Anyone remember the episode of The Surreal Life on VH-1 with Vanilla Ice and Todd Bridges? They were "working" at a restaurant "managed" by Gary Coleman, and Ice kept trying to get Coleman to say "Wutchoo talkin' 'bout Willis" just once and he never would. Coleman stormed off in frustration with Ice still egging him on!
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Stars who didn't like the roles that had made them famous....
- Thread starter mleach
- Start date
firepoint525 said:
I have heard the story for many years that Gary Coleman tends to get very upset and angry to anyone who would as much as dare to ask him to say "wutchoo talkin' bout Willis". But on the other hand, his hardcore fans say that its all an act and that Gary would often repeat the line with a smile on his face just to make his fans happy. For some reason I doubt it.
Very very similar to the late Dana Plato and HER fans too. The 1997 sex flick Dana did "Different Strokes: The Story of Jack & Jill..and Jill". Oh do they get angry whenever one brings up that movie. Some even going as far as saying that really wasn't Dana Plato in the movie but rather that was a body double with Dana's voice edited in later. Some have even claimed Dana never did the movie in the first place or even that the movie doesn't even exist as it was made up by those who hated Dana. Yeah right....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Different_Strokes_(film)
Jeannie C. Riley could definitely rock a miniskirt!mleach said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JqT_WNGr-8&feature=related
bpatrick said:
When she died Ms. Bavier's will contained a provision that a good amount of her estate went to Public TV.
But you are correct that she had little contact with the folks of Siler City. She became a virtual recluse.
There is a story (whether it's true or not I do not know) that Ron Howard and Andy Griffith went (seperately) to visit her and she refused to see either one of them.
What is ironic to me is that these actors who didn't like the roles that made them famous would most likely have ended up washing dishes some where, or in an actor's retirement center had it not been for the break they got.
Something that should be etched into the brains of these individuals. For every actor that makes it, there are thousands who don't.
Show business is strange to begin with. Actors start out their careers trying to be recognized. Then once they are, some distance themselves from what made them famous, along with thinking they are better than their fans. How does the saying go..."you can't have your cake and eat it too."
Personally if I was getting a nice fat pay check every month for my appearance on a TV show that went off the air 10, 20 or 30 years ago, I wouldn't be complaining; would you?
As for the actress who played "Aunt Bea" I think the only movie she ever appeared in that I remember was a bit part in the classic 1951 version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still". So without her role in the Andy Griffith Show, Ms. Bavier's career might have ended up, as many acting careers do, in the wastebasket.
Personally if I was getting a nice fat pay check every month for my appearance on a TV show that went off the air 10, 20 or 30 years ago, I wouldn't be complaining; would you?
As for the actress who played "Aunt Bea" I think the only movie she ever appeared in that I remember was a bit part in the classic 1951 version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still". So without her role in the Andy Griffith Show, Ms. Bavier's career might have ended up, as many acting careers do, in the wastebasket.
Mark_Giardina said:
Frances Bavier did the 1974 Deborah Walley movie "Benji" and according to IMDB that was the very last acting job she ever did. Very small part actually as I don't think her entire time in Benji lasted no more than 4 minutes.
Funny, today I was visitng the flea market down the street from me and noticed they were selling back issues of Tiger Beat and 16 magazines from the late 70's. The one Tiger Beat I was checking out from 1979 on the cover had both Fred Berry & Shirley Hemphill from What's Happening and Gary Coleman & Dana Plato from Diff"rent Strokes as well as smaller pics of Leif Garrett, Chasity Bono, Ralph Carter from Good Times and Alecia "I Love the Nightlife" Bridges. Oh Tiger Beat was doing a contest where the lucky winner would have a night on the town with...Andy Gibb.
My how times have changed !!
Berry, Hemphill, Plato and Gibb are now all dead, Chasity is now a man. Ralph Carter has since more/less disappeared while Leif Garrett and Gary Coleman..well we all know about them. Alecia Bridges I believe still sings though only to tiny audiences at small pubs in the UK. Funny I didn't think Alecia was that big of a star back then.
