Most of these actors at some point in their career have actually been in war movies, and maybe their delivery was as authentic as it was because they had actually experienced a real war.

Axar.az presents, before they became popular or during the peak of their career these actors left everything behind just to serve their country.

Check out the list of the top 5 movie stars that served in the military during WW2.

5.Charlton Heston

In 1944, Heston enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. He served for two years as a radio operator and aerial gunner aboard a B-25 Mitchell stationed in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands with the 77th Bombardment Squadron of the Eleventh Air Force. He reached the rank of staff sergeant.

Heston married Northwestern University student Lydia Marie Clarke, who was six months his senior. That same year, he joined the military.

After his rise to fame, Heston narrated highly classified military and Department of Energy instructional films, particularly relating to nuclear weapons, and “for six years Heston [held] the nation’s highest security clearance” or Q clearance.” The Q clearance is similar to a DoD or DIA clearance of top secret.

4. Paul Newman

Newman served in the United States Navy in World War II in the Pacific theater. Initially, he enrolled in the Navy V-12 pilot training program at Yale University but was dropped when his colorblindness was discovered.

Boot camp followed, with training as a radioman and rear gunner. Qualifying in torpedo bombers in 1944, Aviation Radioman Third Class Newman was sent to Barbers Point, Hawaii.

He was subsequently assigned to Pacific-based replacement torpedo squadrons VT-98, VT-99, and VT-100, responsible primarily for training replacement combat pilots and air crewmen, with special emphasis on carrier landings.

3.Rock Hudson

After graduating from high school during World War II he trained at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, and with orders to report to Aviation Repair and Overhaul Unit 2.

Then located on Samar, Philippines, as an aircraft mechanic, he departed San Francisco aboard the troop transport Lew Wallace.

In 1946, after returning to San Francisco aboard an aircraft carrier, Hudson moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career and applied to the University of Southern California’s dramatics program, but he was rejected due to poor grades.

He worked as a truck driver for some time, longing to be an actor but with no success in breaking into the movies.

2.Tony Curtis



Curtis enlisted in the United States Navy after the attack on Pearl Harbor and war was declared. Inspired by Cary Grant’s role in Destination Tokyo and Tyrone Power’s in Crash Dive (1943), he joined the Pacific submarine force. Curtis served aboard a submarine tender, the USS Proteus, until the end of the Second World War.

On September 2nd, 1945, Curtis witnessed the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay from his ship’s signal bridge about a mile away.

1. Henry Fonda

Fonda enlisted in the United States Navy to fight in World War II, saying, “I don’t want to be in a fake war in a studio.” Previously, Stewart and he had helped raise funds for the defense of Britain.

Fonda served for three years, initially as a Quartermaster 3rd Class on the destroyer USS Satterlee. He was later commissioned as a Lieutenant Junior Grade in Air Combat Intelligence in the Central Pacific and was awarded the Navy Presidential Unit Citation and the Bronze Star.