Biggest Falls from Grace in Hollywood

Does Weinstein count?

Mel Gibson

Bill Cosby

It's too early to tell, but I strongly suspect Hollywood is mostly done with Amy Schumer.

She had an incredible meteoric rise from standup to her TV show to TRAINWRECK but her movies since then have crashed and burned. The stories (more than just rumors by now) of her stealing standup material spread, and I think that's hurt her.

I loved her TV show and have seen her standup specials, but I suspect she's not much of anything without her writer's room.

She’s a very homely woman who’s not afraid to talk about getting dick. That’s her schtick. It was a good one for a while.

For me, I always thought it was Faye. She went from top of the Hollywood food chain to, well, booking a Colombo gig.

Topher Grace

Brad Renfro and Brittany Murphy. I know, I know. They're dead.

I don't think Topher Grace is doing too badly. He was never really going to move from his sitcom to being a romantic lead in feature films. He still works periodically.

I think Jon Hamm is a far more glaring public fall from grace. He had the world on a plate during MAD MEN, and now... not so much.

PS; the fact that Topher Grace sounds sane and relatively nice, and Jon Hamm is an angry, abusive, womanizing alcoholic might have something to do with Hollywood's perceptions of them.

Given that he has two Academy Awards, Sean Penn is not exactly king of the hill in Hollywood these days. He has some projects coming up, but his TV series (for Hulu, I believe) was canceled.

He's widely disliked and a bully and it's come to bite him in the ass as he ages (rapidly).

Is Johnny Depp too obvious to bring up? Well.....I'm bringing him up. The King of All Fuck-Ups....and now there's his former co-star, Armie.

Ellen

OJ Simpson.

Linda Fiorentino owns this thread.

Topher Grace is a regular on a network sitcom that was just renewed for a second season.

Lea Michele

Katherine Heigl? 😂

Kevin Spacey

Bryan Singer is the credited director of Bohemian Rhapsody and was NEVER thanked during awards season.

Depp fell a long way, but his fall has been so slow we hardly noticed the early stages. Armie Hammer didn't have as far to fall, but damn when the fall came it was spectacular!

Fraser doesn't belong in this company, IMHO, his career sort of petered out after a shit-ton of flops, and now he's working steadily as a character actor.

Brendan Fraser must be so happy he gets to eat now. He’s been fighting the fat so long!

Channing, you’re next!

That bitch Megan Mulally who cost me my fucking show!

Brett Butler, who literally fell from "Grace" (Under Fire)

[quote] She’s a very homely woman who’s not afraid to talk about getting dick. That’s her schtick. It was a good one for a while.

It was nothing but a manifestation of white hetero female privilege. Her being able to build a career around gloating about scoring cocks that are off limits to gay men is not my idea of progress.

Plus Amy Schumer is delusional. She wants everyone to accept her as this sexy, hot, gorgeous woman when really she’s just some fat, slutty Jew bitch. You can’t make a movie around her; the camera is a great leveller.

I think everyone knew Jon Hamm was well cast in Mad Men and otherwise not a very good actor. His career ended when he didn’t book Gone Girl.

I feel like the slightly more attractive Nikki Glaser has stolen Schumer's thunder...also, was disappointed to find out that one of Schumer's best sketches (the magician) was totally lifted.

Agreed about Hamm. Like his co-star January Jones, he was perfect for one very specific role. They WERE Don and Betty. Outside of those roles, their glaring limitations become clear.

I feel bad for Sean Young. Her fall was very public and humiliating. She didn’t deserve that. I’d love to see her make a big comeback.

Tom Cruise. Sure, his films still do okay in Asia, but for 20 years he was the biggest movie star in the world and had this mysterious, sexy image. Once he fired Pat Kingsley and started couch jumping, it was never the same again.

Neely O'Hara

Grace Kelly

Spacey

The mountain broke her fall, r33.

Lara Flynn Boyle

R31..i second tom cruise, biggest star in the world, had the saying "women wanted him, men wanted to be him"... seemed like a good decent guy who came from nothing, had no connections, worked his way to be the world's biggest movie star in a shocking short amount of time, LITERALLY HAD THE WORLD at his feet and then BAM! it went downhill when he divorced kidman, started going on about cult-ology, getting rid of kingsley, the infamous cult p.r. video became known, being a self righteous asshole talking about cult-ology anywhere and everywhere, and so on and so on and his career and reputation has never been the same.

and yet, he still clings to this "self help religion" only because they kiss his ass!...

Bill Cosby

The gay one.

In many of these cases the fall from grace was severely exacerbated by mental illness: Sean Young, Betty Hutton, Frances Farmer, Brendan Fraser, Lara Flynn Boyle, Brett Butler, Brad Renfro, Brittany Murphy all would have had longer careers at the top had they been more able to function in the real world. Same with a few not mentioned like Val Kilmer and Dave Chapelle.

The ones who have puzzled me the most have not shown signs of severe mental illness, but disappeared anyway, like Tobey Maguire and Amy Schumer.

Maguire may have been hurt by the fact that he is short and looks so young; but both Daniel Radcliffe and Elijah Wood, who are not as talented actors as Maguire is, and who has had the same handicaps (i.e. though they were successful actors as teenagers and young men, they were too short and youthful-looking to get the same sorts of starring roles as adults) still get constant work, although mostly in supporting roles.

With Schumer, i think her problem was that she was unwilling to admit she was heavy. When she announced she was a size 6, no one believed her, and it seemed like she had become famous for being chubby and plain and exploiting sizeism and sexism, but then was unwilling to admit she was heavy. She ruined herself for her audience.

I'm surprised Sean Penn has disappeared in recent years. He is undeniably enormously talented, but obviously has pronounced emotional problems. But he has so much range and is so consistently fine I just thought he would keep getting work.

I wonder if he's disappeared because he's taking time off or because the studios are tired of him.

Roseanne Barr

Yeah, R42, it was the day she married him.

McLean Stevenson. He literally crashed in Mash.

At first I was going to say Glenn for portraying a hillbilly in a desperate attempt at an Oscar, but that was a return to form rather than a fall from grace.

Fatty Arbuckle

[quote] McLean Stevenson. He literally crashed in Mash.

And he kept on crashing and crashing and crashing.

Loretta Swit said when he left M*A*S*H* McLean Stevenson told her he knew he would never get as a good a part or be on a better written show, but he had to leave anyway because he had always wanted to be the star of something and this was his only chance.

And when she wanted to quit and do [italic]Cagney & Lacey[/italic] full-time as a series, they would not let her off the show.

Fatty Arbuckle

Clara Bow

Erich Von Stroheim

She fell from Miss Hannigan, not from Grace.

Dustin Hoffman; from quirky-but-respected 2x Oscar winner, to directing an Oscar-bait that flopped massively, to an HBO series about horse racing, to losing that gig after several horses died and the show was canceled, to finally being #MeToo'd. Sad, really.

Spade Cooley

Robert Blake

OJ Simpson

Richard Dreyfus?

Is it true that McLean Stevenson's crash and burn was orchestrated (rather beautifully) by network executives? The story I heard: Stevenson was having an affair with the wife of a powerful CBS exec. That exec conspired with an NBC exec (Fred Silverman?) to offer Stevenson a huge amount of money and his own series to leave MASH. Stevenson jumped at the offer. But in pure "Springtime for Hitler" fashion, the Hello Larry scripts were intentionally bad. Critics savaged the show, viewers didn't tune in, and it was quickly canceled. And of course Stevenson couldn't come crawling back to MASH as his character was famously killed off. And the executive's wife stopped taking his calls.

I never heard that story, R55, but the way you tell it makes me want it to be true.

[quote] Agreed about Hamm. Like his co-star January Jones, he was perfect for one very specific role. They WERE Don and Betty. Outside of those roles, their glaring limitations become clear.

Hamm can do comedy quite well. It’s just his type of leading man simply isn’t in fashion anymore.

R45 Make that 4!

[quote] Hamm can do comedy quite well. It’s just his type of leading man simply isn’t in fashion anymore.

You mean the hypermacho fit-fat drunk?

Mo'Nique

Some people are just looking to pick on any star they don't like. I mean....Amy Schumer? She doesn't even begin to compare to Spacey, Singer, Cosby, R. Kelly and all the others

Jennifer Grey.

Lara Flynn Boyle.

Lindsay Lohan.

There is actual, real-world crime and then there is the symbolic crime of untalented people hitting it big.

Actually R43 the best seasons of Roseanne were when Barr was married to Tom Arnold and he had creative involvement with the show.

Then why was his own show such a bomb and why were his solo movies also bombs?

I think it's Faye Dunaway. She was a A-list actress, not some second-rate comedian. She was at the height of her career when she made Mommie Dearest and it went straight downhill from there. And fast. Maybe it was a function of her turning 40 as it's happened a lot to other actresses.

I disagree about Tom Cruise. He's continued with the Mission: Impossible franchise. The last one made over $750M. He's 60 years old and still hanging in there.

