‘Your politics ought to be groovier’: 10 celebrities who tried to become US president
A pop-culture president would have been an unimaginable concept when Hollywood cowboy Will Rogers launched a humorous run for The Oval Office nearly a century ago. Since then, of course, screen star Ronald Reagan and reality television performer Donald Trump have both won White House elections.
Trump, who was host of The Apprentice for 14 seasons and had cameo roles in eight films including Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, was especially canny at turning his primetime celebrity into votes. As it turned out, of course, Television Trump proved to be a toned-down version of the Tweeter-in-Chief, who is now bidding for a second term.
According to Vanity Fair last month, sources close to former Suits-actress-turned-royal Meghan Markle, say the Duchess of Sussex would “seriously consider running in 2024”. Although the “celebritisation” of the presidency may be here to stay, it is not a new phenomenon. Comedians, film stars and musicians have repeatedly tried to win the biggest prize in politics.
Here is our guide to 10 strange presidential campaigns by the famous.
Will Rogers (1928)
What Trump labels “fake news” was called “bunk” almost a century ago by Will Rogers, the trailblazing American-Cherokee actor-director, radio star and bestselling author, who rose to fame with his vaudeville cowboy rope act.
In 1928, Rogers, who was celebrated with a Google doodle last year, ran as the “bunkless candidate” of the Anti-Bunk Party. The 49-year-old’s only campaign promise was that, if elected, he would resign.
He first mooted the idea of running for President in his weekly column for Life. The magazine’s offices were soon deluged with offers of help. A national committee of 15 prominent citizens – who included automobile tycoon Henry Ford, baseball hero Babe Ruth and comedian Harold Lloyd – endorsed his candidacy.
Rogers, who had a brief spell as mayor of Beverly Hills, printed campaign badges and began hosting political rallies, which were broadcast widely on radio. He declined to issue a campaign motto, saying “slogans have been more harmful to the country than the boll-weevil or golf pants”. Asked about his fan base, he replied: “Our support will have to come from those who want nothing and have the assurance of getting it.”
Although his campaign was largely ironic, he couldn’t help letting slip the truth. When asked, “can voters be fooled?”, he answered simply, “Darn tootin’, they can.” His best manifesto promise was to pledge that, “if elected, I will not have any Official Spokesman!”
Herbert Hoover thrashed Al Smith in the election, although several hundred people reportedly spoiled their ballots papers by writing in the name of the Rogers and the Anti-Bunk Party.
WC Fields (1940)
When he launched a satirical run at the White House in 1939 – publishing the book Fields for President – the comedian and actor WC Fields insisted he was a suitable candidate because the job of running America was nothing more than a “glorified racket”.
Fields might even have given Trump a run for his money when it comes to alleged hornswoggling of tax payments, which Fields described as “annual ransom notes” from the Internal Revenue Department. Fields used to regularly put down huge deductions on his tax returns for absurd items: one year he claimed $25,000 for milk, listing it as an entertainment expense for newspaper reporters.
Unlike most real candidates, the movie star was upfront about his aims in his manifesto proposal, which he called The Fields Plan. “The major responsibility of a president is to squeeze the last possible cent out of the taxpayer,” he declared.
Fields did come up with one innovative plan. He suggested that if politicians wanted to go to war, they should be made to meet their rival leader in a stadium and fight it out themselves using socks filled with horse dung.
Gracie Allen (1940)
Gracie Allen, part of a comedy double-act with husband George Burns, was one of the most famous women in America in the pre-war era. She starred in films – including The Gracie Allen Murder Case – had a hit radio show and a newspaper column that was syndicated across the United States.
In March 1940, Allen was at home with her family in Beverly Hills, when she looked up from her chair and said: “You know, I’m tired of knitting this sweater, I think I’ll run for president!”
She formed the Surprise Party – explaining that her mother was a Democrat, her father a Republican and her conception had been a surprise – and hired songwriter Charles Henderson (who composed for Disney films such as Fantasia and Dumbo) to write her campaign song, which included the words, “If the country’s going Gracie, so can you.” The mascot of the Surprise Party was a kangaroo named Laura, and posters were printed with the slogan “it’s in the bag”.
After a blitz of radio shows, Allen embarked on a 34-city whistle-stop train tour that drew hundreds of thousands of supporters. She was quick-witted. Asked if she would recognise communist Russia, she replied: “I don’t know. I meet so many people.” She refused to share the ticket with a vice-presidential nominee, claiming she didn’t want any vice in the White House. Her most daring suggestion was that Congress should be funded on commission, getting money only if the country did well.
