12 Famous Actors Who Had Top Ten Pop Hits

One interesting aspect of being famous is that sometimes, celebrities figure that since they're good enough at something to make them famous, they would probably be good at other stuff that has made other people famous. This is how you get basketball great Shaquille O'Neal rapping, or rap impresario Master P playing basketball, both of which are things that actually happened. Most of the cross-pollination, though, seems to happen between the worlds of acting and music — musicians and actors tend to be egotistical sorts, and hey, if the fans love seeing you belt out tunes onstage, they'll also love you up on the silver screen, or vice-versa. Right?

Well, as it turns out, sometimes that actually is right. There have definitely been a few talented musicians who carved out enviable second careers in acting; Will Smith and David Bowie come to mind. When actors try to pick up the mic, it can certainly be argued that it tends to go pear-shaped, creatively speaking — but that hasn't stopped a surprising number of thespians from selling boatloads of records. Here are a dozen who not only scored hit songs, but cracked the top ten — and, in some cases, went all the way to the top of the chart.

In the late '70s and early '80s, fresh-faced actor David Naughton was looking like the next It Dude in Hollywood. For four years, he graced the small screen as the center of an advertising campaign by Dr Pepper, for which he also sang the jingle; the campaign was popular enough that Naughton even toured around the country doing in-person appearances for the soft drink. 

It was during one of those tours that his agent informed him of a werewolf movie that was in the works from director John Landis, who was known for his comedies "The Blues Brothers" and "Animal House." Naughton landed a sit-down with Landis, and in an interview with The SF Site, he recalled that Landis was actually "an avid Pepper drinker. He was familiar with those commercials and he responded to having the interview with me." 

This is the unlikely route by which he landed the lead in the classic "An American Werewolf in London," and became the centerpiece in the single greatest practical effects sequence to have been accomplished to that time. A couple of years prior, though, Hollywood had tried to make Naughton happen on the small screen with "Makin' It," a disco-themed sitcom about a working-class dude inspired by "Saturday Night Fever." The series only lasted nine episodes, but its theme song — a godawful piece of work sung by Naughton — had far more staying power, riding the charts for months and peaking at No. 5. 

Given the late, great Patrick Swayze's swaggering charisma, hunky image, and action bonafides, one could be forgiven for thinking that his foray onto the pop music scene was carefully calibrated to capitalize on his movie fame. This, however, was not exactly the case. Swayze earnestly loved music, and though he never seemed to really have any aspirations to prove his musical mettle, he wrote and sang tunes apparently just because he wanted to. 

With songwriter Stacy Widelitz, he co-wrote one of those tunes, "She's Like the Wind," to be considered for the soundtrack of his 1984 feature "Grandview, U.S.A." It didn't make the cut, but this turned out to be a good thing. The song, sung by Swayze with additional vocals by Libewitz's girlfriend Wendy Fraser, eventually turned up on the soundtrack to the ginormous smash hit 1987 flick "Dirty Dancing," which gave it a bit more of a high-profile showcase. On a paltry $6 million budget, the film grossed a staggering $214 million worldwide, blasting Swayze's career into the stratosphere. 

"She's Like the Wind" rocketed all the way to No. 3 on the Hot 100, and reached the top of the Adult Contemporary chart. It wasn't the last time Swayze would pen tunes for his movies, but it was definitely the most notable — and it's tough to deny that his singing voice is not half bad, and the tune is actually pretty darned great.

For a few years in the early 2010s, the EDM-tinged rock outfit Cobra Starship was all over the radio, releasing four albums and scoring a pair of top ten singles. The first of those, 2009's "Good Girls Gone Bad," featured a female vocalist with a distinctive tone that seemed perhaps a bit out of place on the ultra-peppy track, and fans could be forgiven for doing a double-take when she showed up in the video: it was none other than Leighton Meester, whose hit TV series "Gossip Girl" was right in the middle of its six-season run.

The tune peaked at No. 7, which has to be a little bittersweet for Meester. As it turns out, she's quite a talented singer and songwriter — and when it came time to take a stab at a music career of her own, the result was about as far away from the bubblegum rock of Cobra Starship as one could get. She released her solo album, "Heartstrings," a folk-rock record influenced by the likes of Joni Mitchell and Sheryl Crow, in 2014 — and it failed to even make a single dent in the pop chart, which is an absolute crime, because it is actually freaking incredible.

The 2012 musical comedy "Pitch Perfect," which concerns the relationships between the members of an all-female college acapella group as they strive for tournament glory, was a surprising hit. It grossed $115 million globally and raised the profile of the talented Anna Kendrick, who led its ensemble cast. The film's box office legs were thanks in large part to its soundtrack, which went to No. 3 on the album chart — and the album's success was due in no small part to "Cups (When I'm Gone)," which Kendrick briefly performed in the film.

Kendrick told David Letterman on his late-night talk show, that because she "was a huge loser," she had been inspired to mimic the performance of the song released by British band Lulu and the Lampshades in 2009. This was an adaptation of a folk tune from the '30s, and garnered attention on YouTube due to its unique accompaniment — rhythmic tapping, slapping, and drumming on cups, hence the title. Kendrick taught herself to do it so well that the producers of "Pitch Perfect" insisted she perform it in the film. 

When a shortened version started taking off on the digital charts, Kendrick recorded a full version, complete with an innovative video — and after a slow but steady climb up the charts lasting 28 weeks, "Cups" peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Before the 2018 edition of "A Star Is Born" — of which there have been three previous film iterations — it's safe to say that not many people knew that Bradley Cooper could sing and play guitar. Cooper was known mostly for starring in comedies, both of the romantic and non-romantic variety, and for being the voice of everyone's favorite gun-toting, prosthetic limb-obsessed raccoon, Rocket, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But with "A Star is Born," Cooper surprised a lot of folks; making his directorial debut, he starred as Jackson Maine, a washed-up country artist who discovers Lady Gaga's singer-songwriter Ally in a drag bar and mentors her to stardom. Cooper held his own musically with Gaga, and the flick's signature song — the melodramatic ballad "Shallow" — became a smash hit.

In fact, the tune went to No. 1 and scored Gaga an Oscar for Best Original Song — and its pop culture profile was raised further by Cooper and Gaga's performance at the Academy Awards, which was so intimate as to cause widespread speculation as to whether they might be a real-life item. Cooper shot that speculation down, though, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, explaining that his decision to essentially perform in character was to help ease his stage fright. "They kind of fall in love in that scene in the film," he said. "It would have been so weird if we were both on stools facing the audience."

David Soul is best known for starring opposite Paul Michael Glaser in the beloved '70s action series "Starsky and Hutch," but his first ambition was to become a musician — and his first stab at this was very odd, indeed. After a demo tape of folk songs got him signed to the legendary William Morris Agency in 1965, he donned a ski mask and, calling himself "The Covered Man" (because he wanted to be known only for his music, you see), began making appearances on "The Merv Griffin Show" to promote his tunes. That schtick wore thin pretty quickly, and — evidently deciding he should probably take advantage of that handsome face, after all — he got into television acting in the late '60s.

After "Starsky and Hutch" became a cultural phenomenon, Soul was able to parlay his newfound super-fame into a recording contract, releasing two albums during the series' run — and, lo and behold, the dude could actually sing quite well. His debut single, the tender ballad "Don't Give Up On Us," went to No. 1 in 1977 — and while subsequent singles stalled out around the middle of the Hot 100, he would go on to record three more LPs, setting a standard for actors who are truly serious about their music.