The best singers turned actors of all time

Most of us could clear out a room by attempting to sing a karaoke rendition of "I Got You Babe" or give a dramatic reading of Jack Nicholson's courtroom speech from "A Few Good Men." But a handful of artists have excelled at both music and acting. For these singers turned actors, performing on-screen is not just something they dabbled in, but rather an entire second career. Some such musicians became arguably more renowned for their movie roles than for their exploits in music.

Cher

Cher rose to fame as one half of the musical duo Sonny & Cher alongside her first husband, Sonny Bono. But in the 1980s, she branched out into serious acting starting with the biographical drama "Silkwood" (1983). She later won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Loretta Castorini in the 1987 romantic comedy "Moonstruck," a movie that "celebrates the family over the romantic couple" and felt "completely true to people as they are: ridiculous and passionate, in search of answers and solutions, and taking what they can get," said B. D. McClay at The New Yorker. After starring in the 1990 comedy "Mermaids," Cher refocused her career on music and has only appeared in a handful of feature films since then, most recently 2018's "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again."

Doris Day

Doris Day earned her first big hit in 1945 with "Sentimental Journey" and became a huge pop star before starring in film musicals like "Love Me or Leave Me" (1955). She headlined a number of romantic comedies in the 1950s and 1960s, including "Pillow Talk" (1959) and "Send Me No Flowers" (1964). She also starred in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956). Day was "surprisingly effective as the mother who is frantic about her child" in Hitchcock's thriller, said Bosley Crowther at The New York Times. Her final screen credit was the sitcom "The Doris Day Show," which ran from 1968 to 1973. After retiring from acting, she became an animal welfare activist.

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Lady Gaga

One of the biggest established music superstars to ever make the pivot into acting, Lady Gaga's feature film debut was in director Robert Rodriguez's 2013 "Machete Kills." She later appeared in two seasons of the anthology series "American Horror Story" — but her big screen breakout came in 2018 when she played Ally in the most recent remake of the Hollywood classic "A Star Is Born" opposite Bradley Cooper. In a "transcendent Hollywood movie," Gaga delivered a "fetching and accomplished debut" playing a waitress thrust into the limelight following a chance meeting with Cooper's jaded country musician, said Owen Gleiberman at Variety. She has also scored leading roles in "House of Gucci" (2021) and "Joker: Folie à Deux" (2024) while continuing to churn out chart-topping albums.

Whitney Houston

Houston was a pop megastar with multiple #1 Billboard hits to her name, including "The Greatest Love of All," when she starred in the smash 1992 romance "The Bodyguard" as Rachel Marron, a pop star who falls in love with her bodyguard (Kevin Costner). A movie "mocked by the critics and loved by the public," said Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian, it was buttressed by the "powerhouse punch of Whitney Houston's showcase musical numbers." While her performance drew some criticism — she was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress — it also helped make her one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood. After starring in the hit "Waiting to Exhale," Houston won an NAACP Image Award for her performance in "The Preacher's Wife" (1996). She died tragically in 2012 at the age of 48.

Jennifer Hudson

Hudson is one of the few stars who launched a career by getting eliminated from a season of "American Idol." Her shocking 2004 exit from the show had fans outraged, and she parlayed that fame into a multi-dimensional career as an actor and recording artist. While her Oscar-winning turn in "Dreamgirls" (2006) predated the release of her first album, she was known at the time for her singing. Her "pure delight to watch" of a performance in a film about a Supremes-esque Motown group called The Dreams meant that viewers could "finally experience the completion of the collective star-making fantasy" of "American Idol," said Dana Stevens at Slate. Hudson has subsequently "received the coveted EGOT for all four major entertainment awards, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony," said People.

Janelle Monáe

A highly regarded musical artist, Janelle Monáe won a Grammy in 2008 for her song "Many Moons" and later released several acclaimed studio albums. After doing voice work for the animated film "Rio 2," she broke out with roles in the 2016 films "Moonlight" and "Hidden Figures." In the latter, Monáe gave one of several "superb, luminous performances" as Mary Jackson, a member of a "trio of math whizzes" tasked with assisting early NASA space missions in the 1960s, said Stephanie Zacharek at Time. Her performance earned her a Critics Choice Awards nomination, and she scored another for her supporting role in "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" (2022). She continues to do prolific work in both film and music.

