Elvis tops list of celebrity truck drivers
Date: 14 December 2007
Haulage Exchange has compiled a list of celebrities who worked as lorry drivers before they were famous.
It takes all sorts to drive trucks, and the list includes singers, actors and comedians, although a certain mass murderer understandably didn't make it into the top ten!
Chris Tarrant, the presenter of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, used to be a long-distance lorry driver, as well as a security officer and schoolteacher before working in the media.
Another Chris, boxer Chris Eubank, took up driving lorries after he was famous - in one notable escapade he drove his HGV around Whitehall to protest against the war in Iraq and ended up being arrested.
American actors Rock Hudson and Chevy Chase were also both truck drivers before they found fame on the silver screen. Chase also worked as a cab driver, motorcycle messenger, waiter, construction worker, supermarket produce manager, theatre usher and various other jobs - perhaps explaining why he was so convincing as a chameleon newspaper reporter who assumed many disguises in the movie Fletch.
Also in the Haulage Exchange list is Long Distance Clara, the truck-driving star of the 80s kids' cartoon Pigeon Street.
Next are a couple more famous Americans - movie hardman Charles Bronson and pioneering black comedian Richard Pryor were both lorry drivers before they went on to superstardom.
On this side of the pond, Irish actor Liam Neeson and his Scottish counterpart Sean Connery were both haulage drivers before they went on to star in internationally renowned movies such as Schindler's List and the James Bond films.
But topping the celebrity trucker list is none other than the King of Rock 'n' Roll himself - Elvis Presley. Possibly the most famous person ever to walk the earth (and some will tell you he's still here), Elvis used to drive trucks for the Crown Electric Company after he graduated college.
Another notorious trucker was Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, who killed 13 women in a five-year reign of terror - "a sad blemish on the good name of lorry driving", said Haulage Exchange's Luke Humble.
"Celebrities who were lorry drivers before they were famous - a heady mixture of the talented, the eccentric, the unpleasant and the downright brilliant," he continued.
"Who knows what magical creatures are sitting behind the wheels of our country's lorries today?"
For more of the latest haulage and transport news, please visit the Haulage Exchange Haulage News page - all the latest for owner operators and haulage companies.
User Comments
You can download the article here: http://www.haulageexchange.co.uk/resources/media/460.pdf
Posted By: Luke Humble on 08/01/2008 10:10:40