January 29, 2012

A great collection of celebrity high school yearbook pictures.

Fascinating to see those who were always great looking, those who were always bad looking, and — most interestingly — those who looked awful in high school and got much, much better, the most extreme example of which is this:

49 comments:

Toad Trend said...

George Clooney.

Alan Smithee said...

How about a picture or two of Laura from The Glass Menagerie?

ricpic said...

The picture of Elvis is heart rending.

Steve White said...

It's interesting how the two who look, then and now, most like as we see them in our minds are Bill and Hillary Clinton.

dbp said...

The Toms, Cruise and Hanks look exactly the same then as now. Sean Connery on the other hand, looks just like a Village Person in that sailor outfit. Kind of rakish too, somehow.

Irene said...

Elvis and Leonardo di Caprio look like nine-year-olds.

George Bush. RAWR.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

Michael Stipe is rare in that he looked better in high school.

john said...

I notice George has fixed his saggy undereyes since that old photo.

In "Descendents" he had way too many closeups that made the botox treatments rather obvious.

(Loved the movie otherwise.)

William said...

For women, beauty happens early or not at all. I suppose there are some exceptions, but that's more due to the surgeon's art than nature's will. All the female stars were very attractive at a young age. Apparently it took some of the men a while to grow into their looks or to acquire a look...... I'm hoping to peak at around ninety. George Burns, when younger was not such a stud muffin, but, later in life, there were very few contemporaries in their nineties who could compete with him. For a guy, you never know when you're going to hit your peak, so you have to hang in there.

ricpic said...

William kills me.

edutcher said...

Dita Von Teese looks better than Dolly?

Never thought I'd say that.

And Clooney looks like a girl.

Well, he can't act, either.

Julie C said...

Eminem looks a bit inbred. And I say this as a fan. He's much better looking now.

john said...

Marilyn Manson didn't have to go very far to get where he is today.

Jey Leno also looks a lot like his old photo, but that is known to run in the Leno family. His sister didn't change much either.


Sorry

Julie C said...

Funny how some of the most bizarre people looked the most normal in high school. Iggy Pop and Marilyn Manson look like accounting majors!

oldirishpig said...

I thought it was Ensign Chekov, lol.

tim in vermont said...

Fergie was 'licious in HS.

Elvis already had the sneer going on.

George Bush.... Less said the better.

The one that shocked me was Paula Abdul, Saw a picture of her as a child and she looked more like her American Idol self than that HS pic.

Sebastian said...

Prince surprised me the most.

Kurt Cobain made me the most sad.

Sydney said...

Prince looks like he somehow de-testosteroned himself in adulthood.

Thought George Clooney was Warren Zevon.

tim in vermont said...

Ditto on Kurt Cobain. His picture is sort of haunting.

Most of them are completely unsurprising though.

bgates said...

I didn't know Robin Williams played the young version of the dad in "Back to the Future".

I wonder whether Charlize Theron had any success with her gambit of wearing glasses with large frames and thin lenses to keep people from noticing that she's spectacular.

One of those pictures might be mislabeled. I think they put 'Prince' where it should say 'Ving Rhames'.

JAL said...

Janis Joplin.

sad

kimsch said...

Alice Cooper, with the puppy. Wow.

wv: glishos

Carnifex said...

I know its racist but I gotta say it...Barack
Obama (with that collar)=Tito Jackson. (I'm sorry, its the collar, I swear)

I looked just like Alex Baldwin back then. Except for the glasses. And the weight. And the looks. But otherwise, it's like looking at a mirror.

LordSomber said...

Hilarious. I thought Jim Morrison was Val Kilmer.
And Elvis was Christopher Walken.

Phil 314 said...

Gosh, I thought the Clooney picture was Diane Keaton


LA DI DA

Synova said...

Some of those pictures are from junior high school at least.

SteveR said...

Dang it, John

David said...

Did Alice Cooper eat that puppy?

David said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chris Althouse Cohen said...

Best looking male: Jim Morrison

Best looking female: Charlize Theron

Wince said...

Russell Brand looks like John Candy.

DADvocate said...

I guess Charlize Theron and Jennifer Aniston always looked good.

