Celebrities that Aren't Horrible People

[gremcint]

Ok so I learned something about someone I watched growing up today. I'm tired of hearing about Asshole celebrities.

So here's some awesome ones:

Ron Perlman dressed up as Hellboy to meet a kid for the make a wish foundation.

Peter Capaldi sent a lovely video to an autistic fan who had recently lost someone.

Patrick Stewart is walking talking awesome, charity work, standing up for abused women, lobster costume.

Christopher Reeve campaign for handicapped people up until his death founding his own research center.

Please add your own.

[wolfie]

They're both dead now, but a couple actors from The Beachcombers (CBC in the '70s) were clearly out-of-character so far as charity appearances went. Bruno Gerusi (Nick Adonidas - the good guy) wouldn't show up unless he was paid for it. Robert Clothier (Relic - the bad guy) did a lot of charity work.

[Nyoibo]

George Takei, with his work for equal rights and his effort to bring the experiences of Japanese americans during WW2 to light

[fireheart17]

Chris Pratt stole his Star-Lord costume from the Guardians of the Galaxy set so that if a kid wanted to meet Star-Lord, they could.

On a more local level (and an extremely obscure one), a former Biggest Loser contestant (Fiona Falkiner) is now starting a positive body image program for women that is more or less "I love myself because..." and shared her story on it (she dropped 30-odd kilos, but has since gone back up slightly and is now a plus-size model, but is happier with herself)

And a slightly questionable "Asshole" one, but Gordon Ramsay has been known to support cooking talent further by plucking certain chefs from obscurity and giving others a boost where needed. (I'm not thinking Hell's Kitchen/Kitchen Nightmares here, although there are examples in both categories where Ramsay has done this-for example, he's hired a couple of runner-up contestants from Hells Kitchen to work at his restaurants because they were good, ditto for Kitchen nightmares staff)

[Jetfire]

Fox Gordon Ramsay is an asshole on TV; but if you watch his British shows, and other stuff in general outside of the Fox control, he's got a golden heart, especially for Talented chefs that might not otherwise get the recognition or the help they need/deserve.

Chris Pratt's Starlord costume stunt was a huge good will boost for him. While I doubt he actually 'stole' the costume, the story fits the character and makes everyone look good for free, which I have no problem with.

[lordlundar]

Tom Hiddleston who is working with UNICEF.

[blas87]

Both Mark Wahlberg and Gary Sinese do lots of work with injured veterans and helping them get back on their feet when they return home.

[Gravekeeper]

Yeah, Ramsay is only edited to look like an asshole on US television. Watch any of the UK shows and he's a teddy bear underneath it all. He's hired people from shows a number of times and even paid for some to go to culinary school. Doesn't care who they are or what their background is. Seems to really irk him when he sees talent that might go to waste.

I'll add Ryan Gosling randomly breaking up a street fight.

[Kuari]

Misha Collins is pretty damn awesome, as is Clark Gregg. And in terms of plain approachability I'd say that Jim Beaver wins hands down.

[gremcint]

All three of the main ones from harry potter are actuall y pretty damn awesome, Daniel and Emma standing up against sexism and the guy who played ron literally giving kids free ice cream.

[Racket_Man]

Locally I would say most of the local football team are pretty decent people.

One of the receivers (now retired after getting the glitter ball on the Dance Show) came into my pizza place. NO group or entroge. Just him and his son. They sat down at a table and just acted like a normal parent and child out for pizza. We left them alone though I did recognize him.

Some of the players live locally (some all year round) and for the most part are also decent (and from my perspective nice tips) nice and quiet folks.

[Andara Bledin]

In the list of celebrities and sick kids:

Jim Cummings will call children as Winnie the Pooh.

Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd suited up some time after the fact so a kid in the hospital could meet a couple of the Ghostbusters.

Johnny Depp will regularly visit hospitals and Disneyland as Jack Sparrow. He actually travels with the costume on hand in case an opportunity arises as well as making special trips. He also once bought an entire crew of 500 jackets because the weather was particularly wet.

J K Rowling wrote the end of the 4th book a year early for a girl dying of leukemia. When it turned out she never got to read it, she named a character in the book after her who got sorted into Gryffindor.

John Cena has granted over 400 wishes for Make a Wish. (!) He also visits with disabled veterans.

And in other ongoing charitable acts:

Robin Williams required that local homeless people be hired for his movies; it was part of his contract.

Russell Brand is known to mingle with the homeless in Los Angeles, buying them food and clothes and listening to them.

[Peppergirl]

I sort of work on the far-fringes of the industry. Robin Williams was generally known to be one of the nicest people in the business, and the most quietly philanthropic. He kept it quiet, which is an added bonus (at least IMHO).

Steve Carell is widely known as very down to earth, and very generous with various causes, including Autism.

I'll update more as I think of them.

[protege]

About 20 years ago, I got to meet Blaise Winter, when he was still playing for the San Diego Chargers. At the time, my dad was doing some public relations work for the Cleft Palate Foundation, and thought that Blaise would make an excellent spokesman. What better way to help the kids, than to get a pro football player who has a cleft palate?

I remember that he was very kind, and genuinely nice. Not exactly what you'd expect from someone built like a Mack truck But seriously, he was very friendly and was very interested to what his friends were up to. Little wonder then he's now an inspirational speaker.

BTW, I still have the game ball--complete with signatures from the entire Chargers team--that he'd given me. It's in my office.

[Hyena Dandy]

To wrestlers, I'd add Mick Foley to the list. In addition to a lot of Make-A-Wish foundation things, he's one of the leading donors to ChildFund International, he volunteers with RAINN (and will mow your lawn if you donate 5,000 dollars) funded the building of a primary school in Sierra Leone, and visits schools and libraries to talk about the importance of reading. Another genuinely good guy.