19 famous people who served in the military

Before Playboy existed, Hefner had a successful career in the military.

In 1944, after graduating high school, Hefner enlisted in the Army as an infantry clerk.

He frequently contributed cartoons for various military newspapers before he was discharged in 1946.

Before she landed a lead role in "Golden Girls," Bea Arthur served in the Marine Corps.

Though she once flat out denied it, The Smoking Gun dug up files proving the actress had served 30 months in the Marines as a typist and truck driver.

According to a personal account detailing her reasons for joining, a then 21-year-old Arthur said she "heard last week that enlistments for women in the Marines were open, so decided the only thing to do was to join."

On an obtained personality appraisal sheet, Arthur was described as both argumentative and frank.

She was initially a typist in Washington D.C., and was then stationed at air stations in Virginia and North Carolina. Arthur was honorably discharged in 1945 with the title of staff sergeant.

Television star and martial arts professional Chuck Norris joined the United States Air Force in 1958, and served as an Air Policeman in South Korea.

In "The Official Chuck Norris Fact Book: 101 of Huck's Favorite Facts and Stories," Norris recounts a time in South Korea when he saw locals practicing martial arts.

Norris, who had broken his shoulder a week into training, was on a walk when he observed villagers executing spinning heel kicks and other moves.

"I was mesmerized by their incredible ability. I wanted to ask them what they were doing, but they looked very intense," he said. "So I returned to the base and described what I had seen to my judo instructor, Master Ahn. He said it was called Tang Soo Do. I told him that I'd love to try it, since I couldn't do judo with my injured shoulder."

By the time he left Korea, Norris had his black belt in Tang Soo Do and brown belt in judo.

The future television host and comedian joined the U.S. Navy in 1943, starting as an apprentice shipman and eventually a midshipman assigned to the USS Pennsylvania in the Pacific Ocean.

The then 20-year-old entertained his fellow Navymen with magic and comedy while aboard the ship.

Carson briefly continued his military career as a communications officer in charge of decoding encrypted messages.

After high school, Tracy Lauren Marrow aka Ice-T found himself without much opportunity, often dealing drugs on the streets of Los Angeles to support himself.

"And when I had my daughter I was like, man, I'm going to go to jail, I got to do something, and I went to an enlistment office," he told NPR.

Ice-T then spent four years in the 25th Infantry Division at the Tropic Lightning Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.

Elvis Presley was drafted in December 1957, and entered into the United States Army in March 1958 — two years after his songs "Hound Dog" and "Heartbreak Hotel" hit the airwaves and turned an unknown Mississippi boy into America's King of Rock and Roll.

"The army can do anything it wants with me," he said. "Millions of other guys have been drafted, and I don't want to be different from anyone else."

Presley was stationed in Fort Hood, Texas before being deployed to the 1st Medium Tank Battalion, 32d Armor in Friedberg, Germany. It was there that he met his future wife, Priscilla Beaulieu.

Elvis was honorably discharged in 1960.

Take a look at some footage of Elvis's deployment here.

Laurence Tureaud — otherwise known as Mr. T — became a military policeman in the Army after being expelled from college.

In 1975, a drill sergeant awarded Tureaud a letter of recommendation.

The future "The A-Team" actor was also elected "Top Trainee of the Cycle" and later promoted to squad leader.

Montel Williams enlisted in the US Marines Corps in 1974. After graduating the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, he was appointed as a midshipman in the Navy.

Williams served as a cryptologic officer for naval intelligence in Guam, and in 1983 was transferred to the National Security Agency in Maryland. It was there that the then-lieutenant first began counseling his team and servicemen's families, a service that paved the way to further public speaking and "The Montel Williams Show."

When Williams left the Navy, he had received the Navy Achievement Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, and the Navy Commendation Medal.

Montel continued to support sailors, marines and their families throughout his two decades on television, and was awarded The Department of the Navy Superior Public Service Award in 2008.

After moving from the Bahamas to the United States as a teenager, Poitier had a hard time finding work and New York City's bitter winter temperatures were a drastic change of environment for the now Academy Award-winning actor.

So, in November 1943, at the ripe age of 16, he lied about his age and entered the Army.

