In the summer of 1995, Joey Fatone would make friends with Chris Kirkpatrick, a fellow stage performer at Universal Studios. This friendship blossomed and Fatone would soon become the fourth member of the boy-band, NSYNC, singing in a baritone voice. Girls would go bonkers over Fatone and the rest of the group, which included Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez.
Long before all the crazy boy-band mania, Fatone made his TV debut on the Nickelodeon game show, Nick Arcade. We have a feeling this fact may have been dug up from a past he would rather forget. Back then, Joey went by the far more formal name, “Joseph,” and he was a gangling youth with awkward wavy bangs to match.
A.J. McLean
A.J. McLean is a member of the Backstreet Boys. He discovered his love for music early in life, and at the age of four his mother had him enrolled in a dance school where he trained for a minimum of two hours a day. McLean’s career would eventually expand to the fields of dancing, singing, modelling and acting. However, before all that (and all the crazy tattoos), he was simply known as “Mean” McLean.
This name stuck during his time as a formidable contestant on Nickelodeon Guts, back in the 90s. The show was an “action sports” competition which originally ran from 1992 to 1996. McLean dominated the arena and fought for the glowing piece of the Aggro Crag. He failed to win the competition, but certainly became “Larger Than Life.”
Aaron Paul
It’s funny how sometimes people get associated with certain things, like Aaron Paul has become linked to the color yellow. Thanks to the wild success of the Breaking Bad series, Paul is often remembered for wearing a yellow hazmat suit as drug dealing Jesse Pinkman.
Before Paul became a multi-awarded actor, he also sported a yellow name tag in 2000 as a contestant on The Price Is Right in which he was notably high with excitement. He played and lost Dice Game, and overbid by more than $100 on the Showcase.
Steve Martin
With all the talents Steve Martin possesses, it is likely he would be successful no matter how he got his start. Hollywood’s funnyman has the chops to play a variety of roles on stage or film, and before he embarked on an acting career he started out as a writer. We’d be surprised if he ever runs out of hilarious stories to share.
Not many may know that Steve Martin is also a talented musician. In fact, it was his musical prowess that helped him land a spot on the amateur talent contest, The Gong Show, in 1977. A skillful banjo player, Martin immediately captured people’s attention with his goofiness, and that arrow-through-the-head costume, leaving everyone laughing their hearts out.
Cindy Margolis
Cindy Margolis is perhaps one of the earliest celebrities to have taken advantage of the internet for career advancement. Way before the influx of Youtube sensations, or the internet-breaking Kardashians, Margolis was given the moniker the “queen of the internet,” as well as being ranked the world’s “most downloaded” person - and this was back in 1999.
It wasn’t only the internet that Margolis leveraged to her advantage. In the 90s and early 2000s, she graced TV sets across America as a model for The Price Is Right. She was a famous “Barker’s Beauty,” modeling for a variety of merchandise. Cindy Margolis is now a glamor spokesmodel.