The Quick 9: Non-Blonde Ambition

Tons of singers and actresses go blonde – everyone knows that. But who knew it was almost as common to leave blonde behind for another hue? Here are nine people who did just that.

1. Elvis. The King started life with light blonde hair and progressed naturally into darker hair as he got older like a lot of kids do. But not as dark as he would have had us believe; he started dying his hair shoe-polish black as he got popular. When he and Priscilla became an item, he had her dye it for him.

2. Sofia Vergara. Find it hard to picture the fiery Latina as a towhead? So did casting directors. The star of Modern Family has said it wasn't until she went dark to match the stereotype that she started getting steady work in Hollywood.

3. Katy Perry. When it's not pink or blue, Katy Perry most often rocks black hair. But she's naturally blonde, as evidenced by this clip 16-year-old Katy Hudson. I guess her musical stylings have changed quite a bit as well, huh?

6. Lucille Ball.

Yep, that's the funnylady in the picture to the left. It's said she first dyed her famous tresses red for the 1943 movie

Du Barry was a Lady

. (

Here's a shot

of the grown-up blonde Ball, though she was enhancing the blonde by this point.) Interestingly enough, it's been said that Vivian Vance - Ethel on

I Love Lucy

- was naturally strawberry blonde and dyed her hair a mousy dishwater shade for the show.

7. Lucy Lawless.

Everyone's accustomed to seeing Xena: the Warrior Princess kicking ass as a brunette, but she's actually blonde. During the days of Xena, Lawless kind of skirted around the issue of her real hair color, but now that the show is over she has no problem flaunting her true hue.

8. Dita Von Teese. No doubt you knew that blue-black wasn't her real hair color, but Von Teese confirms her natural tone herself: "I'm actually a natural blonde, but I love having black hair, which I achieve courtesy of Revlon's 10-Minute Dye."

9. Gillian Anderson dyed her hair red for The X-Files, but she was no stranger to the bottle: as a teen, she dyed her hair every color under the rainbow and was voted "Most Likely to Lose her Hair."