Dolly Parton

Few performers are so successful that they spawn their own theme park with millions of visitors per year. But Dollywood is part of what makes Dolly Parton one of a kind. Beginning with her 1968 duet with Porter Wagoner, "The Last Thing on My Mind," Parton became a country music sensation and one of the best-selling musical artists of all time. She made her feature film debut in the 1980 workplace comedy "9 to 5" and received a Golden Globe nomination for her role as Mona Stangley in the 1982 musical comedy "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." She also turned in a memorable performance in the 1989 melodrama "Steel Magnolias," a movie that "belongs to its actresses, who have tapped into some fundamental truths about the strength women derive from one another," said Peter Travers at Rolling Stone.

Diana Ross

Motown megastar Diana Ross rose to fame as a member of The Supremes, known for chart-topping hits like "You Can't Hurry Love" and "Baby Love." In 1972, she made her film debut as Billie Holiday in the biopic "Lady Sings the Blues." Ross delivered "one of the great performances of 1972," said Roger Ebert, in part because "she never tries to imitate Holiday, but she sings somehow in the manner of Holiday." She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the role. While other films she appeared in, like "Mahogany" (1975) and "The Wiz" (1978), were less lauded at the time, they now have devoted followings. Ross also starred in two made-for-TV films in the 1990s, but has otherwise focused on music.

Frank Sinatra

Ol' Blue Eyes was a well-established music star when he moved into acting, and the singer eventually "became admired for a screen persona distinctly tougher than his smooth singing style," said All About Jazz. Starting with lighthearted musicals like "Anchors Aweigh," Sinatra gradually took on meatier roles, including in 1953's "From Here to Eternity." Perhaps his most memorable turn was in 1962's "The Manchurian Candidate," a thriller in which Sinatra plays Captain Bennett Marco, who thwarts an assassination attempt by an unwitting communist sleeper agent. Sinatra here gave a "reasoned and in many ways more mature performance than he has ever done before," said The Hollywood Reporter.

Will Smith

As one-half of the legendary hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Will Smith had won a Grammy award for the song "Summertime" before launching his acting career on the 1990 sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." A ratings success, the show led Smith to big roles in studio films like "Six Degrees of Separation," (1993) in which he plays a young conman pretending to be Sidney Poitier's son to insinuate himself into a wealthy, white family.

Smith has been an action star in movies like "Bad Boys" (1995), but has also turned in a number of critically praised dramatic performances, most recently in "King Richard" (2021), as tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams' father. This was a movie about a "fraught but loving family relationship at a pivotal time in all their lives," highlighted by Smith's "poetic physicality" in a "touching turn," said Bilge Ebiri at Variety. Smith won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2022 for his role.

Barbra Streisand

Broadway star Barbra Streisand made her film debut in 1968's "Funny Girl," an adaptation of the stage musical she also starred in, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Streisand later played the idealistic young leftist Katie Morosky in the bittersweet 1973 romance "The Way We Were," acting opposite Robert Redford as her more conservative love interest Hubbell Gardiner. In that film, Streisand proved herself to be the "brightest, quickest female actress in movies today," said Roger Ebert at the time. She was able to inhabit her "characters with a fierce energy" yet also be "touchingly vulnerable." Streisand has been choosy about her cinematic roles since then, last appearing in 2012's "Guilt Trip."

Special mention for musical stars

In the heyday of the Hollywood musical, a number of stars emerged as staples of the genre, seamlessly blending the roles of musician and actor on and off screen. One of the most successful was Judy Garland, who toured as part of a musical vaudeville act with her sisters before signing with MGM at the age of 13 in 1935. She went on to star in more than two dozen film musicals, including the 1939 cultural touchstone "The Wizard of Oz." Garland was nominated for an Academy Award for one of her only roles in a non-musical; she played Irene Hoffmann, who was convicted by a Nazi kangaroo court, in "Judgment at Nuremberg"(1961). The film offered a "dramatic statement of moral probity," said Bosley Crowther at The New York Times.

A similar trajectory was enjoyed by Bing Crosby. While he was a more established musician than Garland had been before launching his acting career, Crosby is primarily known and remembered for his roles in musical films like "The Bells of St. Mary's" (1945), for which he earned an Academy Award nomination. He was again nominated for his portrayal of an alcoholic, down-on-his-luck actor in 1954's "The Country Girl."

Julie Andrews, who rose to musical stardom on Broadway as a child in the 1940s, struck gold in Hollywood with "Mary Poppins," her 1964 film debut in which she played the titular character, a nanny with magic powers. Her performance was a "signal triumph and she performs as easily as she sings," said Variety. She then starred in the beloved 1965 musical "The Sound of Music" and has since worked in a variety of settings, including television, film and voice work (she was Gru's Mom in the "Despicable Me" and "Minions" children's movie franchises). Incredibly, Andrews is still working at the age of 89.