I don't consider careers that have lasted 30 years and then decline as falls from grace. Hoffman is 83 years old and got an Emmy a few years ago.

Faye Dunaway should be in jail for attacking that gay stagehand.

Natalie Wood. Her career was washed up by 1981.

Vic Morris. After the Twilight Zone Movie he couldn’t get a head.

Michael J. Fox. His career has been really shakey since the 90s.

I’ll stop now.

[quote] Tom Cruise. Sure, his films still do okay in Asia

Because no one there knows who Oprah Winfrey is.

Vic Morrow r68

Hamm's style of leading man hasn't been in style for 50 years. I don't think his comedy is all that funny either: He plays everything on the same level.

Argh! Thanks, R70.

Gawdammit!!! I ruined the joke! 😆

No you didn't R68/R70. I went by it fast and it was very funny.

Ken Wahl, lead actor for the TV crime show "Wiseguy".

LOHAN

Jennifer Lawrence (that was a quick fall from A list roles)

Mel Gibson

Geena Davis (I feel bad about this one, she's a good actress)

I've been re-watching "Mad Men" recently (I'm currently in the 3rd season) for the first time since the series originally aired, and this time around I am struck by what a weak actress January Jones is (if incredibly beautiful back then), but actually what a fine actor Jon Hamm is. After the first season Betty becomes an unsympathetic character and does very unpleasant things; but Jones is never able to make you feel very sorry for her character after the first season because she's just not up to it. There's no subtext whatsoever to what she does: Betty is a beautiful bitch on the surface and seems like a bitch at the core too.

But Hamm is quite good--no matter what terrible things Don Draper does to his wives or what a hardass he is to Peggy and his other employees, you always sense he's at the core a decent and sensitive man. he's quite subtle. And his best episodes are usually whenever he goes to see Anna Draper in California (or when you see hm in flashbacks courting Betty or meeting Roger), because you see how the sweet and hopeful Dck Whitman personality became transformed into the hard and aggressive don Draper personality. I think he genuinely deserved his Emmy and really held that show together.

Since the show ended, he's not had steady work for long, and I chalk that up more to the problems in his personal life (the break-up with his wife and his addiction problem and recovery) rather than to a lack of talent. He has shown both on SNL and on Tina Fey's shows he has a surprising knack for light comedy, and I wish he had a series where he could really exercise it.

(BTW, I've also noticed in re-watching the show this time around that the supporting actors--particularly Bobby Morse, Elizabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, Vincent Kartheiser and the wonderful Alison Brie--are much, much better than I had originally noticed. Moss is particularly quite fine in what is really the show's second lead.)

I think a fall from grace would imply that the actor did something from which there’s no coming back, not simply just fell out of favor with the public.

In that case:

Johnny Depp

Kevin Spacey

Jennifer Lawrence (not close to violence or abuse, but she was rude too many times, and people started to see what a huge fake she is, how she used the casting couch, etc.)

Bill Cosby — the worst of all, because he was called America’s Dad, admired by everyone, #1 show, open secret in Hollywood

Only a datalounger would lump Jennifer Lawrence in with Kevin Spacey

What did Tobey Maguire do? I missed that memo? Did he get MeToo'd?

That star we all forgot about but aren’t able to name. 😢

When CBS repeated Stevenson’s final Mash episode they cut the ending where Radar tells everyone about the helicopter crash. I believe it was restored for syndication.

Mary Miles Minter... sad sad sad

Julianne Moore.

Seriously.

R6 Faye won an Emmy for that Columbo movie, and Peter Falk wrote it specifically for her, so do fuck off.

Some of these aren't falls from grace as much as next-big-things that didn't sustain their momentum. Hamm falls into that category. Part of it is alcoholism band the bloat, but the other part is that his charisma as Don Draper didn't translate in his big-screen roles. He's a television-sIzed actor.

Some if them have just aged out--Penn, even though he's an ass.

Falls from grace--Cosby, Gibson, Spacey. JLaw, but to a lesser degree. She could have a comeback in the right role, but those nudes were too revealing and Harvey's girls are all tainted by association. Throw in the push for biracial babes and there are a lot of stalled careers for white former ingenues. I can see JLaw having a comeback though. She's charismatic and can be good in the right role.

Brett Butler, Katherine Heigl and Linda Fiorentino I get but Tobey Maguire? I've never heard a nice thing about him, but that's it and Brendan Fraser was a good-looking guy who just didn't age particularly well. Jon Hamm had a hit television show that ended. It happens. There's a huge difference between Maguire, Fraser and Hamm and the likes of Frances Farmer and many of the others that have been mentioned.

Megan Mullally was mentioned upthread as a joke, but after all the bridges she burned on the W&G reboot and elsewhere, she may have really fallen for good. Her rep is radioactive.

She pulled out of a London stage revival of ANYTHING GOES most recently (due to "a sudden injury") and was replaced with a more age-appropriate Sutton Foster. MM is doing voiceovers on an animated series no one's heard of right now. The woman has 2 primetime Emmys.

And Fraser was absolutely gorgeous

"Some of these aren't falls from grace as much as next-big-things that didn't sustain their momentum."

That's Schumer! She just wasn't very funny, and neither were the movies she made. She had her shot at the big time, but it didn't take, and she faded away.

Yeah, a real "fall from grace" involves an element of wrongdoing and comeuppance, the kind Charlie Sheen never got. I mean he was seriously batshit for a while there, to the point that I was convinced he was bipolar, but it didn't seem to affect his career much. Well, not to the point where he was too old and sick to be funny to anyone.

Cutthroat Island was a massive flop, R75, but Davis recently received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, which does even things out a bit

R90, that movie totally stalled her career. It's unfortunate because she had both starpower and acting chops.

Bill Cosby is 83 and serving a long sentence for rape. You cannot fall farther than that.

Hmm, I don't know R92

Phil Spector was always kind of kooky and not nearly as well known as Cosby.

John Gilbert, Sandra Dee, Veronica Lake, Margot Kidder, Debra Winger.

Tom Sizemore. Went from starring in movies like Saving Private Ryan to appearing on Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab.

I think there was a thread recently about him. Bruce Willis who used to be a major star but now does anything for a cheque. Eddie Murphy, Burt Reynolds, Kevin Costner all at one time could briefly claim to be the be the biggest box office star on the planet.

"She could have a comeback in the right role, but those nudes were too revealing and Harvey's girls are all tainted by association. Throw in the push for biracial babes and there are a lot of stalled careers for white former ingenues. I can see JLaw having a comeback though."

No one cares about the nudes. Only DLers are obsessed with the "Harvey's girls" shit. And blaming biracial women for white actresses not getting roles is fucking hysterical. Almost all the actresses playing "hot babe" roles are white

Spectacular falls from Grace:

Woody Allen

Bill Cosby

Roman Polanski

Johnny Depp

Mel Gibson

Kevin Spacey

Ellen DeGeneres

Sharon Osbourne

Harvey Weinstein

Charlie Sheen

Lindsay Lohan

Brendan Fraser was sexually assaulted by the ex=president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

The actor said that the incident made him reclusive and he retreated from public life. He questioned if the HFPA blacklisted him as a result, since he was rarely invited back to the Golden Globes, which the HFPA runs, after 2003. He believes it’s partly why his career derailed, and said “The phone does stop ringing in your career, and you start asking yourself why. There’s many reasons, but was this one of them? I think it was.”

R100, I had no idea about that. That is terrible.

R98, JLaw proved she was a fluke. She was only A-list really because of the Hunger Games. And seriously, how does she have multiple Oscar nominations and Golden Globe wins?! She was never that great of an actress!

[quote]“I felt like the horse from ‘Animal Farm,’ whose job it was to work and work and work,” he said. “Orwell wrote a character who was, I think, the proletariat. He worked for the good of the whole, he didn’t ask questions, he didn’t make trouble until it killed him. … I don’t know if I’ve been sent to the glue factory, but I’ve felt like I’ve had to rebuild s— that I’ve built that got knocked down and do it again for the good of everyone. Whether it hurts you or not.”

Brendan had my sympathy until this part. He was a movie star, making a huge amount of money. He isn't the proletariat, nor was he working for the good of the whole. He was a very rich film star, working for the good of himself. And no one was making him.

"JLaw proved she was a fluke. She was only A-list really because of the Hunger Games. And seriously, how does she have multiple Oscar nominations and Golden Globe wins?! She was never that great of an actress!"

So, what you're saying is.....she didn't really fall from grace. You just don't like her.

Roseanne. Went from having her sitcom rebooted to having the character that she had played since her standup comedy days killed off and taken from her. Her fall was fast and furious.

Train wreck Brett Butler has a guardian angel somewhere. She was on a couple episodes of that awful Morning Show. Perhaps she the booking as a favor to keep her health insurance?

I know her TV son quit her show and was replaced. Did Julie White quit too? I vaguely remember her not being there.

Matthew Perry

(I had dental surgery for Friends Reunion show- honest, it's not drugs again).

