an engine were. No wonder he's the "King of Cool".
Dennis Farina
Before ever acting, Dennis Farina served as a detective with the Chicago PD for nearly 20 years. Then Michael Mann hired him to consult on a movie to add realism. Mann liked Farina so much he gave him a role in his debut film, Thief.
Jimmy Stewart
Jimmy Stewart was a big enough movie star that he didn't have to enlist after Pearl Harbor, but he did it out of a sense of duty. After joining the Air Force, Stewart worried that they would give him special treatment because of his fame.
Stewart appealed to his commander directly and got sent to England, where he eventually flew 20 combat missions. He served in various capacities until 1968, by which time he'd become the highest ranking actor in the history of the U.S. Armed Forces.
Lenny Montana
Francis Ford Coppola needed someone seriously tough to play Vito Corleone's personal enforcer, Luca Brasi.
You don't get much tougher than the guy he cast: Lenny Montano, a one-time professional wrestler and actual enforcer for the actual Colombo family.
Victor McLaglen
Anyone who could survive six rounds with heavyweight champion Jack Johnson on their feet is certified tough. After his boxing career, Victor McLaglen worked as a bodyguard for an Indian Rajah and a Provost Marshal in Baghdad before moving to Hollywood in the 20s.
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was a rich kid from birth, a nepo-baby Hollywood pretty-boy who never earned anything in his life. That didn't stop him from enlisting in the Navy in 1941, earning commendations for countless exploits while commanding PT boats in WWII.
Still, Fairbanks's greatest accomplishment was creating the Beach Jumpers program, specializing in deception and psychological warfare.
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Clark Gable
Not even the "King of Hollywood" could bear missing out on the action when the United States entered WWII. To MGM's horror, Gable enlisted in the Air Force. He flew five combat missions in Europe—and was rumored to have flown in several more against orders from superiors.
Germany even offered a sizeable reward to anyone who could capture the movie star and bring him in unharmed.
Randall "Tex" Cobb
Randall "Tex" Cobb had one of the greatest chins in the history of acting—and in the history of boxing. Before becoming an actor, he was a heavyweight boxer. No one could take a beating like Cobb, with only a single KO on his record—and that was only on a technicality.
After going 15 rounds against Larry Holmes, a reporter asked Cobb if he wanted a rematch. He said, "Yeah, but I doubt Larry's hands could take it."
George Gojkovich, Getty Images
Kirk Douglas
Growing up as the son of a ragman in crippling poverty, Kirk Douglas had to become tough just to survive. Acting provided an escape rope—he received a special scholarship to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts—but WWII broke out before he could get famous.
Douglas served for several years in aboard a submarine chaser before getting discharged after sustaining injuries in a depth charge explosion.
Dave Bautista
Dave Bautista saw two bodies on his lawn before he was 9 years old. He was stealing cars by age 13, and living on his own by 17. He was headed down a dark path before he says that discovering bodybuilding saved his life. It led him to professional wrestling, MMA, and acting.
William Smith
Will Smith can deliver a pretty good slap, but I wouldn't put him up against William Smith, the actor who made over 300 film and TV appearances across a nearly 80-year career. When he wasn't acting, he found time to serve in the Air Force, win bodybuilding competitions, and win the World Arm-Wrestling Championship several times.
Silver Screen Collection, Getty Images
Lawrence Tierney
One of Hollywood's most popular tough guys for decades, the New York Times called Lawrence Tierney "not so much an actor as a frightening force of nature". You can't fake that—so it should come as no surprise that Tierney was arrested by the LAPD for fighting over a dozen times between 1944 and 1951.
His drinking and disorderly conduct remained a problem behind the scenes for his entire career.
Dolph Lundgren
Considering himself a "runt" as a boy, Dolph Lundgren took up karate at age 10. He eventually became the European Karate Champion. He kept up martial arts, even while getting his master's in chemical engineering.
He got into MIT on a Fulbright Scholarship—but while working as a bouncer at a nightclub, model Grace Jones noticed him. She hired him to be her bodyguard (and lover) and set the brilliant Lundgren on the path to tough-guy glory.
Sean Bean
Lots of these guys were tough before they were actors—but Sean Bean was tough long after becoming an actor. In 2012, Bean confronted a man who insulted his date at a restaurant. The man went after the actor with a shard of glass, but Bean blocked it with his forearm, leaving a deep gash.
The staff at the bar urged Bean to go to the hospital. He just asked for a first aid kit, wrapped his arm, and went back to have another drink.
Michael Jai White
Michael Jai White has starred in three movies a year, every year since 2016. That's work ethic—the same kind of work ethic that won him more than 25 martial arts titles and earned him black belts in seven different karate disciplines.