I can remember when Diff'rent Strokes first appeared on TV and those NBC promos with Gary Coleman "If milk is so good to you..why do we live longer than cows?"..even back then I can recall hearing many of people saying that Gary would have "problems" in his adult years. They were right about that.
"Ain't Bee" also had a supporting role in the 1954-1956 sitcom
It's A Great Life (NBC Tue 10:30/9:30, Sun 7/6).
It's A Great Life (NBC Tue 10:30/9:30, Sun 7/6).
But most of the television shows from the '50's, '60's and early '70's, didn't include residual payments from syndication in the contracts of the stars, mainly because they didn't realize at the time that we would still watching Television shows that were 40, 50 ro even close to 60 years old in 2010. I have heard several members of Gilligan's Island (Bob Denver, Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells) state numerous time that they didn't/don't recieve residual payments from Gilligan's Island because they weren't included in their contract simply because they didn't think that Gillaigan's Island would still be shown 30 years later. It's only been TV shows from the mid '70's on that included residual payments in the contract.Mark_Giardina said:
jwk1979 said:
I believe the only exception was Desilu. In their case, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball paid their employees in Desilu stock as well as a salary. I am not sure if this continued once Lucy had sold the studio to Paramount ( I believe ) in 1967 but many of those who worked with Lucy & Desi did pretty well. William Frawley I believe was quite well to do at the time of his death in 1966 ( he had enough money to support his two older brothers well into the 1970's ) and Vivian Vance had owned several homes and had millions in her checking account at the time of her death in 1979. They did OK.
...as well, I believe the regular cast of The Untouchables were paid in part with Desilu stock...
Why did she go back there? Was she from that area? If I remember correctly, the press release announcing her death mentioned she did have contact with the makeup man from the show, Lee Greenway. Here is one of my favorite episodes, where Bee gets snookered!Corky Marlowe said:
The Griffith show seldome used "dated" lines, but the "Matt Dillion" line is priceless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-TiKb8b6o8
A current example: Kate Gosselin. :
She's been on TV all this week whining about how "tough" her life is. While at the same time, various interviewers have pointed out to her that she "sold" her own privacy when Jon and Kate went on TV. She now claims that even if she were to quit "working," the paparazzi would continue to follow her around, so she might as well continue to get paid for all the "hassles" that she is suffering. What she doesn't realize is that if she were to step out of the spotlight (yeah, right), the paparazzi would soon lose interest in her and go on to someone else. :
She's been on TV all this week whining about how "tough" her life is. While at the same time, various interviewers have pointed out to her that she "sold" her own privacy when Jon and Kate went on TV. She now claims that even if she were to quit "working," the paparazzi would continue to follow her around, so she might as well continue to get paid for all the "hassles" that she is suffering. What she doesn't realize is that if she were to step out of the spotlight (yeah, right), the paparazzi would soon lose interest in her and go on to someone else. :John-Summers said:
I wonder if Don Fedderson was doing the same thing in the '50s with Marvin Miller on "The Millionaire," so that Miller would be free
to accept voiceover parts like Robby the Robot in "Forbidden Planet." BTW, Miller was somewhat ambivalent about his role as dispenser
of million-dollar checks; he could get pretty annoyed when people who thought John Beresford Tipton was real would hound him for money.
I've mentioned two such examples: a woman who somehow found Miller's house, rang his doorbell, and when he answered and she told him what she wanted, she got the door slammed in her face after Miller told her he didn't have a million dollars and wouldn't give it to her if he did; the other, a Midwestern farm couple who refused to accept one of Miller's "checks" for "a million dollars' worth of good luck." On their third attempt to get a million dollars out of him, he tossed the unopened letter into the trash. That was the last he heard from them.
firepoint525 said:A current example: Kate Gosselin. :
Kate Gosselin sort of reminds me of actress Lisa Kudrow and Jason Lee "My Name is Earl ". Despite making millions from doing NBC's Friends, I can remember a number of yearsago ( around the time she teamed up with Jim Carrey for that Dick & Jane movie ) when the USA Today had reported that Kudrow was very anti-TV, didn't allow her kids to watch and even made fun of the people who week after week tuned in to see her on TV. "..if people want to waste their damn lives watching Friends, just goes to show you just how many people out there have no life..."