R76 I wouldn't blame January Jones for that. The part is written that way. She wasn't supposed to be a sympathetic character. She was a lost 50s trophy wife, hollow inside, a victim of a time period in which women were only valued for their physical appearance. I think Jones conveyed that very well.

R104, no, she did. She was considrered A list and now, she's just a blip. Her A-list status was almost exclusively because of the Hunger Games movies.

A lot of people mentioned on this thread didn't exactly "fall from grace." Veronica Lake and Frances Farmer's careers nosedived due to mental illness. John Gilbert's career went downhill because his voice didn't record well. Grace Kelly "fell from grace?" She became a Princess! And when did Geena Davis "fall from grace?" This thread is nutty.

r109, no, she was also on the A-list for stuff like Winter's Bone, American Hustle, and The Silver Linings Playbook. There was no fall from grace.....you just don't like her.

Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham? Yeah, people are just naming random names now

Oh for crap's sake, Brendan Fraser's career didn't "derail" because he was "sexually assaulted" by the "ex=president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association." His career tanked because he kept making terrible move after terrible movie. Plus, he lost his looks; he got fat and was losing his hair. That's why his career went downhill.

I find it hard to believe the 6'3, hefty Fraser was "sexually assaulted", anyway. If you believe him (and I don't) the Hollywood whoever who "assaulted" him felt up his "taint" while the helpless Fraser was immobilized in shock. Yeah, right! I think his story is just an attempt to gain sympathy (and maybe acting jobs) by portraying him as a pathetic victim. What horseshit.

r114 is probably one of the Kevin Spacey defenders. Maybe attack the guy who couldn't keep his hands to himself

Lena was huge, ha ha; Girls was the new SatC. But where has she been the last few years, and where is she now?

Darren Starr goes on and on however.

Me.

[quote]R15 Linda Fiorentino owns this thread.

Careers that didn’t take off as expected aren’t really a “fall from grace.”

There has to be some measure of scandal attached.

Marilyn. Kicked to the curb then death. She wins.

MM didn’t really fall far from grace because she had projects in development, was still a huge star, and Fox was negotiating a new contract with her when she died.

Jean-Claude Van Damme

Harry Hamlin! He was the shit back in the day. Now he just follows his wife around on those Housewives shows! It's sad.

JLaw is on the comeback trail in that film with Leonardo and Meryl, bitches! I think it’s directed by Adam MacKay so I won’t be seeing it.

Hamlin was never a major star. His career derailed early on after he made the first mainstream gay romance movie called Making Love (1982). His co-stars were Michael Ontkean (remember him?) and the sad Kate Jackson. That flop was the kiss of death for all their careers.

He had a career revival about a decade ago, with roles in Mad Men and has worked steadily since then. He's still a handsome older man.

R124 Actually that is not true. Harry Hamlin starred in Making Love In 1982 but went on to play Michael Kuzak on LA Law from 1986 to 1991, which was the role that made him a household name! So Making Love did not destroy him. It was ground breaking. Things were starting to change regarding actors and gay roles. He did a lot after LA LAW but never again had the same status. And yes he was truly so beautiful. He still looks great now to be 69. He stays fit.

R110, that story about John Gilbert's voice not translating well to sound films is a myth; it isn't true.

Not a fall from grace, really...but Kevin Costner never recovered from telling Madonna her concert was “neat” & her making a gagging noise when he left. That and that crappy water movie he made finished him off.

That's unfair, R114. Although Fraser didn't make the claim until 2018, he alleges the assault took place in 2003. You have no idea how a person you've never met would react in a situation like that and what affect it would have on them.

A lot of people mentioned on this thread didn't exactly "fall from grace." Veronica Lake and Frances Farmer's careers nosedived due to mental illness. John Gilbert's career went downhill because his voice didn't record well

Gilbert had a major dust up with Louis B Mayer, who didn't like him in the first place, supposedly knocked Mayer down, Mayer vowed to destroy his career, while Gilbert (who went over Mayer's head for his contract) was locked into a million dollar a year deal at MGM. Many say he was deliberately sabotaged in his earliest talkies by the MGM sound engineers. Clarence Brown, a prominent director, is on the record. Gilbert was a very heavy drinker (in a couple of his films he's unseady, and shaking), He died, forgotten by the public, at 36, after being one of the top stars up until about 1930.

Lake went out of favcor after the war and was known to be difficult to work with, and a drinker. From being one of the most popular stars to failing in a very short time is a fall from grace. This is Wikipedia on it.

[quote]She’s a very homely woman who’s not afraid to talk about getting dick. That’s her schtick.

Darling, that's also DL's schtick.

Armie Hammer!

R127, Rubbish!

[quote] She’s a very homely woman who’s not afraid to talk about getting dick. That’s her schtick.

[quote]Darling, that's also DL's schtick.

[quote] Bill Cosby is 83 and serving a long sentence for rape. You cannot fall farther than that.

He did more than just commit rape. He raped a lesbian. Forcing heterosexual sex onto gay people should be a hate crime in and of itself.

[quote] Is it true that McLean Stevenson's crash and burn was orchestrated (rather beautifully) by network executives? The story I heard: Stevenson was having an affair with the wife of a powerful CBS exec. That exec conspired with an NBC exec (Fred Silverman?) to offer Stevenson a huge amount of money and his own series to leave MASH. Stevenson jumped at the offer. But in pure "Springtime for Hitler" fashion, the Hello Larry scripts were intentionally bad. Critics savaged the show, viewers didn't tune in, and it was quickly canceled. And of course Stevenson couldn't come crawling back to MASH as his character was famously killed off. And the executive's wife stopped taking his calls.

There's a problem with the timeline of that story: McLean did two shows between [italic]M*A*S*H[/italic] and [italic]Hello, Larry[/italic], one awful, awful self-titled show on pre-Silverman NBC, and another show on CBS in 1978 where he played a priest. That CBS show, [italic]In The Beginning[/italic], was canceled in such haste that there was very little time for the producers to come up with something better, hence [italic]Larry[/italic] being basically rushed onto the air by TAT Communications since he was apparently still under contract. They kept about half the lead-in audience from [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic], which for all its flaws looked like Shakespeare by comparison. They obviously tried to make this show good on some level, and the producers, writers, and cast have all had success elsewhere, but it just never clicked like it should have. Even putting Black actors on it , one of whom was Ruth "Motormouth Maybelle" Brown, in the second season did not help the ratings at all.

R129 How did you adjust the link to take us straight to the precise Wikipedia paragraph?

I think Frances Farmer's problem was drink more than mental illness, and having a mother who had her institutionalised. I would also question that Brittany Murphy had mental problems. She had some flop movies and then had a husband and mother who didn't take her to the emergency room when she was sick.

Do we mean “fall from grace” as in their time was simply up (Fraser), or because they fucked it up (Gibson)? I see a fall from grace being the latter.

Gale Harold.

After Queer As Folk he was cast in Desperate Housewives, which would have possibly turned him into a national heart throb. However, he then had the motorbike accident, and they had to recast or whatever. Not a fall from grace: just a fall. Hollywood is such a game of Risk.

How could you forget me?

I won't, R140.

How do you post articles?

Winona's career was already on the skids when she was arrested for shoplifting

Gale Harold had some success on QAF then faded away. No fall from grace.

He never had any to fall from.

Winona Ryder has had a remarkable second (or even third) act in Hollywood. She started a decade ago with BLACK SWAN (she's quite good in a small role) and a cameo in STAR TREK. She's done a number of projects between that and STRANGER THINGS, which is a certifiable hit series. She's doing fine.

Considering her history of psychological problems and likely substance abuse, she's made a pretty remarkable comeback. She's turning 50 this year, and she's outlasted many of her contemporaries in the biz.

PS: while I like her, I don't think she was ever the strongest or most versatile acting talent, so her longevity in film/TV is even more remarkable.

R145 she also has a criminal past. So yeah, Winona is doing ok. She's no Meryl Streep, but I like her too and enjoy seeing her in things.

She hasn't disappeared but she does supporting roles now. She's not a star anymore.

R135, Stevenson was also a frequent Tonight Show guest host post-M*A*S*H prior to Joan Rivers being named permanent guest host.

James Stacy, once married to Kim Darby and Connie Stevens, had a thriving career until he lost a leg in an accident and then he was charged with molestation of a child.

R136 Click on the paragraph title in the list of contents at the top of the article. It will bring up the paragraph. Then copy the web address. (Each paragraph has a different address.)

Peg Entwistle

Amirite?

Stacy lost a leg and an arm in that accident. It was really horrific. Then he made horrible decisions afterwards. Definitely a fall from grace.

Isaiah Washington never recovered from his Grey’s Anatomy fiasco.

R153, Good.

":She hasn't disappeared but she does supporting roles now. She's not a star anymore"

But that's the normal progression of a name actor's career, they have a few years on the A-list, leading films, and then someone else takes that spot at the top. A few leave showbiz at that point, but most go on acting, and they take supporting roles, and some have a second career as a supporting actor. Some even pull a Sean Connery, and are almost as popular as a supporting actor as they were as a star actor.