When I see lists like this I always think of six degrees of separation. Living in the Maysville, KY area, I know several people who went to high school with Clooney. I've met his dad and watched many basketball games at that high school. I worked with a woman who went to high school with Madonna and have seen that same picture in the actual yearbook. As a kid in Knoxville, I watched Dolly Parton on Cas Walker's Mid Day Merry Go Round, a local TV show.

I bet almost every poster here can relate close degrees of separation to at least one person on that list.

MayBee said...

That can't be Prince.
That can't be Russel Brand.

When I'm old, I'm going to show the Charlize Theron picture to my grandchildren and claim it as my own.

James said...

I quite certain that all of those photos aren't from high school yearbooks. The pics of the Bushes look like they were from a college "face book," the printed booklets that existed long before Facebook

David Schwimmer must cringe whenever he sees that photo.

JAL said...

Degrees of separation

I am connected to Matt Damon through marriage. 2 degrees.

He has absolutely no idea who I am and has no reason to. But he would understand if someone drew him a picture. ("Oh. Yeah. Right.")

His politics suck.

Hilary Clinton owns a house in my old hometown that a relative by marriage grew up in. Does that count?

Her politics suck.

A family member works in Cupertino and offered to let Steve Jobs cut in line in the company cafeteria. Jobs declined.

Don't really know what I think of Steve Jobs' politics, but he had guts enough to tell Obama his policies were job destructive.

That's a plus.

Freeman Hunt said...

Jobs looks so much like someone I went to high school with that my first thought was, "Scott is a celebrity?"

Prince looks like he had a totally different personality in school.

I agree with others here: the women who are good looking later appear to be good looking young while the attractiveness of the men may change completely.

cassandra lite said...

Whitney Houston made me sad. Same with Janis Joplin. Jim Morrison looked like his admiral father made him put on the tie, which he vowed never to do again, knowing he wouldn't be here long.

Chris Althouse Cohen said...

Robert Downey Jr looks like he would be the most popular kid in school. Whitney Houston looks beautiful.

Carnifex said...

Charlize Theron is classic. But does anyone else get tightass vibes off her? I'm probably projecting :-)

Jennifer Anniston is pretty in the prettiest girl in high school pretty, but apparently she's a dumpster fire in a relationship. Take that back, apparently she's a train wreck in a relationship.

Angelina Jolie though looks and gives off the vibes of a bad girl. One that's up for a spanking, or anything you're into. She looks so innocent in the yearbook photo with those big doe like eyes, and bee stung lips. Different but just as hot.

Projecting like heck here-lol

Brian Brown said...

Snoop Dogg!

He looks like an upstanding young gentleman.

Tank said...

DADvocate said...
I guess Charlize Theron and Jennifer Aniston always looked good.


Really.

That list is way more interesting than I thought it would be. Looked at the whole thing. Really facinating. I think if you look back at your own high school, you can see that, for some it (whatever it was going to be) was already there, and for others, not at all.

pm317 said...

I didn't see Michelle Obama there. She was not the fashion queen she is now then, I guess.

the wolf said...

I thought Deborah Harry was Michell Pfeiffer, except that 'do would have preceded Pfeiffer by several years.

Rliyen said...

Put white makeup on Steven Tyler.... and you have The Joker.

*shudder*

Smilin' Jack said...

What exactly is it that makes Charlize Theron so much more impressive than the average pretty girl? I've always been amazed that such tiny differences can make such a huge difference.

sonicfrog said...

Prince... Woah!!!!!

Tarzan said...

STEVE EFFIN' TYLER!!!

Honestly, I think most of them look great, or normal at worst.
At least when I think of my own photo in comparison. Amazing to see how many of them were able to re-define beauty or 'coolness' based on attributes which were no doubt uncomplimentary when they were young.

Prince - Whoa! Stay cool, bro'!

SteveOrr said...

Eminem looks like Boner from Growing Pains.

Love the chola getup on Longoria. Strange, I generally hate poofy hair on females.

Rachel said...

I'm pretty sure that pic labelled Halle Berry is not Halle Berrry. Ditto for Prince.