A few years ago some of the taboilds such as In Touch and People did story on My Name is Earl only to get the line "TV sucks" from Lee and how he was "bored" with his fans as he would rather be skateboarding. .
Of course both Kudrow & Lee would later on claim that their "feelings" about TV and their fans were taken out of context.
mleach said:
Here is another example of biting the hand that feeds you.
Before 'Friends' and 'My Name is Earl', nobody ever heard of Kudrow or Lee. Now they put down people (viewers) who made them wealthy along with the TV and motion picture industry.
Isn't it ironic that a fly farting makes more noise than both Kudrow and Lee's latest career ventures?
KyDXIn said:
Frances Bavier was actually a native New Yorker who had made some friends from Siler City while taking the rice-diet treatment at Duke University. They persuaded her to move there and, as show writer Everett Greenbaum recalled in "The Box," after about six months the townsfolk wished she'd leave.
BTW, I know the woman who directed Ron Howard to Ms. Bavier's house, and I understand he was very rudely treated...turned away, in fact. And I don't think Andy even bothered to attend her funeral, even though he was filming "Matlock" about 150 miles away in Wilmington.
One other note about "dated" lines; I caught one last night on TVLand; the episode about the kid who's accused of robbing Wally's filling station but actually helps catch the real thieves. Early on, Barney has--incompetently, of course--installed an intercom system that's supposed to allow him and Andy to overhear what the prisoners are saying when they whisper. When Andy turns off the main switch on his way out he says, "This is Mercury Control, over and out." You'd have to have been alive in the early '60s to catch that allusion to the Mercury space program.
Mark_Giardina said:
My line of work gives me the opportunity to actually meet some of these “celebrities.”
A few of them are very polite and courteous. Unfortunately the majority are arrogant individuals who think the public should kiss their rings because they appear on TV or in the movies.
Over the years I've kept a list of people I have categorized as A-Holes and Good People. The A-Hole list is twice as large as the other category.
I admit that I get some pleasure seeing the career demise of some of these A-holes. And what is even more amusing is suddenly, especially when the public tires of these actors, how they change their attitude from being arrogant to nice.
Mark_Giardina said:
Maybe so but when it comes to the phrase "biting the hand that feeds you", one really can't top Madonna in that department. Can't swear to it since I wasn't there but I had several friends who caught her concert in Denver last year. From what they told me, some of the things Madonna had talked about on stage, makes me wonder.
Madonna on TV : ".....ALL of television is poison and I wish all of the TV stations, networks and employees would blow the hell up !!"
Madonna on radio: "..hey Mr. DJ..thats right YOU a-hole and to all of the other radio DJs across the country..all of you can kiss my ass.. !!"
Madonna on Dick Clark..the man who gave Madonna her first nationwide TV appearance in 1983: " f***ing a-hole".
Now where would Madonna be at today had it not been for TV, those radio djs and of course Dick Clark? My friends thought she was joking but after reading stuff in the press about Madonna in the past I am not so sure.
Speaking of Jason Lee...he's starring in a new TNT series premiering this summer. I don't remember the name of the series, but I saw the promo for it during one of their basketball telecasts last night. He must not be "anti-TV" enough (and I've heard the same story) to take the money to do another TV role. By the way, my son and I seen the new Alvin & The Chipmunk sequel a few months ago, and it was utterly boring (nothing but cliches and catchphrases). However, Lee (in the 90-plus minutes of run time) was maybe on-screen probably twenty minutes total.
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