And as a natural career progression, for a star to become a supporting actor when they're older is the opposite of a fall from grace. It's absolutely the opposite, these are the people who get to keep working in a highly competitive field, even when they're not bringing in the big bucks!

" That story about John Gilbert's voice not translating well to sound films is a myth; it isn't true."

I heard Gilbert's voice. It was high pitched and not especially pleasant to listen to. And it was in complete contrast to his leading man looks. So yes, the way his voice sounded did affect his career in talking motion pictures.

"While I like her, I don't think she was ever the strongest or most versatile acting talent, so her longevity in film/TV is even more remarkable."

There's nothing "remarkable" about the stuff Winona Ryder has done since her film career dried up. She basically takes what she can get, which is what all not in demand actresses do. Nothing "remarkable" about that.

R156, Poppycock! Watch "Queen Christina". His voice was fine, similar to Clifton Webb.

Winona's great in "The Plot Against America," but I understand it's probably not appreciated by the proto-fascist DLers. Also, pay cable.

"Poppycock! Watch "Queen Christina". His voice was fine, similar to Clifton Webb."

Clifton Webb's voice suited him. Gilbert's did not. With his looks he was expected to have a deep, masculine voice. His voice didn't go with his great lover acting persona.

R160, There was NOTHING wrong with John Gilbert's voice.

It wasn't necessary for him to sound like Sam Elliott to play a romantic leading man.

He wasn't as squeaky as some people made him out to be, but he had a thin, weak voice

R159. I agree—she so immersed herself in the role that I had to remind myself who she was.

Laurence Olivier was supposed to have played opposite Greta Garbo in "Queen Christina." Not THAT would have really been something, those two in a movie together. But she had him replaced with John Gilbert. She felt sorry for her former lover, whose career was foundering, and obviously felt some loyalty towards him. So he played her lover in the film. What a shame. Olivier would have been so much better. He was infinitely more talented than Gilbert.

R74, Not a fall from grace, but a literal fall, or injury anyway.

Capucine

Corey Haim

[quote]MM didn’t really fall far from grace because she had projects in development, was still a huge star, and Fox was negotiating a new contract with her when she died.

If anything Marilyn chose the best possible time to leave the party...

She had hurt and used up by the men around her for her entire life.

She was objective and marketed as one of America's sexiest women - but ONLY that - nothing more

There would have been no place for the Marilyn who has was no longer a beautiful commodity

OMG, Betty Hutton. fell..

I hope sheez not hurt...

Passch me that pill bottle, sshweetie

Falls...I was MOLESTED!

Jussie Smollett

Fatty Fuckbuckle

Oooh, good one, R172

No r114, reading the article, Fraser comes off quite sympathetic. His sexual assault story was similar to that of Terry Crews...big, attractive well built actor being disrespected by a Hollywood exec. Sexual assaults, especially in these cases, were about power and control...they did it because they thought they were above the law and rules of decency. Fraser wasn’t lying about his assault. The power structure in the entertainment industry is such that victims who speak out get blackballed...especially men. More men need to speak up. Fraser, Crews, Anthony Edwards, Jonathan Schaech and others. They have spoken out. I think that it’s only the surface.

Tobey McGuire is an ASSHOLE. Just google him, the stories are legion.

I think Judy Garland probably belongs in the "fall from grace" category. She was a huge star at MGM but due to her deepening drug addiction and increasingly bad work habits when they cut her loose. She staged come comebacks after that, but her career and reputation were forever tarnished.

Stephen Collins...after 7th Heaven and being outed as a molester, his career went 6 feet under.

Wasn't the McGuire the one who wanted the woman who ran that high-stakes poker game to bark like a dog for her tip? What a cunt.

Tom Neal had a fall from grace in Hollywood, didn't he?

Tom Neal for sure. And his paramour, Barbara Payton

David Caruso, hyped as the next big Hollywood thing after NYPD Blue and CSI Miami. When he left the latter for feature film opportunities though it was soon clear that he had overplayed his hand.

Barbara Payton never rose far from the gutter, even when she was making her Z-list movies, so any fall was incredibly short.

Payton made some good films with some A-list actors like Gregory Peck...but her thirst and self-destructive streak did her in.

[quote]I think Judy Garland probably belongs in the "fall from grace" category. She was a huge star at MGM but due to her deepening drug addiction and increasingly bad work habits when they cut her loose. She staged come comebacks after that, but her career and reputation were forever tarnished.

A year after she left MGM, she did her show at the Palace in New York, which was a smash hit, and she won a Tony award. She repeated the success at the London Palladium. Three years later she got an Oscar nomination for A Star Is Born. These aren't just "some combebacks". Ahead were the Carnegie Hall concert and another Oscar nom. I agree she fell from grace as a Hollywood movie star and a star under a studio contract, making movie musicals. She also had other low points, but she had some huge career triumphs, and I guess the perfuctory "she staged some comebacks" doesn't feel right. It's not the whole story.

[quote]R183 Payton made some good films with some A-list actors like Gregory Peck...

I don’t think “Only the Valiant” (which Peck considered the nadir of his career) has ever been referred to as a good film.

She was good in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye

About John Gilbert. MGM was the biggest studio, yet they put him in bad scripts with uninteresting casts, even when he was their biggest male star. In talking films, he wasn't put into any of the all-star pictures that would have given him an automatic hit. He was never costarred with a popular female star -- Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, or Jean Harlow. He was usually co-starred with the now-forgotten Leila Hyams. He only co-starred with Garbo in a talkie at *her* insistance.

Cecil B. DeMille tried to borrow him from MGM to play Julius Caesar in Cleopatra (1934. at Paramount), with Claudette Colbert, but Mayer wouldn't loan him. Marlene Dietrich got Paramount interested in him again to play the third lead in Desire (opposite her and Gary Cooper); but he died before it was made.

You can hear here, there's nothing wrong with his voice.

Who was the thirties actor who always played a thug and was really one in real life? I think he even killed someone and went to prison. I can see his face, but can't remember his name. I think he had red hair and freckles.

^ Tom Neal? Lawrence Tierney?

Crawford was in Four Walls (1928) with Gilbert.

[quote]Falls from grace--Cosby, Gibson, Spacey. JLaw, but to a lesser degree.

What about Johnny Depp? The public hasn't turned against him but it's mostly pity at how things turned out.

Crawford and Gilbert also in Twelve Miles Out (1927).

James Franco's career is dunzo! He was never a box office draw but was everywhere with multiple articles a day about him. That's a real fall from grace, unlike many of the names mentioned here whose careers didn't take off or just stalled.

Stephen Collins hasn't worked since the pedophile scandal

R189 - no, I was thinking of Paul Kelly.

William Haines

Tobey McGuire didn't so much fall, as hit his "no longer cute" years. He started looking more like a gnome than a boy, the gormless-young-man roles went to someone else, and IMHO he failed to transition to a character actor because he's an asshole and nobody wanted to work with him.

Like I said, the actors who go from star actor to character actor are the lucky ones - they're still working in their field of choice and earn damn good money! But not every has-been can do that, the ones who are crazy or difficult (like, say, Roseanne) can't manage it, either because they don't have the talent or because nobody will put up with their shit unless they're generating big money. That's why the fall can be so fast for someone like James Franco, he's such a dick that nobody wants to give him the second chance he'd need to build a new career as a character actor.

[quote]R6 For me, I always thought it was Faye. She went from top of the Hollywood food chain to, well, booking a Colombo gig.

She did that to herself by predominantly accepting high paying, glorified supporting roles following her Oscar win. I think her cocaine habit was really amping up in this period, as well. Then she adopted a baby and decamped to England for a decade.

Her career had been full of ups and downs before that, anyway. Her closest rival Jane Fonda had always had a more evenly commercial career.

"She also had other low points, but she had some huge career triumphs, and I guess the perfuctory "she staged some comebacks" doesn't feel right. It's not the whole story."

After being canned from MGM and it was known she was addicted to pills and a mental wreck she was never viewed in the same way again, whereas before she was known as sweet, nice, cooperative Judy Garland, a kind of version of the characters she played in her movies. That's quite a "fall from grace." Later she had career highs and lows but she lost the Oscar because of her bad reputation that Hollywood did not forget. Oh, she fell from grace, alright. And at the time of her death she was married to her third gay husband and looked 75 years old.

"Who was the thirties actor who always played a thug and was really one in real life? I think he even killed someone and went to prison. I can see his face, but can't remember his name. I think he had red hair and freckles."

Yeah, I think that was Paul Kelly. Kenneth Anger did a chapter about him in "Hollywood Babylon II." He was having an affair with a married, pudgy, red haired comedienne named Dorothy Mackaye. Her husband found out about it and he and Kelly got into a fight; Kelly battered the man in the head and he died. He was convicted of manslaughter. MacKaye did some jail time too, for lying under oath about her affair with Kelly. After they both got out of jail they eventually married and continued their careers. Amazingly, Kelly worked steadily despite being a convicted murderer. Anyway, both Kelly and MacKaye seemed like utter assholes.

