Celebrities who were formerly nurses...

Nurses General Nursing

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I had Lifetime's "Intimate Portrait" on, featuring Bonnie Hunt (actress/comedienne)...I didn't know she was once an ER and oncology nurse at Northwestern. Just got me to thinking if there's any other celebs out there that are/were in nursing and do they use their status to support nursing (politically or otherwise). MMB

Robin Quivers, Howard Stern's sidekick was a nurse too.

She was in the military.

Cherry

Originally posted by ?burntout

I have heard that Olympic skier, Picabo Street (is that her name :confused: ) is a nurse...or is that an urban legend??:p :nurse: :chair:

I've heard that too, but heard it in a joke form. The joke goes that she is a nurse who works in ICU, and that they finally made her stop answering the phones because she answered Picaboo ICU. So I'm not sure if she really is or not.

Specializes in ICU, CM, Geriatrics, Management.
Originally posted by fab4fan

Amen...big time (only I can't stand 100% of it)

Hey, fab4fan. Guess then that you didn't love a bunch of stuff in the Beatles' discography. Lots of country-inspired tunes there, friend. :p

Major Beatles' fan (earned my way through engineering school playing in a Fab Four cover band), and lover other good music as well,

The drummer for th Bay City Rollers (my sister was a big fan-YUK) was a nurse in Scotland. I just checked on Google and he was caught w/ some child-Media pictures, so I don't know if he kept his job or not. He said they "belonged to a friend." Sure they did!

I think Picaboo isn't a nurse, I think that's just the joke. I mean, she's a pro athlete -- only amateur athletes have "day jobs". She gets her $$$ from Chapstick endorsements (and I am sure she gets paid for one days work on one of those ads what a nurse makes in 3 or 4 years!).

Originally posted by StephMSeattle

"Tera Patrick", the Media star, was once a nurse! Haha. Scary!

Well she certainly knew the human body as well as anyone...please tell me she wasn't OB.

Originally posted by sharann

I wonder if any nurses used to be celebrities though?

Can you just picture it- a famous actress practising auscultating lung sounds in her spare time?

"I guess I'm stuck with this famous movie star gig until I get my big break in nursing...."

:roll

Not trying to make fun, here. This just stuck me as really hilarious!

But hey, there is one that I know of- Tura Satana (her real name) She starred in the 1960s cult classic film"Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!"

She became a famous stripper and exotic model after that. Later when she became too old for that stuff, she went to nursing school. In John Waters' book "Shock Value" there is an interview w/ her. Waters asked her what it's like being "Nurse Satana" and having a rep as a tough chick. She replied "My pts don't give me any crap".

Here's link that mentions her having been a nurse:

http://entertainment.msn.com/celebs/celeb.aspx?c=58640

Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.

On a documentary, it stated that Nicole Kidman's mother is a nurse and educator.

Originally posted by ?burntout

I have heard that Olympic skier, Picabo Street (is that her name :confused: ) is a nurse...or is that an urban legend??:p :nurse: :chair:

Yes, urban legend...as is her name origina ("she like to play peekaboo")

Origins: World

class skier Picabo Street has travelled through life plagued by "peek-a-boo" jokes, yet there will always be folks for whom the play on her name will come as a bright, shiny new thing, as there will be those who will fail to realize that a knee-slapper's being presented as a matter-of-fact piece of information doesn't make it anything more than a clever play on words. (Yes, we've had folks ask us if this "Picabo I.C.U." tale was true. Really.)

Picabo does not work in an Intensive Care Unit. She's not a nurse, and there is no one forbidding her from answering telephones in hospitals. Ms. Street retired from the sport of alpine skiing in 2002, taking with her a silver medal won at the 1994 Winter Olympics and a gold from the 1998. She is an analyst with CBS Sports and shoots commercials for Chapstick. Her given name was inspired by the Idaho town of Picabo, which in turn takes its name from a Native American word meaning "shining waters."

Many accounts of how Picabo came by her unusual appellation include the tidbit that her parents did not name her until she was two years old, choosing instead to address her as "Little Girl" until she was old enough to pick out her own name, and only the need for her to have a U.S. passport when the family was planning a trip to Mexico spurred them to choose something (which turned out to be the name of a town in Idaho) in the interim. Some of those accounts also include the information that "peek-a-boo" was selected because it was one of the baby's favorite games.

The "Picabo I.C.U." joke is rendered primarily in two forms: The former athlete who is forbidden to answer the phone, and the celebrity who either donates an Intensive Care Unit to a local hospital or has one named for her:

[Collected on the Internet, 2002]

US Olympic skier Picabo Street has made a substantial donation to a hospital in her home town. Apparently, her father received life saving intensive care there after a severe heart attack last year.

A hospital spokesperson said: "We are very pleased that Ms. Street has chosen to remember our hospital in this manner. Based on the size of Picabo's donation, we will completely refurbish the intensive care unit of the hospital where her father was treated. In honor of Ms. Street's donation, the hospital will now call the unit... . .the Picabo I.C.U."

and

A producer at WTVC-Channel 9 shamelessly reports that the Idaho hometown of Olympic skier Picabo Street is naming a hospital wing after the gold medalist. It's called the Picabo ICU.1

A less familiar version frames the jape upon fears of a potential injury to the (then) Olympic hopeful:

''Glad to see that skier Picabo Street is back on the slopes after one year out with a knee injury,'' says Burt Dragin of Berkeley. ''I always fear that she will be seriously hurt and placed in the intensive care unit. My fear, actually, is the headline that will result: ''Picabo? ICU.''2

Previously, the world would be awash in "Picabo I.C.U." jokes only every four years, as the Winter Olympics would once again place Picabo Street in the public eye. Her new career as an analyst for CBS Sports will likely spur the process.

Originally posted by hug4mom

I had heard that Anna Nicole Smith once worked as a nursing assistant.

Would it be safe to assume that she worked in an ECF perhaps looking for a future hubby?:rolleyes:

anna nicole smith a nurse?!?!?!? she probably stopped w/ pyxis' and all - not as easy to get to those meds....

OMG that would be frightening

Specializes in Geriatrics/Oncology/Psych/College Health.
Originally posted by Rapheal

Would it be safe to assume that she worked in an ECF perhaps looking for a future hubby?:rolleyes:

(Snort coffee!)

heeheehee!

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