Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Think your job is a thankless grind? What better time than Labor Day to accentuate the negative — in other people's jobs — and thereby gain renewed appreciation for one's own work? Herewith, a collection of favorite Hollywood celebrities' jobs, before they became famous:

Rachel McAdams spent three summers working at McDonalds before studying theater in college. "You'd fantasize while you were at work and then you'd realize that you needed to flip the burger," she recalled with a laugh. "Sometimes I would have those moments when somebody would chuck their change at me through the drive-thru window, like, 'I'm going somewhere!' I had no idea that I would be here today. I just knew I wasn't going to stay at McDonalds. It was a great experience, though. It makes you that much stronger."

"Glee's" Cory Monteith was a Walmart greeter, and esteemed actress Helen Mirren worked at an amusement park, hawking the rides.

Ellen DeGeneres worked as an oyster shucker in New Orleans.

Ozzy Osbourne worked in a slaughterhouse.

Madonna worked at Dunkin Donuts in Times Square. Eva Mendes sold hot dogs at a mall. Tina Fey worked the snack bar at a swim club. And, yep, Amy Adams worked at a Hooters.

Kristen Bell worked at a yogurt stand. "Such a lax job," she said. "But it was the worst because of all of the fruit flies that would get into the yogurt. We'd try to clean them out as much as possible, but I know I served a hell of a lot of fruit fly-ridden yogurt to people, and I really regret that."

Kimberly Elise did telemarketing "for, like, three days, inside a little cubicle, and it was awful — just awful — inside this sterile room," she said. "I had to make calls to rural areas, and I remember one boy telling me, 'My dad is out on the tractor.' And then he went, 'Daaaaaaad!' and it was like 10 minutes for the guy to get the phone.

Julie Benz was a perfume sprayer at a department store.

Dustin Hoffman's pre-fame jobs ranged from Yellow Pages typist to Hawaiian lei stringer to coffee fragrance tester.

Clint Eastwood worked as a firefighter and lumberjack in Oregon and as a steelworker in Washington.

Mickey Rourke collected money for New York gamblers, and Alec Baldwin used to be a bouncer. Think that's tough? Christopher Walken was part of a lion tamer act in a circus at age 15. The lion tamer couldn't have been that good, Walken surmised, because he had big scars all over his back.

Before "Seinfeld" became a household name, Jerry Seinfeld sold light bulbs over the phone. He also sold fake jewelry, never wanting his day job to be acceptable, so he'd force himself to succeed.

Maybe that was Rod Stewart's thinking. He sold pens by phone.

Sylvester Stallone was once a door-to-door art salesman.

Hugh Jackman used to be a clown.

Jon Hamm was a set dresser on a porn movie.

Glenn Close was a cocktail waitress while in college. However, she admitted, "I wasn't a very good cocktail waitress. I couldn't tell the difference between vodka or gin or anything."

Gary Sinise worked on a Neiman Marcus loading dock and did landscaping maintenance at an outdoor festival theater.

Melissa Leo danced on stilts at bar mitzvahs and weddings.

Barbra Streisand was a coat-check girl, and Simon Cowell was a mailroom guy.

Whoopi Goldberg got paid to put makeup on corpses at a funeral home.

In a related professional stint, original 007 Sean Connery had a job polishing coffins. He was also once a milkman.

And if you like the idea of a future movie star coming by your home to deliver something early in the morning, how about this? Tom Cruise was a paperboy.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2011 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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