Allen was endorsed by Harvard University, much to the chagrin of President Roosevelt, an alumnus of the school. When The Surprise Party held a convention in Nebraska in May 1940, it was attended by 8,000 delegates and shown live on NBC. Although she ceased campaigning in June – saying it was time for the real candidates to get their messages out – she still picked up several thousand votes in the final election, in which Democrat Roosevelt won the third of his four terms. She’s still better known today than the Republican candidate Wendell Wilkie.
Dizzie Gillespie (1964)
It’s perhaps no surprise that jazz trumpeter John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie can lay claim to the coolest campaign song. He re-worked the melody of the famous John Hendricks jazz tune Salt Peanuts, adding new lyrics that went:
‘Your politics ought to be a groovier thing, Vote Dizzy! Vote Dizzy! So get a good President, who’s willing to swing, Vote Dizzy! Vote Dizzy!
Gillespie, who had worked as a music ambassador for the State Department, wanted civil rights to be a key talking point in the 1964 election. “Anybody could have made a better President than the ones we had in those times, dillydallying about protecting blacks in the exercise of their civil and human rights and carrying on secret wars against people around the world,” he said.
The musician began selling “Dizzie Gillespie for President” badges at his concerts (proceeds went to the Congress of Racial Equality) and he held rallies in New York, Chicago and even Paris. He appointed Ralph Gleason as his publicity manager and the jazz writer’s wife Jean as his campaign manager. They called Gillespie’s party The John Birks Society.
“By early 1964, the campaign was definitely off the ground,” Gillespie recalled in his autobiography. “Jean had been contacted by people in 25 states about it. The drive began to place my name on the ballot. The press began to show some interest when they found out I was a serious candidate.”
Before he came under pressure from the Kennedy’s Democrat machine to withdraw – they did not want to lose any African-American votes – Gillespie outlined his manifesto, which included a promise to re-name the White House the Blues House.
Gillespie also promised a dazzling new cabinet, with Duke Ellington as Secretary of State, drummer Max Roach as Defence Secretary, Peggy Lee as Labour Secretary, Malcolm X as Attorney General, Ray Charles as Librarian of Congress, Louis Armstrong as Secretary of Agriculture and Miles Davis as Director of the CIA.
The jazz musician enjoyed his dalliance with politics so much that he began a short campaign again in 1972, running against Richard Nixon.
Pat Paulsen (1968–1996)
Pat Paulsen, an Emmy-winning comedian and actor, ran five tongue-in-cheek races for the Presidency, starting in 1968, when he announced he was standing for the Straight Talking American Government Party or the STAG Party, as he called it.
Paulsen, who became a household name in America as part of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour”, said that being a professional funny man was the perfect basis for a political campaign, because they were both based on “outright lies, double talk and unfounded attacks on challengers”.
His campaign slogans were ironic (“We Can Be Decisive, Probably”, “United We Sit” and “If Elected, I Will Win”) and he was unusually blunt when giving his verdict on the American electorate’s intellectual levels. When asked in 1992, “who are your voters?” he replied, “I read an article that said one in five Americans think Elvis Presley is alive. I want to find those morons and get them registered to vote for me.”
In his last campaign, in 1996, Paulsen polled 921 votes to Bill Clinton’s 76,754 in the New Hampshire primary. When not involved in comedy or politics, Paulsen ran a winery in Sonoma County. He said he consoled himself in defeat by Clinton with a bottle of his cheap white wine, which he had branded “Refrigerator White”.
Benjamin Spock (1972)
“It’s true, I didn’t become a rebel until I was in my sixties,” said Benjamin McLane Spock. In 1972, at the age of 69, Dr Spock ran against Nixon. At the time, the paediatrician, a former Olympic gold medal winner for rowing, was world-famous. Spock’s 1946 book The Common-Sense Book of Baby and Child Care had struck a chord with its message to mothers that “you know more than you think you do”. It became a smash hit, selling more than 50 million copies.
In the late 1960s, Spock became a political activist, opposing nuclear weapons and the militarisation of America. His radical campaign, which was supported by a young Bernie Sanders, called for free medical care and worker representation. “We are not talking of destroying the capitalist system. We’re talking of Americanising America,” he said. Spock, running for The People’s Party, described the conflict in Vietnam as “one of the dirtiest wars of all time… part of our desire to dominate the world, militarily and economically.”
Nixon used his vice-presidential candidate Spiro Agnew to attack Spock. Agnew dubbed the childcare manual “permissive” and called all hippies “the work of Spock”. The mud stuck. “The person who spread the accusation most widely was Spiro Agnew, who turned out to be a common crook,” Spock said a decade later. “Agnew went all over the country saying I was responsible for raising the hippies and draft resisters. I was always glad to say that no one could accuse me of raising Spiro Agnew.”
Spock’s name appeared on the ballot in 10 states and he received 78,801 votes. Nixon was elected with 47,168,710 votes, with Watergate waiting on the horizon.
