Educated actors

One of the most beloved Americans in history, few could deny the warmth and influence of this wonderful man. Rogers left Dartmouth after one year to attend Rollins College in Florida where he he earned a BA in Music (magna cum laude) in 1951. He earned his Masters in Divinity from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1963, which led to his ordination as a Presbyterian minister.

Ricco Ross came from inordinately humble beginnings, spending most of his childhood in a poverty stricken part of Kankakee County in Illinois. From there talent and hard work took him around the world for work and studies, and got him into some top productions including Spies Like Us, Mission Impossible and Aliens. His BA in drama is from Florida Atlantic, and his MFA is from UCLA. He also heads Something Positive Productions.

Ryan was an army brat, born in Munich while her father was stationed there, and graduated from high school as a National Merit Scholar. She won the Miss Illinois pageant (and the preliminary Miss America swimsuit competition) while attending Northwestern. She graduated with a BA in Theatre.

Whether it was bringing to life another of the condemned in "The Shawshank Redemption", the nebulously amoral Sloane in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", the immortal Marine, Chesty Puller, or the quirky Grim Reaper in "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, William Sadler has left a trail of memorable characters. His BA is from SUNY-Geneseo, and his MA is from Cornell where he also picked up a minor in Speech Communication.

Best known for her work on NPR (Fair Game from PRI with Faith Salie and Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me), in addition to acting, she has been a writer, an interviewer, and a correspondent. Her Bachelors degree is from Harvard while her MPhil in literature is from Oxford.

While his acting career stretched from 1979 to 1994, and on TV emphasized soap operas and science fiction (his character's head was literally blown off by Captain Picard and Commander Riker in one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation), he had other creative outlets. He graduated with a BA in Drama, magna cum laude from the University of Texas before earning his MFA from Cornell. He later earned Tony and Pulitzer Prizes for writing The Kentucky Cycle.

One of the first big name American supermodels, Brooke Shields earned her degree in French literature from Princeton in 1987. Her senior thesis was entitled The Initiation: From Innocence to Experience: The Pre-Adolescent/Adolescent Journey in the Films of Louis Malle, 'Pretty Baby' and 'Lacombe Lucien'. Shields had starred in Malle's Pretty Baby at age 11.

Shue's diverse career started in earnest after she left Harvard, but she went back, and in 2000, earned her degree in Government.

After graduating from New York's prestigious Stuyvesant High School, the late actor earned his BA in Spanish and Chinese from SUNY - Buffalo before earning his MA in Chinese History from St. John's.

Lisa Kudrow's costar in Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion also played a ditzy blonde like Kudrow, and like Kudrow was nothing like the character. Winning an Oscar for playing another ditz in Mighty Aphrodite, few people knew that she had graduated from Harvard, magna cum laude, in East Asian Studies. Her studies included spending time in China, and gaining fluency in Mandarin.

Danielle Spencer's life was far from ideal, having to recover from a long coma and physical injuries from a car accident that killed her father while she was portraying Dee Thomas on What's Happening!. She recovered, and on her late father's advice, began attending veterinary school in California. Her schooling was interrupted when she reprised her role in What's Happening Now!. She eventually completed her DVM from Tuskegee Institute, and has been a practicing veterinarian ever since (she even returned to show business to play a veterinarian in the acclaimed film As Good As It Gets).

Education is not a guarantee that everything you do will be intellectual or even a positive contribution to society. Before going to work for Bobby Kennedy on his campaign for president, and before he was Mayor of Cincinnati, Springer earned a Bachelors in political science from Tulane and a JD from Northwestern's School of Law. Being the subject of the Laurence Olivier Award winning Jerry Springer: The Opera came later.

Decorated soldier ... pilot ... family man... one of the most respected actors in American history ... and he was smart. Stewart always had a thing for flying, and he took that love with him to Princeton where he earned a degree in architecture ... his major work was on airport design. His work earned him a graduate school scholarship, but by then the acting bug had bitten him, and he was focusing elsewhere.