"You can hear here, there's nothing wrong with his voice."

So sez you. But one critic said this of Gilbert: his voice was "in the ear of the beholder." A lot of people didn't find it especially pleasing and it sounded funny coming from the silent screen's Great Lover.

Gary Morton

[quote]After being canned from MGM and it was known she was addicted to pills and a mental wreck she was never viewed in the same way again, whereas before she was known as sweet, nice, cooperative Judy Garland, a kind of version of the characters she played in her movies.

Garland made a suicide attempt in 1948, it made national headlines. She didn't leave MGM until 1950. Several of her hospitalizations were also known to the public at this time.

R190, R192 Gilbert made silent films with Crawford and Shearer. He also was in a sketch with Shearer in an early-talkie MGM revue. But I was saying he was not co-starred with these peopular actresses in his starring talking-picture vehicles. It's not a secret that MGM didn't give Gilbert good talking-picture vehicles, or top costars. Yet he was making huge money. They didn't even try to get their money's worth out of his contract. MGM knew how to make hits. They deliberately weren't making any with him.

[quote]Anyway, both Kelly and MacKaye seemed like utter assholes.

They certainly were. Dottie MacKaye was a chorus girl in one of Ray Raymond's Broadway musicals. He fell hard for the jazz floozy and whisked her off and eloped, despite the fact that he was already married. Raymond and MacKaye then had a daughter, Victoria, who was 4 years old when she witnessed mama's lover, Paul Kelly, beat the shit out of her daddy. The maid, Ethel Lee, was also present and revealed all to the cops. Miss MacKaye claimed she was out shopping (at 9pm) when the beating transpired, but she was actually at Kelly's apartment with him and her girlfriend drinking gin and egging Kelly on. When Raymond died at home from his injuries, she called her physician and paid him $$ to pronounce that he had died of natural causes.

After doing time in San Quentin, Dottie wrote a play, "Women in Prison," which was adapted for film, the Barbara Stanwyck flick, "Ladies They Talk About" (1933), and remade in 1942 as "Lady Gangster" with Faye Emerson. Dottie died in 1940 from internal injuries suffered from an earlier car accident.

ROSEANNE

Sherry Sheppard

Elliott Gould

Margaux Hemingway

r181 David Caruso left NYPD Blue to attempt to become a movie star. It didn't work. CSI Miami was his comeback. He was on CSI Miami for 10 seasons and made enough money that he never has to work again. He is now an artist.

Kathy Griffin

This fascinating, funny and frank interview shows how to torpedo your career if you don't play by the rules.

Just for some background: she'd played in the lead in the movie that was Samantha (Sex And The City) Jone's favourite...

Michael Moriarty.

Randy Quaid.

Sean Young.

Margot Kidder.

Margaux Hemingway.

Phil Spector.

Robert Blake.

Jim and Tammy Faye.

John Lloyd Young, erstwhile Broadway Wunderkind.

Piper Laurie

Sandra Dee's career was in high gear during the 1950s/1960s.

Mary Miles Minter and Mabel Normand.

r213, I loved Michael Moriarty on Law and Order, he was amazing.

211, I hadn't seen too much of Linda Fiorentino before, she's fabulous - and she names names!

I don't find Fiorentino frank and funny at R211. I see the asshole-to-come that any number of colleagues would confirm (Kevin Smith the director among them). She thinks she's being so outrageous and sexy (stop messing up your hair, gurl) and it's charmless and inauthentic.

Some movie fans rally behind difficult and dysfunctional personalities (eg, "They're misunderstood! They're no-BS tellers of hard truths!") like Rose McGowan, Debra Winger, and Fiorentino. (Winger is far more talented than the others, at least, but still an asshole.) Most of these actors wind up with precisely the careers they deserve.

Debra Winger had mental health issues I think. She seemed so angry. But she had to put up with Shirley MacLaine AND Jack Nicholson at the same time...that would be traumatic for anyone.

Jan Michael Vincent. Is he even alive anymore? Last time I saw a pic he looked homeless and that was some years ago.

R221, he died in 2019

That's actually sad R222. I hope he had family of some kind around.

R219, at least Winger and Fiorentino had some talent. McGowan is just a stupid idiot who spews lies on Fox News

James Woods. Right wing conspiracy idiocy is a career killer.

R225, Even if you're blessed with a big dick.

Suzanne Summers:

1980: Most famous women in prime time tv. On the No. 1 TV show in America- Three’s Company

1982: Working the second stage at MGM Grand seven nights a week and praying that Allan Hamel dies for ruining her career

2021: Allan Hamel, 99 still fucking Suzanne, buts calls her Chrissy. Suzanne, 95 does know anyway and still yells out Oh Jack each time Allan dribbles on her tits

Jeremy Piven owns this thread!

Do you think the Mormons pressured Rick Schroder into quitting [italic]NYPD Blue[/italic]? I shouldn't be a bit surprised considering they probably also told him to cover up and stop being so touchy with other dudes in his TV movies.

Mel Gibson! He used to be the man making $30M per movie until the fool spewed all that Anti-Semite and misogynist shit!

OJ and Spacey own this thread.

Lillian Gish. It has been said that he career was sabotaged because her wholesome persona and art projects, such as The Wind, were a thorn in the side of pre-Hayes Code Hollywood. She went from four of her biggest films in 1927-28 to the horrible One Romantic Night in 1930.

RE: Brendan Fraiser

I knew him as an acquaintance, not a friend. I think his comment about being the Horse in Animal Farm is spot on. As I have posted here many times, if BF had sex with men, it was not because he was gay, it was because he was too polite to say "no". That was the kind of guy he was originally. Easy to work with. No drama. Since it was early in his career, I suspect he had advisors/mentors who were looking after him him. He certainly need looking after. He did not have the thick skin needed to survive in Hollywood on your own.

I suspect, as he grew older, he wanted to be more independent /grown-up and he stopped listing to his advisors/mentors. I also suspect that his wife had a lot to do with it. The change happened shortly after his marriage and I know from contact with him that he found marriage difficult in the beginning. I suspect that much like Judge Reinhold, his wife contributed to both his career slump and his drinking. The last time I met him, he was a total ass-hole. It sounds as if he has turned his life around since then.

R232, He was at his hottest in "George of the Jungle".

Taylor Kitsch was the biggest fall from grace in the 2010s imo. His name is a synonym for Hollywood failure and box office poison now. The poor guy had two 10 year contracts with Disney and Universal and they cancelled him and his career in lightning speed after John Carter and Battleship bombed. He hardly gets any supporting roles these days and is really letting himself go. Dude looks like a hobo.

R233.. i think the "replacement" george in the jungle had a better body than fraser.....

R234, I thought he was going to have a comeback of sorts after Lone Survivor got such good reviews, but he all but disappeared until he got a part on "True Detective" a couple years later.

Do you have a source on that quote r201?

Jared Fogle - dumbass perv/pedo. Subway stint could have gone on indefinitely.

Val Kilmer - seems a little strange and supposedly difficult to work with.

Brendan Fraser - his career was derailed by Brad Pitt. He also had to pay a shit ton of child support and/or alimony. Was supposedly fingered or groped at a party by some exec.

Geena Davis - deserves so much better. Renny H. ran her career into the ground. Loved her as the grown up Regan in The Exorcist TV series.

Lea Michele

The definition of "fall from Grace" is pretty open for some of you. If a person isn't number 1 all the time but keeps working, that really isn't falling from grace...to me a person who loses it all and doesn't work or at least ends up on DWTS. Amy is still working, Topher still working, Hamm still working. You may not like them, but they are working ...no one can continue on top like Hollywood expects and have any sort of life outside of the industry.... LL, Spacey, Gibson...perfect examples of falling from grace

"Lillian Gish. It has been said that he career was sabotaged because her wholesome persona and art projects, such as The Wind, were a thorn in the side of pre-Hayes Code Hollywood. She went from four of her biggest films in 1927-28 to the horrible One Romantic Night in 1930."

R232, this makes it sound like Gish was yet another casualty of sound coming to Hollywood. I mean the woman could act in sound, after spending a decade or two doing theater, and came back to do supporting roles as long as she lived, but that doesn't mean her popularity survived while Hollywood changed from making silent movies to sound. Public tastes changed, the kind of movies made, and of course Hollywood reserved most big female roles for women under 25.

Gish never "fell from grace", her career in acting just went through several phases.

WEHT to renny harlin anyway? or jon landis? just two to name a few...

Les Moonves, FTW.

I still think he is the biggest fall out of the MeToo movement, even bigger than Weinstein. Moonves ran CBS for pete's sake and was forced out. And honestly, the CBS stock has never recovered after he left.

Taylor Kitsch didn't fall from grace. He was just hyped as the "next big thing" and turned out not to be. Like many other actors

Rose McGowan was one of the first to come forward and accuse Harvey Weinstein, Guess that wasn't one of her lies. I also think she's spot-on about the hypocrisy of a lot of people in Hollywood, including Alyssa Milano.