Audie Murphy
Being a movie star is far down the list of Audie Murphy's accomplishments, seeing as he's the single most decorated soldier in U.S. history. He received every award for valor that they could throw at him, the most impressive being the Medal of Honor that he won for single-handedly holding off an entire German company for an hour, then personally leading the counterattack when help arrived—all when he was 19 years old.
James Doohan
Before getting famous as Scotty on Star Trek, James Doohan enlisted in the Royal Canadian Artillery in 1939. He landed at Juno Beach on D-Day, where he took out two sharpshooters and led his men to a defensive position before suffering serious wounds in a friendly-fire incident later that night.
Carl Weathers
After going undrafted, Carl Weathers signed with the Oakland Raiders and cracked the lineup in the 1970 season as a linebacker under coach John Madden. He played in seven games, helping the team reach the AFC Championship. His career fizzled out by 1973, but he was back on his feet working as an actor by 1975.
Luigi Novi, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Bruce Lee
Before becoming a martial arts champion and movie star, Bruce Lee had a penchant for street fights, including once knocking out the son of an infamous Triad family.
After an unsanctioned rooftop fight where Lee ended up in custody, his parents sent him to the United States to give him a fresh start, where Hollywood stardom awaited him.
Charles Bronson
Born into extreme poverty and working as a coal miner before fighting in WWII, Charles Bronson was about as far from your typical Hollywood pretty boy as you could get. He was the real deal.
This exchange happened when director Michael Winner told Bronson about the script for Death Wish, about a man who shoots muggers:
Bronson: "I'd like to do that!"
Winner: "What, make the movie?"
Bronson: "No...shoot muggers!"
Chuck Norris
Bruce Lee was extremely impressed when he met Chuck Norris, then the All-American Karate champion, at a competition. The two of them became friends and training partners. Lee eventually put Norris in Way of the Dragon—and an action hero was born.
Norris never left martial arts behind, either. He remains a black belt in Tang Soo Do, Brazilian jiu jitsu, and judo.
Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), Lone Wolf McQuade Associates
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger has been a movie star, Governor, and Mr. Universe—but before any of that, he was a champion strongman and weightlifter. His personal records include a 520 lb bench press and a 683 lb deadlift.
Governo do Estado de São Paulo, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Jackie Chan
Inspired by Buster Keaton's awe-inducing, "do it for real" stunts, Jackie Chan started as a stuntman in Hong Kong martial arts films before they let him take the reins on movies himself.
He does his own stunts—and they don't always work out. He's broken his back, his neck, his nose, his ankles, his chin, his cheekbones, and his arms. At least, those are the injuries he's bothered to list. He also has a hole in his head.
Jean Claude Van Damme
In the 80s, audiences wanted action stars would could really kick butt—and nobody could kick like Jean Claude Van Damme.
Before bringing his talents—and his legs—to the big screen, JCVD was a successful competitive martial artist in both karate and kickboxing.
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Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke wanted to be a boxer, not an actor. He only started acting after his doctors told him he had to take a year off from the ring. He started getting work as an actor, but he quickly earned a reputation for being erratic and difficult on set.
In 1991, he decided he "had to go back to boxing". He proceeded to undefeated in eight fights before returning to acting—although even after all his reconstructive surgery, his face would never look the same again.
Danny Trejo
If the first time you saw Danny Trejo in a movie you thought, "That guy looks looks legit," you'd be right. After surviving his childhood by the skin of his teeth, a life of addiction and incarceration lay ahead of him. He turned over a new leaf after being released from custody for the last time in 1969.
Becoming a substance counselor in 1973, Trejo was invited to help treat Eric Roberts' coke habit on the set of Runaway Train. He had such a good look that soon he was appearing in movies, and the rest was history.
Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton started performing on stage when he was still in diapers. His parents called him "the boy who could not be damaged," and the show involved his father throwing him around the theatre. Authorities frequently tried to charge his parents with child endangerment, but the Keatons were usually long gone by then.
It turns out, Keaton could be damaged—he was just unbelievably tough. Famously breaking his neck during a take that made it into his film Sherlock Jr., Buster Keaton claimed that by the end of his career he'd "broken every bone in his body".
Sessue Hayakawa
If he'd had his way, Sessue Hayakawa never would have become a Hollywood matinee idol. As a young man in Japan, Hayakawa felt he had shamed his family by failing out of the Japanese Navy.
He locked himself in his room and committed seppuku, believing he was upholding his family's samurai tradition. He only survived his injuries because his father broke down the door with an axe.
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Terry Crews
After the LA Rams drafted him in 1991, Terry Crews had stints with the Rams, Packers, Chargers, Redskins and Eagles. He moved to acting after struggling to stay in the NFL—but I'd take his NFL combine stats over 99% of professional actors.
Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood may have not seen combat while he served, but he survived when his plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1951, swimming 2 miles to shore with his commanding officer.
Sean Connery
When a young Sean Connery lived in Edinburgh, the city's notorious Valdor gang targeted him. After he stopped one of them from taking his jacket, six of them followed him to a balcony—where he jumped them, grabbed one by the throat, and cracked his head into another.
From that moment on, the Valdors knew Connery was a "hard man" and treated him with great respect. Then he became James Bond.
R. Lee Ermey
You probably know R. Lee Ermey as the quintessential Hollywood drill sergeant. Well he's so good at the role because he was an actual Marine drill sergeant who served in Vietnam. After discharge, he served as a technical advisor to Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now, which led him to his iconic role in Full Metal Jacket.
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Robert Blake
The details are Robert Blake's childhood are grim. Suffice it to say, he ran away from home at 14—but life only got harder after that. After years as a child actor with The Little Rascals, Blake was drafted into service in the Korean War. With few prospects after the war, he was nearly lost to addiction before rebounding as an actor.
Robert Mitchum
Always a problem child, Robert Mitchum was only 11 when he ran away from home for the first time. He left again age 14, hopping freight cars and travelling the country. He ended up on a chain gang in Georgia before escaping and returning home—all before age 16.
David Niven
Don't mistake David Niven's posh manner for weakness. He served in the British Army before he became an actor, and again when WWII broke out—the only British actor in Hollywood to do so. He took part in the invasion of Normandy, serving in "Phantom," a secret reconnaissance unit that tracked enemy positions.
Chris Hemsworth
Apparently looking tough wasn't enough for Chris Hemsworth—he had to prove it. That's got to be why he did Limitless, a show that saw him endure 3 minutes in freezing cold water, fast for four straight days, and get thrown in the deep end of a pool with his hands and feet tied.
Christian Bale
There aren't many actors who commit like Christian Bale. He got himself down to 121 pounds for his role in The Machinist—then turned around and got up to 220 pounds to play superhero Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins immediately after.
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Paul Newman
Paul Newman served in the US Navy in the Pacific Theatre of WWII. He was supposed to be on board the USS Bunker Hill when it was struck by a kamikaze pilot during the Battle of Okinawa. The captain of the plane Newman was stationed on had gotten sick the day before, and his crew was grounded at the last minute.
Allegedly, when Newman had to delve into a character's trauma and emotional darkness, he would remember a moment from his service when he saw a friend "cut to pieces" by an airplane's propellor.
Tom Hardy
Despite his MMA training to prepare for his role in the movie Warrior, actor Tom Hardy doesn't consider himself a tough guy. Well, he still played the hero in 2017. He chased down and tackled a thief on the street of London, holding him until the authorities arrived.
Later, Hardy tracked the culprit down to try and "put him on the right path". Tough and a good guy!
Adam Driver
Adam Driver enlisted in the US Marine Corps after 9/11 and served for two years. He trained as an 81mm mortar man, but just as he was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan, Driver was injured in an accident and medically discharged.
Ice T
Ice T has been just about every kind of tough guy you can imagine. He's a rapper. He was involved in Los Angeles gang activity growing up. He served in the Armed Forces—while keeping shady jobs on the side, of course. After that? He started holding up banks, inspired by the movie Heat.
Good thing the music career worked out, because we all saw how that ended.
Sven Mandel, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart's temper was legendary, and anyone who was lucky (or unlucky) enough to enjoy his company knew just how tough he could be. He might have been the biggest movie star in the world, but that didn't stop every night with Bogey from ending with a screaming match and a fist fight.
J.R. Martinez
While serving as a infantryman with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq in 2003, J.R. Martinez's Humvee was struck by an IED. He suffered severe burns over 34% of his body and spent 34 months in the hospital recovering. Returning stateside, Martinez first became a motivational speaker before getting cast on All My Children in 2008 and beginning his acting career.
David Alvarez
David Alvarez was one of the original three child actors to play Billy Elliot on Broadway. Then, in a shocking move, he left his acting career behind to enlist. He served for two and a half years with the 25th Infantry Division before returning to acting.
Though, for anyone skeptical of acting: Alvarez got through basic training by thinking, "This is hard, but it’s not Billy Elliot hard".
Rory Calhoun
Running away from a disturbing childhood during the Great Depression, actor Rory Calhoun had broken just about every law in the book, holding up jewelry stores and hot-wiring cars, before he was released on parole shortly before his 21st birthday.
Sylvester Stallone
Complications during Stallone's birth, where doctors severed a nerve in his neck, caused facial paralysis and his trademark lisp. The other kids tormented him mercilessly for it—and Stallone became extremely aggressive in response. His parents eventually sent him to military school because he kept getting in fights.
There, he claims his teachers called him "most likely to end up in the electric chair".
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