Probably best known for her role as Nicky Parsons in the Bourne franchise, Stiles' career goes back to the early 90s where an older generation might have remembered her for her appearances on the PBS series Ghostwriter. She has more recently appeared in the critically acclaimed Silver Linings Playbook. In addition to work with Habitat for Humanity and Amnesty International, Stiles has a degree in English Literature from Columbia.

In 1975, two years before her break-out role in Julia, Streep completed her MFA at Yale. Her study and student production schedule supposedly got so stressful that she developed ulcers and thought about changing from acting to law. We can all be grateful she gutted it out.

He played a terrorist leader opposite Robert Downey, Jr. in Iron Man and the brave captain of the USS Kelvin in Star Trek. His BA is from Cal-Berkley and his graduate degree is from Harvard.

One of America's great character actors, Tambor is best remembered on TV for The Larry Sander's Show, Arrested Development, and his award-winning work in Transparent. He holds a BA in Theater from San Francisco State University and a Masters degree from Wayne State University.

Best known for playing tough, physical villains opposite everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, his appearances in "Star Trek" and "The X-Files" make this actor a beloved figure in genre acting. Thompson won a scholarship to the University of California - Irvine for his MFA which he earned after undergraduate studies at Central Washington University.

In between his key role in the Watergate investigation, and serving as US Senator from Tennessee (and running for the Republican nomination for president), Thompson had a brief but very successful career in acting (The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard 2, and In the Line of Fire). He earned degrees in philosophy and political science from Memphis State University, and earned a scholarship to attend Vanderbilt University, where he earned his JD.

People of a certain age will remember a younger Kevin Tighe playing LA paramedic Roy DeSoto on the TV series "Emergency!". After that he went on to a long career on stage and screen. Tighe earned a BA and MFA from USC before spending a short time teaching drama there.

Known best for his supporting work as Gunther on the show Friends, Tyler has a BS in geology from Clemson and an MFA from the University of Georgia.

Tony Award winner Courtney B. Vance has had a long career of starring, supporting, and guest roles in film and cinema, starting from his earliest roles in Hamburger Hill, and as the sonar operator, Seaman Jones, on the USS Dallas in the acclaimed adaptation of Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October. Vance earned a BA from Harvard before moving on to Yale for his MFA where he met his future wife Angela Bassett (also on this list).

With a career that includes an uncredited role in The Ten Commandments and Pootie Tang, Robert Vaughn has seen the highs and lows of cinema and television. He earned an MA in Theater from the Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciecnes, and later earned a PhD in Communications from UCLA, publishing his dissertation Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting.

An accomplished actor of stage and screen, and long time member of the Actors Studio, Waites is likely best remembered for two different roles, one in ... And Justice for All, and the radio operator, Windows in John Carpenter's The Thing. Waites has a B.A. in writing from The New School in New York, and an MFA in playwriting from the University of Iowa.

Weaver earned her BA in English from Stanford, and her MFA from Yale. Battling poachers, xenomorphs, the male dominated workplace, and exploiters of the indigenous came later.

Before he became a star (RoboCop, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension), Weller earned a BA in Theater from North Texas State University. After he became a star, he went back to school, earning an MA from Syracuse in Roman and Renaissance Art, and earning his PhD in Renaissance Art History from UCLA in 2014. When he acted as host for the History Channel's series Engineering an Empire, that wasn't just some actor reading a script ... that was a world class expert talking from the heart!

The man who brought Dwight Schrute to life on The Office, among other memorable roles, holds a BA in Drama from the University of Washington and an MFA from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Rebel Wilson initially had an interest in mathematics, but had already had a blink and you miss it appearance in "Ghost Rider" before earning degrees in Drama and Law from the University of New South Wales.

Perhaps few actors understand the truths of learning like actor, director, producer, writer, and philanthropist Henry Winkler. He graduated late from high school because he was held back by dyslexia, and this caused a long time strain with his gifted father who couldn't understand why his son did so poorly in school ... something that changed with help. Winkler earned his BA at Emerson College and his MFA from Yale.