9 Celebrity Inventors

It may surprise you, but sometimes Hollywood's elite invent stuff, too—and in these nine cases, rounded up by Time, those inventions are actually pretty cool:

• Your back really itches, you can't reach it, and the person scratching it for you can't quite seem to find the right spot. You obviously need the shirt invented by Francis Ford Coppola, which has a turtle-shaped numbered grid on the back so you can direct your scratcher to the right place.

• Prince combined a guitar and an electronic keyboard to create the "keytar" or "Purpleaxxe," which he patented.
• Even Paula Abdul came up with something useful: a dynamic microphone stand with a concave bottom, the better to perform complicated dance routines around without getting caught up in the cables.
• How did Michael Jackson manage to lean so far forward without falling in the "Smooth Criminal" music video? Easy. He wore his patented pair of "anti-gravity" shoes. The moveable heels went into the stage, allowing dancers to lean forward without the audience seeing what was going on beneath the surface.

Click for the complete list. (More celebrity stories.)