R245, Rose is the hypocrite. Latching onto metoo, but going on Fox News to pander to the kind of people who bash metoo

She also made homophobic comments and said gay men were worse than straight men. What did a gay man do to you that was worse than rape, Rose?

"What did a gay man do to you that was worse than rape, Rose?"

Shade her on DL?

[Quote]Taylor Kitsch didn't fall from grace. He was just hyped as the "next big thing" and turned out not to be. Like many other actors

When you star in several multimillion dollar flops in one year and every studio suddenly drops you like a hot potato, cancels all your multi-year contracts and you can hardly find any work after that, I think this qualifies as a big "fall from grace".

[quote] Rose is the hypocrite. Latching onto metoo, but going on Fox News to pander to the kind of people who bash metoo

Many of the people like McGowan who go on Fox news would be happy to go on MSNBC if they were invited, which they aren't. And they aren't because, even though they aren't right-wingers, they don't fit the MSNBC narrative in which popular Democrats can't be accused of sexual assualt.

R243. but didn't Moonves get a HUGE pay out of severance pay?! he may not have "power" or "attention" but he's filthy filthy rich and at his age, probably was going to retire and get out anyway, so i don't he's fallen and crying too much...

R250, Still, what will be the headline with his obituary?

DISGRACED FORMER CEO OF CBS DIES

R251... then again, he'll be dead and have enjoyed his wealth, so?? poor Julie Chen! NOT!

[quote]R246 She also made homophobic comments and said gay men were worse than straight men.

Can you link to this? That claim seems to get thrown around by bitter queens here and I’d like to know the context.

I read her book and like her a lot. She certainly had a very strange and horrible childhood.

R253, I'm not the one who posted that comment but I do remember her making those comments. She also has recently made comments basically supporting the Assad regime in Syria. She's a nut.

Gary Busey? Not sure if he still works but he is an oddball. Haven't seen his son Jake lately either.

R249, except the Harvey story was covered on all the news outlets. No one ignored it. If anything it got more coverage than it deserves since the average person on the street didn't know who Harvey Weinstein was before the scandal broke. If Rose isn't invited on MSNBC, it's because she's a nut

If you want to accuse a media outlet of ignoring a sexual abuse story l, look at how Faux News is ignoring Matt Gaetz

Paul Reubens, aka Pee Wee Herman. Caught masturbating in a theater. I don't think his career ever really recovered from that incident.

If the music business is part of Hollywood, then: Milli Vanilli.

R257, but I think the attitude towards the incident has changed. Now, all I hear people saying about it is "wait...you're NOT allowed to masturbate in a porn theater? What else are people supposed to do there then!?".

Once South Park made fun off comics like Amy, they literally mocked a joke that she would go on to make at an awards show because she was that predictable, it was the end.

Rob Lowe had a big fall from grace, even though he came back, it was still a big one. Today i doubt it would even derail a career. He never came back from it enough to resume being an above-the-title movie star, though. Despite being successful on TV and very rich.

Taylor Kitsch was never a big star to begin with. He was a semi-famous TV star who failed to launch as a movie star

Milli Vanilli is a good example. A handful of big hits, then a complete joke.

nicole lez kidman for all the god awful work sshe has done........she known now as miss wig.

Hollywood needs to stop giving Jon Hamm movies to bomb.

All the Rose haters are paid off by the mafia.

R78 Well, both Kevin and Jennifer loved sucking down those protein shakes!

Yep, there is nothing Kevin Spacey likes more than cream of chicken soup.

Why the hell has ANDY COHEN not been cancelled yet?......Such a SLEEZE. ....And please do NOT say AC isn't cancelled because he is "powerful"---so was Kevin Spacey and Les Moonves and they got cancelled...

Brend@n Fr@shier's career was derailed by alcoholism. There. I said it. It's the reason is wife divorced him. It's why his looks went. and why he got fat.

Andy Cohen continues to be profitable for BRAVO.... but just barely. Most of his pet projects have proven disastrous. His talk show is watched less and less. The Housewives franchise is eroding, slowly. And he is as expensive as hell.

If BRAVO doesn't renew his contract, you will see an epic fall from grace, and much mud will finally be flung quite publicly about his racism, drug use, and possible sexual harassment.

R211 / R212 For me, Linda Fiorentino circa “The Last Seduction” might just be the sexiest woman ever. Thought she was a good actress too, but she seems like the classic “difficult to work with” type based on the nosedive her career took. Her absence from sequel films where her inclusion would have been logical and expected (“Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back” and “Men In Black 2”) speaks volumes.

R253 McGowan held a fundraiser at a hotel owned by the very anti-gay Sultan of Brunei which lead to complaints and boycotts of the hotel, and she responded by saying boycotts were "gay insanity" and that gays never stand up for women and are more sexist than straights.

It's all very easy to look up so maybe stop being lazy.

[quote]During a podcast about the boycott of the hotel owned by the Sultan of Brunei, McGowan declared the protest was a “form of narcissistic, self-victimization, gay insanity.” She then continued, complaining that, “You wanna talk about the fact that I have heard nobody in the gay community, no gay males, standing up for women on any level? I think it’s what happens to you as a group when you are starting to get most of what you fought for. What do you do now? What I would hope they would do is extend a hand to women. Women, by and large, have very much helped the gay community get to where they are today.” McGowan then claimed that, “Gay men are as misogynistic as straight men, if not more so.”

The irony of Rose complaining about narcissism.

The nerve of this two dollar whore!

Also I saw her months ago on Casey Spooner's insta...what a phony bitch. Casey should stay away from that diaba.

Linda Fiorintino was very vocal about all the Hollywood sleezeballs that tried to MeToo her. She got fed up, quit and left Hollywood behind. That's quite a different thing than a career nosedive or falling from grace.

[quote]Milli Vanilli is a good example. A handful of big hits, then a complete joke.

R263 They even won a Grammy!

R270 He looked like he was about to play Ralph Kramden, in the picture posted here.

I don't think Sean Young or Tobey Maguire belong in this group, and probably not Brendan Fraser either.

R279 I interpret a "fall from grace in Hollywood" to mean someone who has had a career nosedive. They were once on top, big box office, could do no wrong, everyone wanted to work with them, etc. Now they have fallen out of the good graces of the business. How are you interpreting it?

R280, on second thought, I guess you're right and Sean Young does fit the label. But Tobey Maguire seems to have transitioned more to producing, and he has MULTIPLE recent and upcoming credits in that capacity. As for Fraser, he has three movies currently in post-production (one of them directed by Steven Soderbergh, another by Darren Anofsky), plus one in development, and several recent credits. True, neither of those guys are as white-hot as they were in their prime, but very few actors can sustain that level of white-hotness over an extended period of time.

What about Halle Berry? A string of bad post-Oscar films and a bad breakup with her baby daddy which generated negative publicity for her...

R282, incredibly, even running over a pedestrian didn't kill her career. It took Catwoman to do that.

Michael Richards (AKA Kramer from Seinfeld). I could never look at him the same after that ignorant racist rant! Stick a fork in him. He's done. He never recovered from that.

R259 Agree! Pee Wee Herman got a raw deal. Adults are now allowed more freedom to do adult things away from their jobs.

I think he was set up. He was arrested along with 3 other men? Why was everyone not arrested? We know they were ALL "up to something!"

Has Emile Hirsch's career recovered after he randomly attacked a woman? Don't really remember the details, but I think he was high or drunk and choked a woman. His PR team tried the typical 'he's sorry and going to rehab' narrative after the incident, but I think this guy is really crazy.

I remember that, it was odd, he tried to paint it as a class thing, then a famous person's daughter defended him - I want to say Bono?!

[quote]The woman, Dani Bernfeld, works for Paramount Pictures as vice president of digital entertainment. The incident took place Jan. 25 at Tao nightclub in Park City, Utah.

According to court documents, Bernfeld was approached by Hirsch at about 3:15 a.m. Hirsch appeared intoxicated, and asked why she looked “so tough” and said she was a “rich kid” who should not be at Sundance. He then grabbed Bernfeld, but she pushed him away and he left the area with some friends.

Shortly after, Hirsch came up to Bernfeld from behind and wrapped his arm around her to put her in a chokehold, say the documents. Hirsch then pulled her across a table and onto the floor, where he landed on top of her. While on top of her, he wrapped his hands around her neck.

Bernfeld said she felt as though “the front and back of her throat were touching” and she remembers her vision going dark, reporting that she may have momentarily blacked out. Two bystanders pulled Hirsch off of Bernfeld.

....

[quote]Agree! Pee Wee Herman got a raw deal. Adults are now allowed more freedom to do adult things away from their jobs..

R285 People are now allowed to masturbate in public?

Wow, Hirsch is a fucking psycho. Why didn't he go to prison for assaulting this woman?

Maybe we also need to remember Pee Wee Herman was very popular with children.

[quote]People are now allowed to masturbate in public?

