The Bizarre Job Danny Devito Had Before He Got Famous

You likely recognize Danny DeVito from movies like the Jumanji sequel and Batman Returns, along with shows like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia – but there's a lot more to the actor than just a long list of Hollywood credits. Among the other things you might not have known about DeVito — such as the fact that he's been in a long and somewhat complicated relationship with fellow star Rhea Perlman — there's also the fact that he had a rather freaky day job before he got famous: he was a hairdresser for dead people.

DeVito explained the path that took him to this strange — and somewhat creepy — profession after he finished high school while talking to The Independent in 2006. "My sister Angie was 16 years older than me and had a beauty parlor. She said, 'Why don't you come and work for me?'" He admitted, "It was kind of embarrassing but I said, 'Oh, what the hell'; and ended up having quite a feel for it."

DeVito continued, "None of my friends gave me a hard time about it because they all loved Angie. She was great and paid for me to go to hairdressing school, which was amazing. I walked in and I was stunned. There were 35 young women in the room, each one better looking than the other. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven."

Of course, while he hadn't died himself, he would, in fact, soon be working with the dead.

Danny Devito is apparently the type of man who will follow the opportunities as they arise. Or, in this case, as they pass away. And that's how he ended up styling hair for dead people.

"My sister had a very particular kind of clientele," Devito recalled while sitting down for a chat on Lopez Tonight in October 2010. While she did have some young clients, the actor explained that there were also "the old ladies who lived down the [Jersey] Shore" where they were from. And when these older ladies passed away, they wanted "to have a nice hairdo." That's were DeVito came in.

"I used to go in there, you know, the mortuary," DeVito explained before briefly stopping to acknowledge that "it's a little morbid, but you've seen Six Feet Under and all these shows." True enough. He then continued, "Anyway, there she would be, it was only women's hair I did, and it was usually [a] really old lady." 

While that may sound sad, DeVito did note, "She didn't talk back. She didn't say, 'Oh, I don't like the way that hair's curled.'" That's certainly one way to put a positive spin on an unusual situation.