Stars Knew How to Work a ’Stache with Panache Before They Were Famous

Cleveland native Arsenio Hall attended Ohio University until transferring to Kent State, where he majored in speech (appropriately, for a famed talker). Throughout high school, Hall was an avid amateur magician—maybe that’s how he conjured up that mustache-and-mini-goatee combo he sported in his early years.

After making his start as a stand-up comic, Hall quickly gained fame costarring alongside Eddie Murphy in the hit movie Coming to America. His brief stint as the sidekick on the talk show Thicke of the Night (starring Alan Thicke) led to a guest-hosting spot on The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers and, ultimately, to The Arsenio Hall Show. He had his share of high-profile interviews and guests over the years, including, notably, a saxophone-playing presidential candidate named Bill Clinton, a controversial and epic(ly long) appearance by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and a surprise visit from Michael Jackson (not to mention this hard-hitting interview of, um, Vanilla Ice). The reigning champ of The Celebrity Apprentice, Hall just returned back to the world of late night with a new talk show in September 2013, nearly 20 years after The Arsenio Hall Show went off the air.

As a kid in upstate New York, David Hyde Pierce was serious about lots of things: acting, playing piano, and, apparently, growing out his whiskers. Though he originally wanted to become a classical pianist, he decided as a student at Yale University to focus on English and theater arts. And, fortunately for us, he also explored his funny side—including in the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operetta H.M.S. Pinafore.

Pierce is best known for his career-making role as neurotic know-it-all little brother Niles Crane on the hit Frasier. But he has long been a theater guy, performing in shows like Curtains, Spamalot, and The Importance of Being Earnest. Pierce—who has won numerous Emmys and Tonys---just closedVanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, alongside Sigourney Weaver. He's now starring in The Landing--a musical written by his nephew. Pierce’s 'stache has also made several encore performances, including in the 2001 movie Wet Hot American Summer and—along with a full beard—for the 2010 production of La Bete in London and New York. "I do enjoy my beard,” he told the Associated Press about the role. “It’s weird because I’ve had friends come backstage afterward and say, ‘Oh, it’s real!’ So why did I bother growing this thing?” And let’s not forget the Got Milk? mustache he and the rest of the Frasier cast proudly displayed back in 1998.

Looking at his buttoned-up senior picture, it’s easy to believe that Dee Snider was a classically trained countertenor who sang in his church choir. But the mustache and the already-impressive head of hair reveal what was to come. In fact, in junior high, Snider was in a Black Sabbath cover band. “And we’re old,” Snider told The Rumpus, “so this was when Black Sabbath first came out.”

Snider has never strayed too far from his heavy metal roots. His memoir Shut Up and Give Me the Mic came out in 2012 (he also, back in 1987, wrote an advice book called Dee Snider’s Teenage Survival Guide, which, alas, is out of print but looks pretty freakin’ sweet). His reality series Growing Up Twisted airs on A&E. And even his appearance on The Celebrity Apprentice was pretty rock 'n' roll—he dressed in drag, busted his finger pretty gruesomely, and had to go under the knife. And the mustache has made reappearances as well: Check him out on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon sporting a Fu Manchu for his role in the Broadway hit Rock of Ages. You can also see him on FearNet’s Holliston.

Who’s that fella with the fuzzy upper lip? That would be none other than Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who moved a lot as a kid, from California to New Zealand to Hawaii and finally to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he played several sports, including football. He ultimately stuck with that one, earning a scholarship to the University of Miami. When an injury ended his NFL dreams, he went into the family business: pro wrestling (both his father and maternal grandfather were wrestlers).

In addition to his long and successful career in the ring, The Rock shifted gears—and shifted away from his wrestling moniker—appearing in action movies like The Scorpion King and Fast Five, as well as family-friendly fare like Tooth Fairy and Race to Witch Mountain. His scruffy goatee may look mighty fine now, but it hasn’t always been that way…. Says his Game Plan director Andy Fickman: “We asked his mom to supply us with some [pictures for the set]. We had endless numbers of Dwayne photos. If you look in the movie, some of them are of Dwayne’s bad decision to grow a weak mustache. It was the worst look ever on him.” Next up for Johnson: Brett Ratner's Hercules and Fast & Furious 7.

