Tag Archives: Celebrity Teachers

Teachers who have become famous for achievements outside the profession of education.

John Houston Ingle: Teacher and Hollywood actor

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Many educators have enjoyed success in other professions. One such teacher is John Houston Ingle, who earned acclaim as a Hollywood actor.

Many Chalkboard Champions have enjoyed success in professions outside of the field of education. One such teacher is John Houston Ingle, who also earned acclaim as a Hollywood actor.

John is probably best known as the actor who played the part of Edward Quartermain, the scheming patriarch, on the daytime television soap opera General Hospital. Others will remember him as the actor who portrayed Mickey Horton in the rival soap opera Days of Our Lives. John has also appeared in episodes of The Office, The Golden Girls, Night Court, and Boy Meets World. And, in addition, he has appeared in films such as Death Becomes Her, Robocop 2, The Land Before Time, and Heathers. He also voiced many characters in animated features such as the Jetsons, Smurfs, and the Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera.

This former teacher and talented educator was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1928. He graduated from Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga, California. After high school, John attended Occidental College in Los Angeles. He began his career as an educator when he accepted a position teaching English and Theater at Hollywood High School in 1955. In 1964, he transferred to Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, California. During his tenure there, his students included such celebrities as Nicolas Cage, Richard Dreyfuss, Barbara Hershey, Swoozie Kurtz, Stefanie Powers, and David Schwimmer. John also taught courses at the University of California, Los Angeles. John retired from the teaching profession in 1985.

John Houston Ingle, Chalkboard Champion and Hollywood actor, passed away in 2012 at the age of 84. You can read his obituary at this link.

Maggi Parker: Teacher, Hollywood celeb, and businesswoman

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New Hampshire elementary teacher Maggi Parker, in her role on Hawaii Five-0.

Many American educators have also earned fame in the entertainment field. One of these is Marjorie Parker, also known as Maggi Parker, an elementary school teacher from New Hampshire who, in her heyday, also earned some notoriety in Hollywood.

Maggi was born in 1927 in Nashua, New Hampshire. As a child, she attended elementary schools in Merrimack. After her 1944 graduation from Nashua High School, she enrolled in Keene State College. There she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Education. She earned her Master’s in Education in School
Administration from Boston University. She also completed some doctoral courses the University of Southern California

Once she completed her education, Maggi taught in elementary schools in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Then she was hired by the US Air Force, and through them she continued her career as an educator in schools in Tokyo, Madrid, and Mallorca. Later Maggi relocated to Hawaii, where she provided educational services to emotionally disturbed children and adults.

In addition to pursuing her career as an educator in Hawaii, Maggi also accepted roles in various television shows. She appeared in The King Family Show, I Dream of Jeannie, and a Kellogg’s cereal commercial. She also appeared in uncredited roles in Paradise, Hawaiian Style; I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew; and Hawaii. In addition, she was cast in Hawaii Five-0. She appeared in 14 episodes of that show in 1968-1969.

Not only is Maggi an excellent educator and a talented actress, but she has also proven to be adept in business ventures as well. She served as the publicity officer for the Friends of the Iolani Palace, the former official residence of Hawaiian royalty. She was instrumental in acquiring palace furnishings. She also worked for the royal family for many years.

Maggi, who is now 93 years old, currently lives in the Waikiki neighborhood of Honolulu in Hawaii.

To learn more about this amazing educator, see this link to New Hampshire’s History Blog.

Adelaide Cumming: Hers was the face of icon Betty Crocker

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The image of Betty Crocker, an American icon in the 1950’s, was actually Adelaide Cumming, an English teacher.

Betty Crocker was an icon of America womanhood in the 1950’s, but did you know the marketing image of the famous housewife was actually that of Adelaide Hawley Cumming, an English teacher?

This remarkable educator portrayed the fictional Betty Crocker on a weekly half-hour television show called The Betty Crocker Show. She also starred in walk-on commercials on the Burns & Allen Show, where comedian George Burns would say to his wife, “I don’t know how to bake a cake, Gracie, but here is Betty Crocker to show us how.”

