Drake Bell

Name at birth: Jared Drake Bell

Drake Bell was the young co-star of Drake & Josh, the odd-couple comedy series on the Nickelodeon network. Bell has been a professional performer since he was five years old, when he began getting work in commercials. He had several small roles on television and film before getting regular work on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy show The Amanda Show (1999-2002, starring Amanda Bynes). That led to a job as Josh Peck's co-star in Drake & Josh in 2004. Bell, like his character on TV, plays the guitar and sings; Bell composed music for the show and in 2005 released his own album, Telegraph. His TV hit led to a few small roles in films, including the cable TV movie The Jack Bull (1999) and the feature films Jerry Maguire (1996, starring Tom Cruise) and High Fidelity (2000, starring John Cusack). Bell dropped out of the spotlight and worked on his music career, making headlines for a meaningless "feud" with former co-star Peck in 2018 and then for an unsavory criminal mess in 2021, in which Bell pleaded guilty to charges of attempted child endangerment for sexual advances on a teenager.