And charge for it.

Klinton Spilsbury owns this thread.

R291 He pled guilty and served 15 days in prison. That's 15 DAYS for nearly strangling a woman to death with no provocation.

^White/celebrity privilege. A black man chocking a white woman and almost killing her would still be in prison. The little douchebag has several current entries on Imdb, but I've no idea if they're high profile or TV movie level. Appalling that people still employ this psycho and he only got a slap on the wrist with that 15 day prison sentence.

C'mon R290! Is jacking your cock off in a dark room full of men (who are also engaging in sexual behavior) with PORNOGRAPHY playing on the screen really "in public?"

Would anyone really expect to find "the general public" in there? Nobody goes there for bible study. I don't think little old ladies go in there. And kids are not allowed.

So this really is a targeted audience. Anyone going in there knows what they will find! Same thing was happening in hetero establishments. I didn't see them being paraded out "in public," in record numbers, having their careers and marriages destroyed and being labeled "sex offenders" like it was for gay men in that era!

Cops and politicians were being total assholes!

R296 Yeah that white privilege really killed OJs chances off getting away with murder...

^Celebrity privilege? You think a random black dude would have walked?

Emile Hirsch is a piece of shit. Boo to Tarantino for putting him in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Was there ever any motive for his choking of that girl other than psychotic douchebaggery? Did he even know her?

I hate when White people do this shit.

R298 you know exactly what R296 is saying. Because one rich Black man got away with murder does that justify a criminal justice system where millions of Black people are abused DAILY! Do you really think all Black people should be should be processed through a system designed to incarcerate and kill them and where innocent until proven guilty is a joke?

You are also ignoring the many MANY White people who have ADMITTED that they got away with murder, not to mention the many other White people who have never been arrested or charged because of their White privilege. OJ may be a piece of shit, but he is not the norm and you know it. You also know there are many MORE White people walking around who are also pieces of shit!

It is like every time someone mentions systemic racism, some racist fool says "well Oprah is rich" as if to say that if Black people just pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, they all could be billionaires too.

People like Oprah were successful despite horrendous racial roadblocks thrown in their way, and some luck!

Exceptions to the rule don't negate the rule!

Never mind, found the explanation:

[quote]Bernfeld, 31 . . . said Hirsch, whom she’d never met before, repeatedly got in her face when she refused his advances, asking why she looked “so tough” and branded her a spoiled party girl who’s “never done anything” with her life. “Your parents are rich and you don’t know what it’s like,” Bernfeld recalled him saying. She then pushed him away from her, telling the actor that she was in fact a studio executive and the daughter of a school principal. A waitress seemed to corroborate Bernfeld’s version of events, informing police that an inebriated Hirsch was making Bernfeld uncomfortable, pawing her and grabbing her hair.

Motherfucker.

r300 - Go to 22:30

Reubens' career was ruined by the porn theater incident because he'd made his career in "family" entertainment, and had gotten famous playing a manchild. It's not that he was caught doing anything serious, he was just caught doing something contrary to the image he'd built. Now if some party-hardy asshole like Charlie Sheen had been caught in a porn theater, the wold would have laughed and said "What, he got tired of hookers?", and it would have had no impact on his career.

That's what celebrities have to watch out for, ruining their images. Like Meg Ryan cheating on her husband and being deserted by her mainstream female fans. Or Russell Crowe being an asshole to a hotel clerk and throwing a phone at him, when everyone thought he was a decent bloke.

Not huge compared to H'wood "legends," but Casey Affleck.

His fall from grace is strange--as in, there's just something weird/off about it. He settled out-of-court with 2 women in 2010, turned in the best performances of his career in the following years, won the Oscar in 2016, and then did a total career swan dive after receiving the ultimate industry plaudit.

I don't wish to make excuses for harassers, but he settled financially with the women, publicly apologized, got sober since 2013, hasn't been accused in any *new* cases since that time, and it's like the industry waited to punish him until *after* he'd made all these amends. People have successfully rehabbed their public image for way less (just think of the unrepentant drunk his brother is...or the way his ex-BIL Joaquin Phoenix referenced his own misbehavior on movie sets when he gave his acceptance speech for "Joker").

I wonder if there's something else to the story.

R304 I agree with you in part. It absolutely had a lot to do with his image of having kids as his target audience. But it also had a lot to do with homophobic feelings in America at that time. Charlie Sheen's fans would NOT have laughed off him being caught jacking off in a porn theater. That actually would have destroyed his image as a ladies man. After this incident, everyone assumed Reubens was gay which had A LOT to do with his downfall. 99.9% of the clientele in porn theaters in the 1990s was gay men. This was common knowledge.

Perhaps this was before your time, but I remember this like it was yesterday. Homosexuality was very much considered a perversion. Two years later was "Don't ask Don't Tell." Homosexuality was considered to be so awful that people did not even want to discuss it. This was a very fucked up period. Gay life was very much NOT accepted.

Joss Whedon also ruined his career by departing from his image. He built his brand as a feminist, and when it became clear that he treated his actresses just as badly as the worst douchebro director, he was done.

[quote]Klinton Spilsbury owns this thread.

Is it really a "fall from grace" if there was never a "grace" to fall from in the first place?

Angus T. Jones

"I wonder if there's something else to the story [of Casey Affleck]"

If Affleck hasn't been working since he won his Oscar, I would guess that... either he's made enemies within the industry, or he's asking for a shit-ton more money since winning and nobody's paying up.

Casey Affleck didn't deserve the Oscar, anyway, and he isn't that attractive or charismatic. His win was a fluke and no one would be talking about him if he wasn't Ben Affleck's brother

[quote]C'mon [R290]! Is jacking your cock off in a dark room full of men (who are also engaging in sexual behavior) with PORNOGRAPHY playing on the screen really "in public?" Would anyone really expect to find "the general public" in there? Nobody goes there for bible study. I don't think little old ladies go in there. And kids are not allowed.

No one said anything about the general public. I don't think legal definitions of things like "public" and "private" allow for all those rationalizations. He was arrested for exposing himself, so I assume where it happened (Florida) you can't do that in a public theatre, regardless of whether little old ladies are present or not. A movie theatre isn't a private club.

Damn, this is just as bad as Facebook. Doesn't ANYONE READ ANY of the previous posts before posting their own choice(s)?

Some of these names have been mentioned more than a dozen times.

R312 Ok, June Cleaver! We are not living in the 1950s. LOL This was actually in the 1990s! You are perhaps young and/or unaware of the gay rights struggle in America? No one said what Pee Wee Herman did was not illegal, of course it was! DUH! But people do a lot of "illegal" shit. And illegal doesn't mean what he did was "wrong."

Are you aware that at one point throughout most of the country it was illegal for you to get fucked by your boyfriend in the privacy of your own home? Do you think it should have been "wrong" for two consenting adults to fuck? So yeah we are not talking "legal" definitions here, which change (and have changed over time). A huge concern for me regarding gays having more rights is the "gay amnesia" of some and the ignorance of others of how we got where we are! Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. There has never been the same energy behind enforcing these kinds of laws against heterosexuals as there has been behind enforcing them against homosexuals. During that time state and local governments went out of their way to punish people for being gay, similar to the way people today are often punished for being poor.

Right is right and wrong is wrong. Destroying Pee Wee Herman for jacking off in a porn theater (where many others were doing the exact same thing - in fact many would argue that is what it was designed for) was wrong. If you know this history and are just trolling then shame on you and if you don't know it, you should!

Wes Bentley. So promising. But you can only be a functioning heroin addict for so long.

R313 You should call the manager, Karen.

R314 He also knew that if he exposed himself in public there was a good chance he'd get arrested and he did it anyway. If he was doing it to be a hero to the gay movement, I never saw any evidence of that. He didn't make a cause out of it (like you are), he just tried to put it behind him. If he was targeted for his sexuality, because they knew he was a celebrity when they arrested him, I'm assuming there's some proof?

i actually masturbated in a "regular theater" to the homoerotic kinky movie "batman & robin"! laugh! huge huge theater, no one in the theater and i sat in the last row of the stadium seating and went at it! laugh!.. thankfully i had tissues and a jacket to cover myself!..

R317 is willfully ignorant! Nobody said anything about any of the shit you are trying to bring into this. The thread is about people who fell from grace. You are a dumb fuck choosing to not look at the Pee Wee Herman arrest in context proves you are a dipshit. I would bet my life savings you are a MAGAT because you are an absolute moron!

R276 We would also be remiss were we not to point out that whatever reputation & career prospects Fiorentino may have had went straight down the shitter when it was revealed that she was not only in a relationship with Anthony Pellicano, but probably seduced an FBI agent in order to hand over illegally obtained Bureau info to Pellicano’s lawyers. That combined with the aging out process is probably why she’s been dunzo for awhile now.

[quote][R312] Ok, June Cleaver! We are not living in the 1950s.

Cut me some slack, Jack!