Adelaide was born in 1905 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. A vaudeville performer and broadcast pioneer, Adelaide majored in piano and voice at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, New York. Following her graduation from college, she taught music for two and a half years at the Alabama College School of Music in Montevallo, Alabama.

From 1937 to 1950, the talented teacher was the host of the Adelaide Hawley Program, first on NBC radio and then on CBS. At the height of her career, Adelaide was a nationally recognized figure, second only to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. According to Adelaide’s daughter, Marcia Hayes, the teacher and actress was a feminist in her private life, and was not especially fond of cooking. “I am merely the manifestation of a corporate image,” she once told autograph-seeking fans. She practiced her autograph as Betty Crocker by copying the signature from the top of the cake mix box.

When General Mills replaced her with a more updated image in 1964, Adelaide went back to school, earning a doctorate in speech education from New York University in 1967. She taught English to second-language learners in Washington state until her death at age 93 in 1998, a career as an educator that spanned nearly thirty years.

To read more about the marketing of Betty Crocker, see this article entitled Betty Crocker: A Brief Biography.

Iowa’s Phyllis Love: Talented educator and successful actress

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Talented educator and former successful  actress Phyllis Love of Des Moines, Iowa.

There are many fine educators who enjoyed success in the entertainment industry before they became classroom teachers One of these was Iowa’s Phyllis Love, a television actress who also taught drama and English.

Phyllis was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on December 21, 1925. Her parents were both small business owners. Her father owned a food market and her mother owned and managed a small restaurant. As a youngster, Phyllis attended first Perkins Elementary School, then Callanan Junior High School, and finally Theodore Roosevelt High School, all in Des Moines. While in high school, one of Phyllis’s close friends was actress Chloris Leachman.

Once she graduated from high school in 1944, Phyllis attended the School of Dramatic Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. She earned her Bachelor’s degree there in 1948.

After college, Phyllis relocated to New York, where she honed her skills as an actress at the Actors Studio. Paul Newman and Marlon Brando were her classmates. Her talent earned her roles on Broadway and in the movies. She performed in The Rose Tattoo (1950), The Country Girl (1950), The Friendly Persuasion (1956), The Egghead (1957), A Distant Bell (1959), and Flowering Cherry (1959), and The Young Doctors (1961). She also performed in numerous roles on television, including appearances on Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The FBI, and Twilight Zone.

After Phyllis retired from acting in the 1970’s, she launched herself into her career as an educator. She taught Drama and English for 15 years at Morningside High School in Inglewood, California.

Sadly, in her later years, this talented educator and actress suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. She passed away on October 30, 2011, in Menifee, California. She was 85 years old. To read her obituary, see this link to the New York Times.

Beloved actor Andy Griffith once taught music and drama

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Beloved television actor Andy Griffith once taught high school music and drama in North Carolina.

Many people are familiar with the beloved television actor Andy Griffith. He starred as the affable sheriff Andy Taylor on the 1960’s series the Andy Griffith Show. Later, he starred as the curmudgeonly lawyer Ben Matlock on the legal drama show Matlock. But did you know that before his career as an actor, Andy Griffith taught high school music and drama?

Andy was born on June 1, 1926, in Mount Airy, Surry County, North Carolina. He was the only child of Carl and Geneva Griffith. Carl was a furniture carpenter, and Geneva was a homemaker. Even as a child, Andy was aware that he lived on “the wrong side of the tracks.” He was a shy and introverted child, but he soon learned how to make his classmates laugh, and that helped him to gain self-confidence.

As a young man, Andy harbored hopes of becoming an opera singer. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Music at the University of North Carolina in 1949. Once he earned his degree, he taught at Goldsboro High School in North Carolina. His career there spanned three years.

Andy, who was so good at so many things, once confessed that he didn’t think he was a very good teacher. “First day, I’d tell the class all I knew, and there was nothing left to say for the rest of the semester,” he once told The New York Times.

To read more about Andy Griffith, consult this obituary published by the New York Times in 2012.