Fame is – as the saying goes – a hideous bitch goddess, and one moreover with a very sick sense of humour. If we were in any doubt of this, we need only stop and consider the events of the 6th and 7th of March, 2010, when within a single 24-hour period, Sandra Bullock collected both the Razzie for Worst Actress for All About Steve and the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Blind Side.
It’s the nature of acting that there will be good parts and bad parts, and that if you want to eat, you can’t always afford to be choosy. Nevertheless, this platitude hardly accounts for all those actors – or all those agents – who apparently can’t tell a good script from a stinker. Nor can it explain away the number of actors for whom a major award is the first stop on the road to oblivion. For some, the journey from professional triumph to professional humilation is slow and steady; for others, it happens so fast, it takes your breath away.
So join us as we take a look at the careers of some actors who truly do know what it’s like to go from one extreme to the other.
It’s FALLING STARS – all through February at the B-Masters’ blog!
#1 by RogerBW on January 31, 2012 - 4:58 am
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Some actors are explicit about it: they’ll do the occasional high-payday stinker so that they can afford to do the fun but cheap stuff. And those actors tend to be the ones who always give it their all: if you cast Michael Caine or Lance Henriksen in your film, you will be getting an equally good performance whether you’re paying him a million bucks or asking him to bring his own lunch.
But then you get the actors who’ve been in good stuff but who appear in trash that’s neither lucrative, nor fun, nor good for their careers. And I suspect those are the ones you’re going to be looking at…
#2 by DamonD on January 31, 2012 - 6:23 am
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Paging Ms. Berry, paging Ms. Berry…
#3 by Blake on January 31, 2012 - 7:35 am
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Ooh…this should be fascinating, although I lament that nobody will review “Monolith.”
#4 by Jason Farrell on January 31, 2012 - 8:10 am
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OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
#5 by Jen S on January 31, 2012 - 1:21 pm
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Huzzah!
First thought that came to mind: “Poor Richard Burton.”
#6 by Jason Farrell on January 31, 2012 - 3:22 pm
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I was going to say something about the level between OFFICER & A GENTLEMAN and MONOLITH (responding to Blake above), and then make some commentary on how the main difference was I actually liked MONOLITH. But it was a lot cleverer and hilariouser back before I was called away.
Now, I sound like I’m just making the assumption that everyone was really curious about why my message was so terse and nonsensical, when in fact nobody would have noticed, at least until I added this new entry.
Maybe I’ll just stop typing now…
#7 by Blake on January 31, 2012 - 3:34 pm
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I got what you were getting at (for whatever that’s worth).
#8 by KeithA on January 31, 2012 - 4:25 pm
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Jen – you will not be disappointed
#9 by Jen S on February 1, 2012 - 8:12 pm
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That’s all I ask…
#10 by JessicaR on February 1, 2012 - 2:08 am
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Richard Burton could almost, really should even, get his own Round Table. A lot of what the Medveds wrote was balderdash but they were spot on with pegging Burton as the best of the worst as when he was good he was very good but when he was bad he was horrid.
#11 by DamonD on February 1, 2012 - 8:56 am
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I agree. A while back here, following Ken Begg’s review of Boom!, I mentioned how increasingly interesting a figure Burton was to me.
You’d almost swear there were two seperate Burtons, identical twins if you will, one gifted with acting talent and the other more suited for end-of-the-pier pantomines or modelling clothes in a shop window.