From Melrose to Mensa
Now we don't want to generalise or anything but we assumed that with the amount of time spent falling out of clubs, ordering staff around and staring in the mirror, celebrities don't have a lot of brain power.
It turns out that we were wrong. In fact, we're wrong and stupid, at least compared to these guys...
(Images: Getty, Rex Features, Allstar)
1. James Woods
To go to college in America you take the Standard Aptitude Test (SAT). The highest score possible is 1,600; the US actor scored 1,580, and a perfect 800 points in the verbal section. He also studied linear algebra at UCLA while still at high school. And we thought working at the youth club was all the extra-curricular we’d ever need.
2. Quentin Tarantino
The Pulp Fiction director was a hyper-intelligent and hyperactive child but hated school, so he sacked it in at 16 – but not before he scored 160 in an IQ test (over 140 is considered ‘genius’). He went on to check tickets in a porn cinema called the Pussycat Theatre. Stimulating.
3. Dolph Lundgren
Swedish actor Lundgren cemented his place in public consciousness as the invincible Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, Scott in Universal Soldier and He-Man in Masters Of The Universe. But art imitates life. A master’s degree in chemical engineering is first up on his CV, along with fluency in Swedish, English and German.
4. Ashton Kutcher
Mr Demi Moore may have started out castrating livestock as a teenager and forged a career out of playing a stoned slacker, but he somehow managed to major in biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa.
5. Sharon Stone
Stone has obviously had some truck about promoting her looks or intellect to get big gigs. So she claimed she was a member of Mensa while continuously chasing the roles of an icy double-crossing sex temptress and exposing body parts. It turns out she made it up about Mensa, but she does have an IQ of 154.
6. Al Murray
UK comedian and mock pub landlord Murray is a descendant of Vanity Fair author William Makepeace Thackeray, so he should by rights be au fait with society’s fickle nature and the perils of pretending to be someone you’re not. Such as an Oxford graduate making a living as an ignorant nationalist publican.
7. Sir Jimmy Savile
Jim'll Fix It was required viewing for all UK kids in the 70s and 80s, but who knew its host was such a brainbox? Mr Fix It scored 149 in his Mensa test putting him in the top two per cent of intelligent people in the country. Clever, but not clever enough to resist female charms. In November, he mistakenly got too close to a woman he thought was trying to hug him. She nicked his glasses.
8. Shakira
The Colombian pop princess may not look like a genius but she’s got an IQ of 140. She writes her own songs for one – even the English numbers, which is why we’re exposed to lyrics such as: “Lucky that my breasts are small and humble/So you don’t confuse them with mountains.”
9. Bob Mortimer
It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that comedians are bright, but Vic Reeves's hilarious foil Bob Mortimer is sharper than average. He studied law at Sussex and Leicester universities and went on to become a fully fledged solicitor before chucking it all in to pursue the noble calling of tickling British students' funny bones.
10. Nicky Piper
After Muhammad Ali failed an Army intelligence test he famously quipped, “I said I was the greatest, not the smartest.” Former Commonwealth light heavyweight Piper clearly felt Ali was letting the boxing world down, so the Welsh slugger joined Mensa, hence the nickname ‘The Mensa Man’.ShortList
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