He looks like such a good boy, doesn’t he? That’s because he was.... After living first in Atlanta and then in Chicago, Kanye moved with his mother to Oak Lawn, Illinois, where he was a good student at Polaris High. “I got A’s and B’s. And I’m not even frontin’,” Kanye told MTV. After graduating, he attended the American Academy of Art and Chicago State University before dropping out to focus on his budding music career (and his budding mustache).

As for Kanye’s all-grown-up facial hair... well, there’s no end to the love for it. There’s this stylish Eleven Paris T-shirt featuring Kanye and his mustache. Then there’s the self-parodying role on The Cleveland Show, in which Kanye—sorry, Kenny—West decides to show that he’s growing up by growing a mustache, which “shows the world you put away your childish dreams.” And finally, Men’s Life Today awarded Kanye the “Best Performance by a Goatee and Mustache Duo,” explaining that he “keeps his mustache short, expertly trimmed, and narrow to avoid adding weight between his nose and lip. Instead, he turns the focus to his goatee, which emphasizes his strong chin and jawline.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

I pity the fool who doubts the toughness of young Lawrence Tureaud’s mustache. One of 12(!) kids, the future Mr. T grew up in Chicago’s notoriously brutal projects the Robert Taylor Homes, played football in high school, enlisted in the Army, became a bouncer and a bodyguard... all before his career really took off.

In 1982, Mr. T became an instant star playing Clubber Lang, the bad guy opponent to Sylvester Stallone’s fighter in Rocky III. He then played B.A. Baracus for four years on The A-Team, cementing his place as an American icon. His 1984 LP Mr. T’s Commandments offers advice to kids, like “Don’t Talk to Strangers” (which is seriously too awesome to miss). In 2010, Mr. T explained to Wendy Williams why he refused a cameo in the A-Team movie (“I don’t take seconds”). Through it all, he has maintained both his trademark Mohawk and his full beard and mustache.

As a child prodigy, Tiger Woods proved his golfing chops early on, even showing off on The Mike Douglas Show at age 2. Woods was the youngest-ever U.S. Junior Amateur champion and attended Stanford University on a golf scholarship before going pro.

Unquestionably one of the best golfers to ever play the game, Tiger Woods took a temporary leave to have knee surgery and deal with the dissolution of his marriage. In 2010, upon his return, Woods was unintentionally upstaged by an anonymous mustache during the Ryder Cup, which inspired a hilarious Internet meme.

Born in Athens, Greece, Tommy Lee Bass grew up in West Covina, California. Long before he became the drummer for Mötley Crüe, Tommy Lee was a long-haired beanpole with just the faintest wisp of a mustache in high school... before dropping out.

The mustache has come and gone over the years—check out the vintage goatee in this 1994 Mötley Crüe rehearsal footage—but Lee has worn it with pride. In addition to his solo work, he releases music as Methods of Mayhem, tours with his dance-music collaborator DJ Aero, and still performs with Mötley Crüe. His book Tommyland came out in 2005, and he has appeared on TV shows including Bones, Tosh.O, and Californication. His reality series Battleground Earth pitted him against rapper Ludacris in eco-challenges to bring attention to environmental issues.

Remember way back when Will Smith was the Fresh Prince? Yes, as in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air… but even before then? During the days of his hits like “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” Smith sported a mustache just like the one he had in high school. Another favorite DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince tune had Smith singing about how a supposed girlie’s “mustache was bigger than mine.”

Whatever became of him? Ohhh, that’s right—he’s one of the biggest movie stars in the world, having starred in a string of super-successful blockbusters. There was Independence Day and the Men in Black movies; I Am Legend and Hancock; not to mention critically acclaimed turns in Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness. And through it all, his mustache has mostly stuck around, reminding him—and all the rest of us—of where he started.