According to the Los Angeles Sentinel, "The U.S. Army literally took him in out of the cold."

Poitier served as a medical attendant at a mental hospital in New York, but eventually grew tired of Army life. Instead of admitting his real age, he faked insanity, though he eventually came clean upon threat of shock treatments.

After talking to a psychiatrist for several weeks, Poitier was eventually granted release from the Army.

Clint Eastwood got his acting start in Western flicks, but his time serving during the Korean War presented the actor with the adventure of a lifetime.

Eastwood was a lifeguard and swimming instructor at Fort Ord, eventually being promoted to corporal.

One night in October of 1951, Eastwood was on a Douglas AD-1 military aircraft that had departed from Seattle and was heading to Sacramento.

The plane's intercommunications system failed, forcing the aircraft to crash into the Pacific Ocean, two miles off Port Reyes. Though he had to swim to shore, Eastwood escaped serious injury.

"I thought I might [not] live. But then I thought, other people have made it through these things before," Eastwood said. “I kept my eyes on the lights on shore and kept swimming."

When authorities caught Hendrix riding in stolen cars in Seattle, they gave him two options — go to jail, or join the Army.

So, in 1961, Hendrix enlisted and was assigned the 101st Airborne Division in Kentucky.

Though Hendrix had some success — he was awarded the Screaming Eagles patch after completing paratrooper training — his constant guitar-playing often kept him from his duties and drew criticism from fellow soldiers.

Hendrix was later discharged from the Army due to a ankle injury sustained in a parachute jump.

Writer and director Mel Brooks was attending high school in Brooklyn when he was first considered for the Army.

"... I was 17 and the army came there and they took one look at me and they said, Melvin, you're our guy. They issued a test, the army specialized training reserve program test. If you pass this test, I think it was like how much is one and one, you know?" he said. "And I nearly failed because I said, well, side by side they're 11, but they took me anyway."

Thereafter, he attended the Army Specialized Training Program at the Virginia Military Institute.

He served in the United States Army as a corporal during World War II, a service that had him defusing land mines and fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.

The "Wheel of Fortune" host joined the US Army in 1968, first working as a finance clerk in Vietnam and then as a disc jockey for 18 months on armed forces radio.

On The Military Channel's "An Officer and a Movie," Sajak later admitted to accidentally botching President Nixon's 1969 Christmas broadcast to the troops, cutting it off too early.

"Magnum, P.I." actor Tom Selleck served in the California Army National Guard, and his unit was activated for the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965.

He is now a spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

Long before Alan Alda had the fictional role as Hawkeye Pierce in "M*A*S*H," a CBS series about a team of medical staff stationed at a surgical hospital in South Korea during the Korean War, he had his own personal military experience.

After serving in Fordham University's Reserve Officers' Training Corps, he found his way into the Army Reserve, where he was deployed for six months.

Alda later spoke to Southern Connecticut State University about his stint in the military, saying, "They had designs of making me into an officer but, uh ... it didn't go so well. I was in charge of a mess tent. Some of that made it into the show [M*A*S*H]."

Fleeing Nazi persecution, Kissinger moved from Germany to Manhattan with his family to Manhattan. Five years later, he became a naturalized US citizen and was drafted into the army to fight the same regime.

As Biography.com reports, Kissinger served as a rifleman in France and a G-2 intelligence officer in Germany. After the war, he was admitted to Harvard University.

After a turbulent upbringing, McQueen decided to join the Marines in 1947, according to Military.com.

However, the "King of Cool" didn't do well taking orders. He was promoted and demoted numerous times and spent 41 days in the brig for one infraction.

Later on, however, McQueen proved his courage by saving five men from drowning after an Arctic training exercise turned dangerous. For his heroics, he was allowed to take part in US president Harry Truman's honor guard.

Freeman always wanted to fly, so he joined the US Air Force in 1955, passing up a drama scholarship from Jackson State University, according to Military.com.

However, Freeman quickly lost his "romantic notions" about serving, describing sitting in the cockpit as "sitting in the nose of a bomb." He left the Air Force in 1959.

Jennifer Michalski contributed to a previous version of this article.