It has to be Bill Cosby for the win - he was America’s dad and his legacy /obit would have been absolutely fawning (nauseatingly so). His fall was truly on a Shakespearean level — when you look at his career and what he meant and symbolized to so many people (again, not me personally, but...)

And now he will 100% be remembered for something else entirely.

He raped a lesbian so hard she turned into a man.

Who was that r323?

Cosby deserves it. He was a sexual predator for DECADES. The only other celebrity I can think of which that much of a disconnect between public persona and private behavior is Jimmy Savile.

Jimmy WHO? I bet 99% of peeps in the USA has ever heard of the dude, but googling him...yes, he sounds disgusting.

R324: Some lying white tranny.

Jimmy Savile was considered a "national treasure" in England for his charity work. He was awarded the OBE and was knighted. He was also a rapist and child molester. There were rumors and accusations about is perversity for many years but nobody did a damn thing about it. He was seen groping a girl's behind on some music show (he used to be a dj); nobody thought anything about it. His behavior seemed to be considered amusing. A Vanity Fair article wondered how someone with "no looks, charm, or talent" could get to be such a celebrity. He went to his grave without ever doing any jail time for his crimes. It was only after his death that it was finally revealed what a monster he was. Too bad his "fall from grace" didn't happen while he was alive. He was the lowest of the low.

Again, what does that have to do with the specific topic of this thread R328?

Ok, I read through the entire thread and can't believe no mentioned Robert Downey Jr! He was very popular doing young adult movies, and then busted and jailed for 3 years (!) possession of drugs, being in possession of an illegal firearm. It wasn't like when he was released he was back to doing movies again...it took awhile for him to start getting roles again because insurance companies wouldn't bond him on projects. Another asshole mentioned on here (Mel Gibson) finally paid his bond for a movie and he started his climb back up the ladder. He was on Ally McBeal for awhile and slowly started getting more and more roles. Now he's been Iron Man for the past decade plus and probably has more money then God. Talk about taking a nosedive and climbing your way back up to the top!

R305, I've always thought what happened to Casey Affleck was that he wasn't particularly talented and a serial harasser, but because of nepotism and connections he got opportunities people felt he shouldn't have gotten. He crashed and burned back in 2006 or so once, and people I think were taken aback by his comeback. It didn't help that he was always a massive douche in interviews that were obvious PR plants rather than real, genuine interviews.

I don't know why Joaquin Phoenix gets a pass for all that I'm Not Here nonsense when people come down harder on Casey Affleck for it. That doesn't make sense.

r290 I think what he's saying is that these days the charges would be dropped or not even filed in the first place. Fred Willard got caught in a porn theater in 2012 and he made a couple of jokes on Twitter about it, got fired from one job and then charges were never filed, and it all went away. That's the difference between how these scandals go today versus way back when Reubens was arrested.

If you'd read the thread, R329, you'd see that R328 was answering a question about Jimmy Savile asked further upthread, which was posted in response to MY post that Cosby deserved his downfall as he was as big a hypocrite psychopath as Jimmy Savile.

His actions have nuked his legacy. And destroyed the chances of the other cast members of his show from cashing in on their residuals. No one can possibly want to put this show into syndication.

The case against Cosby was built on lies. Anyone who would believe the words of a lying white man over a Black man is a racist.

Constand uses male pronouns.

Constand is a man.

Bill Cosby had sex with a man.

That is why he is in jail.

Roman Polanski.

R330, I believe the thread refers not to eventually becoming THE HIGHEST PAID ACTOR IN HOLLYWOOD afterwards!

He's worth $300 million, $75 million of which came from "The Avengers."

Some "fall."

The self-appointed thread monitor needs to indulge in a nice warm mug of STFU.

Actually, 338, the OP refers only to "biggest falls from grace" and doesn't say anything about whether or not the person ever bounced back. Robert Downey, Jr. did indeed have a spectacular fall from grace, and the fact that he bounced back so very, very well doesn't change that fact.

R340, A spectacular comeback serves rather well to negate totally that fall.

Not exactly Aristotelian.

WOW, R320, the Wikipedia entry on Anthony Pellicano was shocking with the accounts of his sleaziness and corruption. I had no idea Linda Fiorentino had ties to him, and that story about her and the FBI agent was a real eye-opener!

And here all this time, I figured she’d dropped off the radar because Hollywood perceived her as a bitch!

RDJ still went to prison for drug abuse and gun possession and the whole world knows he's a junkie and scumbag. $300 million doesn't really change that fact. He's just a very rich scumbag.

Armie Hammer also just checked into rehab. It's a typical Hollywood move for all alcoholics, abusers, drug addicts who plan to work again in the industry. But we all know and remember he's a pervert and freak who abused women.

Downey is the second luckiest human ever to exist, after Ringo Starr.

Starr wins because he never had to spend time in a hellhole of a jail to get where he is, he actually seems to have enjoyed his good life.

Ringo is very lovable. The other Beatles loved him (even if they didn't always respect him or his talents). The fans loved him. His family continues to love him.

RDJ has some talent but he sounds like a messy, rather nasty piece of work. And very damaged.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Is there a Lois Lane curse?

Consider Margot Kidder (accidents, breakdowns, eventual suicide), Kate Bosworth (career went down after "Superman Returns"), and Amy Adams (Hillbilly Elegy; The Woman in the Window).

We won't even talk about Allison Mack, of NXIVM infamy, who was essentially a blonde Lois Lane in Smallville.

Honestly though his comeback was more spectacular than his fall, which was a long time coming. I never anticipated not only his comeback but the TYPE of big budget mainstream ubiquitous star he would become.

Errol Flynn? Too lazy to check.

Debra Winger

Helen Lawson.

Flynn was put on trail for statutory rape, but it didn't hurt his career much. The attitude seems to have been "Sure, he did it, but she was a slut and who can blame a manly man like him?". Like I said, what really ruins careers is something that's not just criminal, but which shows the public image to be a lie, and Flynn's image was that of a man-slut.

Charlie Chaplin's career was greatly diminished by an ugly divorce from a 15 year old girl, a paternity suit by another teenager, another marriage to a teen. It just didn't fit with the innocent Little Tramp of the movies.

[quote]Charlie Chaplin's career was greatly diminished by an ugly divorce from a 15 year old girl, a paternity suit by another teenager, another marriage to a teen. It just didn't fit with the innocent Little Tramp of the movies.

NOW you tell me!

Some powers that be in old Hollywood (Hedda Hopper, William Randolph Hearst) despised Chaplin, not so much for his taste in underage girls as for his left-wing politics and went out of their way to undermine him and end his career. They definitely damaged him and his reputation.

He did it to himself by being a kiddie fiddler with the fashion sense of Adolf Hitler.

Donald Trump. That mutha fucka will never be POTUS again and he's probably going to jail very soon!

But Flynn’s career never achieved its pre-scandal luster and a combination of poor box office, continued debauchery, divorces and money problems, if they didn’t cause an immediate fall from grace, started a long, slow slide. He was also addicted to morphine in the fifties.

Norman Maine

Shia LaBeouf

Neely O'Hara

Hugh Grant got caught with a tranny, but seems to have recovered decently.

R361, Divine Brown is not a trans.

And Hugh Grant is not Eddie Murphy.

And Hugh Grant's career never really recovered to the level it had been at.

R364, That's debatable.

Hugh Grant managed to make the transition from movie star to actor! He's actually a pretty good actor, and doesn't publicize the hell out of himself or make 200 movies a year. So he's been all right.

Besides, like I said, the real ruinous scandals are those which show your image is a sham. And his image was that of a slightly effete Englishman, and they're usually pervs in private. No big surprises there.

well, while he's still a global superstar, tom cruise career HAS faltered and nowhere near what it was..

he was the man "guys wanted to be like and women wanted to be with". he literally had the world at his feet for quite some time,... THEN?

couldn't keep a wife, flipping out on talk shows and interviews, scientology, scientology and more scientology.. now abandoning his youngest daughter Suri, will NOT sit for a real no holds barred interview in at least 10 years and actually bans anyone, anywhere, anytime from asking him ANYTHING besides whatever movie he is promoting... and of course the recent profanity psycho outburst on the latest mission movie...

R367, R367, r367, you’re being GLIB!

R344, Ringo paid his dues in suffering as a child, being hospitalized for several life-threatening illnesses.

Gloria Gibson

Barbara Payton

What's with all the Ringo degradation here? He's long been thought of as one of the greatest rock drummers ever, no joke. He always went above and beyond on Beatles songs, and elevated them with his drumming patterns.

I'm not a musician so won't get into the details of how good he was. But will point out that long after they broke up, the other three Beatles still kept working with Ringo, over and over. Even though they had access to the best drummers around. He was that steady.

Brendan Fraser lost his looks and his mental health but he had a reputation of being a decent enough person and a solid actor which is why he has reestablished a respectable acting career in the last 5 years so I wouldn’t call it a fall from Grace, per se.

Brendan Fraser??

The Oscar winner, Brendan Fraser??

🤔🤔

Susan Richardson owns this Pinto.