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Richard Gere....and that piece he was playing in "Pretty Woman" was supposedly one of his own compositions.

I love him! I'm a BIG Mr. Rogers fan! Must be those sweaters.

Don't forget Robert Downey Jr. He played piano on Ally McBeal several times during his year (that show's best, IMO).

penny

No man, she actually played a bach program at carnegie in her youth and has an IQ of like 150

Anthony Hopkins is - though this is only what I heard - a highly accomplished classical pianist, and is focussing more and more on music these days.

The late photographer, Ansel Adams, was a classically trained pianist...in fact he wavered between becoming a concert pianst and a photographer.

Gardener wrote:
Richard Gere....and that piece he was playing in "Pretty Woman" was supposedly one of his own compositions.

Well, if Gere is claiming that's his own composition, it is plagiarized from the piano introduction of Bruce Springsteen's "Racing in the Streets"

Jack Lemmon was a jazz pianist. And I seem to recall from Noah Adams' book that NPR's Susan Stamberg is an excellent sight reader on the piano.

Did anyone catch John Tesh on Conan O'Brien on Thanksgiving? Conan got Tesh to play "Turkey in the Straw" on keyboard in a pen filled with turkeys. You had to see it to believe it.

Joy

On the DVD supplement for Hannibal, there is an alternate scene where Hopkins plays his own composition.

Hopkins also wrote the score for his film "August."

great thread guys, i also heard that Jason Alexander, from Seinfeld (George Costanza) plays the piano very well, someone told me they saw it on his biography on the A&E channel, i believe it was that one.

Joy, Yeah... Jack Lemmon was a fine pianist. I remember a wonderful TV show I saw back in the 1970s ... just Jack and Peter Nero chatting in a studio with two grand pianos side by side. It was great... just the two of them talking about music and playing . As I recall it was part of a series which Nero was presenting at the time ? Boy, would I love to get hold of THAT one ! Has anyone mentioned DEAN MARTIN ... may be wrong ... but I think he did his own piano work in "Ocean's Eleven" ? 1950s heart throb Johnnie Ray was pretty handy on the old "88 ".

I've never heard of any mention of Alyssa Milano or Courtney Cox playing the piano. Can they actually PLAY, or did they take a few lessons growing up? I know Sandra Bullock's mother was an opera singer and teacher. A friend of mine took private voice lessons from her. I actually got to meet her several times. Unfortunately, she passed away several years ago.

According to news reports Paris Hilton,
Nicole Richie, and Phil Spector apparently
play the piano.

From the first post, yes Phyllis Diller--she sent her own composition to me Phyllis Fugue--I believe it is on my web site somewhere. We're good friends--I recorded her Christmas ditties for PianoDisc. Oh--Richard Nixon too--we talked about it when we bumped into each other dining over 20 years ago a table apart in the then Trader Vic's in New York (we were the only ones there with family and friends--cool!)

Oh--Zsa Zsa Gabor too--I played Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies and Chopin pieces on her piano in Bel Air after she heard me play with the Honolulu Symphony in 1988, then invited me to her home--she told me she studied with a pupil of Ernst von Dohnanyi in Hungary! Believe it or not, she knew her stuff--they all did back then in Eastern Europe.

Lucille Ball had a baby grand piano which she gave as a gift to her nurse, and a smaller keyboard Wurlitzer in one of her cabanas. We met through a friend, and my wife and I went to her home in 1988, 5 months before she passed. Not sure, though, if she played. She probably did. I played Mozart K.330 C Major for her on that small Wurlitzer--such a wonderful person and unforgettable experience spending two hours with Lucy!

Hugh Grant.

Hugh Laurie - He played piano as Wooster on "Wooster and Jeeves," and now as "House." During an interview on "Actor's Studio" he played and sang his own composition (or ditty), and that clip may be posted on the Web.

You can see in his movies that Fred Astaire played the piano. There was none of that fake waving the hands over the keyboard.

Clinton Eastwood plays piano, also Andrey Brodey(?), the actor who played in 'The Pianist" movie and Ricard Dreffus(?). ...just a few i can think of now.

Hugh Laurie