Jello Biafra (2000)
Musician Eric Reed Boucher used a stage name that was a combination of the brand name Jell-O and the short-lived African country of Biafra. As Jello Biafra, he was the lead singer and songwriter of the now-defunct San Francisco punk band, Dead Kennedys.
After being challenged by a bandmate to go into politics – “Biafra, you have such a big mouth that you should run for mayor,” said drummer Bruce “Ted” Slesinger – he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, using the slogan “There’s always room for Jello”.
Biafra’s campaign pledges were unusual. He said he would pay the unemployed to panhandle in wealthy neighbourhoods and promised to force all businessmen to wear clown suits to the office.
In 2000 he tried to become the Green Party candidate in a Presidential election eventually won by George W Bush. The singer, who had recently released a spoken-word album, campaigned on environmental issues and a pledge to end police brutality “by making police officers stand for election every four years, voted on by the districts they patrol”.
At the nominating convention in Denver, Colorado, Ralph Nader was overwhelmingly chosen as the Green Party’s candidate. Biafra earned only 10 votes.
Roseanne Barr (2012)
“Power to the people!” Roseanne Barr sometimes said during her 2012 presidential bid as the Peace and Freedom Party’s candidate (following a rejection by the Green Party). It turned out that Barr didn’t actually want that much to do with the people.
In a revealing moment in Eric Weinrib’s 2016 documentary Roseanne for President!, the Emmy-winning star of the sitcom Roseanne explained why she preferred to address the party faithful via Skype from her Hawaii home. “I hate to be around people and touch them or any of that,” she admitted. “Plus, the fear that there is going to be weirdos that want to kill me.”
As the candidate for the Peace and Freedom Party, Barr advocated the legalisation of marijuana – at one point in the campaign she said the President ought to keep a joint by the nuclear button – and she kept insisting that she was “not running as a publicity stunt”.
Barr ended up finishing in sixth place in the poll. Her 67,326 votes left her well behind Barack Obama, something that might have stung the Republican sympathiser. When Roseanne returned to the screens in 2018, she said it was “important” to reflect Trump’s appeal to ordinary Americans. The President even gave her a congratulatory phone call for a ratings triumph in March 2018.
Only two months later, after she posted a racist Tweet about a friend of the Obamas, ABC cancelled Barr’s television show and she was dropped like a hot potato by agents ICM. Another presidential run is not on the cards.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (2020)
Although The Rock – a man with 15 million Twitter followers – joked that he would use Tom Hanks as his running mate, he usually plays down talk of a future presidential bid. But the wrestler-turned-action hero movie star has sometimes sounded like a man ready for the hustings. He even came up with his own slogan – “A lot of people want to see a better leadership today. More poise. Less noise” – during a television interview with Jimmy Fallon.
Rumours of a White House bid prompted thousands of people to gamble on his chances. The Rock became the third-most-backed candidate in the betting market this summer, attracting nearly four per cent of all wagers across the world.
While The Rock subsequently endorsed Joe Biden, the actor may still get some votes. In July this year, Dwayne Johnson’s name was registered with the Federal Election, his candidacy submitted by a fan, using the hashtag slogan #MakeAmericaRockAgain, promising “a grassroots movement to send the People’s Champion to the White House in 2020”.
The Rock is not the only big-name actor to float the idea of a Presidential bid. Will Smith, who told CNN that he “hadn’t made that decision yet” about a future run at the Oval Office, said recently that “crazy” talk about building walls might “force me into the political arena”.
Kanye West (2020)
The big winners from Kanye West’s two-week presidential campaign in July 2020 were his political consultants. The rapper, who has won 21 Grammys, ran up more than $1.2 million in outstanding debts to these advisors.
Under the flag of the Birthday Party, Kanye announced his bid on Independence Day via Twitter – using the hashtag #2020VISION – and gained endorsements from fellow hip-hop stars 2 Chainz, Chance the Rapper and DaBaby. Sceptics thought Kanye was simply being used by Republicans to siphon African-American votes from Biden.
Kanye said he wanted to bring back prayer in schools and allocate more government finance to religious groups. He demanded that his campaign staff refrained from “fornicating” outside of marriage. After his only campaign appearance, in South Carolina, during which he broke down in tears, his wife Kim Kardashian West took to Instagram to describe Kanye as a “brilliant but complicated person” who has to deal with “pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bipolar disorder.”
Like Trump, Kanye also contracted Covid-19 this year. When he was asked about a possible cure, the rapper reportedly dismissed vaccines as “the mark of the beast”. Perhaps it’s for the best that Steve Kramer, a member of Kanye’s campaign team, announced on July 14 that the rapper would no longer be contesting the election. “He’s out,” Kramer said.
Kanye is now believed to be working on a new album, although some Americans will still be able to vote for the rapper, who qualified to appear on the ballot in Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah and Vermont.
