Pope Francis has revealed that he was a nightclub bouncer when he was a student growing up in Buenos Aires.
Pope Francis: Now helping people through the gates of heaven rather than keeping them out of the bars of Buenos Aires.
Photo: Luca Zennaro
He made the revelation on a visit to the outskirts of Rome last week. He told parishioners in a working-class neighbourhood about his past — adding security to a list that now includes sweeping floors and working in a chemical laboratory.
Nowadays Pope Francis is more accustomed to helping people through the gates of heaven than keeping them out of the bars of Buenos Aires. And he now leads the list of famous former security professionals, excepting ex-military types such as Andy McNab.
Here are three more surprising former security guards.
Nelson Mandela
It seems incredible, but the legendary freedom fighter, Nobel laureate, and former South African president spent time in the early 1940s working as a security guard in a gold mine.
He fled the threat of an arranged marriage and took the job when he moved to Johannesburg in 1941, but he was sacked after the foreman found out that he was a runaway.
James Gandolfini
The late Sopranos star worked as a bouncer at a campus pub while studying communications at Rutgers University in the early 1980s. After graduating, Gandolfini continued working as a security guard and bar manager at clubs in New York before he found fame in the 1990s.
Clearly, this was good preparation for later when he became famous for playing mob boss Tony Soprano on the hit HBO TV show. One of the many businesses his crew ran was the Bada Bing nightclub.
Vin Diesel
The Fast and Furious actor (who was born Mark Vincent) invented his stage name when he was working as a bouncer at the New York nightclub The Tunnel. Unlike in the UK, where it’s customary (and legally required) for security guards to use their real name and to wear an ID proving they are licensed, bouncers in parts of the US often use fake names.
His friends gave him the name Diesel because he never ran out of energy. In the video interview above, Diesel said that he “fought every night,” and that he and 10 others oversaw 3,000 revellers a night.