the list of 9 for april 10, 2009:
NINE "ENGINEERED" MOVIE STARS WHO NEVER ROSE
Movie stars are commodities, bought by producers and sold to audiences. Like all commodities, theyare investments. And like all investments, studios love it when they can buy low and sell high.Thus, for every actor who found stardom only after years of auditions and thankless roles (JimCarrey, Sandra Bullock, etc.), there is a fresh young face that comes out of nowhere with astarring role in a studio picture. Just a lucky break? Not always. In many cases, their suddenomnipresence is the result of calculated maneuvers between their agents, managers and publicists,in cahoots with the casting directors, producers and media moguls who owe them favors. These youngactors and actresses are literally being forced upon us by an industry hungry to manufacture newstars as the older ones get, well, older (and more expensive). Sometimes it works. But below arenine "bad investments".
- Jean Seberg. The tragic Seberg is the patron saint ofmanufactured stars who didn't live up to their hype. In 1956, director Otto Preminger embarkedupon a much-publicized nationwide search to find a brand new face to portray Joan of Arc in hisscreen adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. Out of 18,000 contenders, he choseSeberg, a pretty but nervous Iowa teenager. He chose wrong. Seberg floundered in the role, andalthough Preminger cast her again in his next film, Bonjour Tristesse, her only realvictory was when a young Frenchman named Jean-Luc Godard cast her in his feature debutBreathless. Then came two decades of studio programmers (Airport, Paint Your Wagon)and crummy Eurotrash fare made by her abusive husband Romain Gary. Depression, FBI persecution forher political beliefs and the death of a child drove Seberg mad, and she committed suicide at theage of 40.
- Pia Zadora. Zadora is a classic case of show bizSvengalism, the likes of which we don't see much anymore (meaning it may still exist, but it is abetter-kept secret). Raised in New Jersey, Zadora worked as a child star and model, then marriedbillionaire businessman Meshulam Riklis. Rumors persist that it was Riklis who put her in themovies, with Zadora starring in the sleazy flops The Lonely Lady and Butterfly yetstill outrageously winning the Golden Globe Award for "Best New Star" of 1982, an award allegedlybought by Riklis. Audiences never bought her as a star, and so Zadora remained only tabloid fodder before sinking into obscurity.
- Ben Affleck. Why save this guy for last? Affleck hadworked hard for many years in indie films. On the surface, the fame he found with his buddy MattDamon with their Oscar-winning script for Good Will Hunting was well-earned. Or was it?It's still debated whether the script for that film was truly written by the two actors (who,notably, never wrote anything since) or was heavily rewritten by William Goldman or director GusVan Sant. In any event, Affleck, an actor of clearly limited ability, was only a supportingplayer. He would have remained so were it not for the commercial success of the critically reviledensemble disaster flick Armageddon, which made studios mistakenly believe that the stiffAffleck was an A-list idol. Affleck's next dozen starring roles are a litany of stinkers. Aftersaving some face with his directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, he has returned to acting,although back in supporting roles where he can't do much harm.
- Theresa Russell. Even Wikipedia doesn't have much to sayabout Russell, except that she was a model before being thrust into a starring role opposite noneother than Robert DeNiro in her first film, 1976's The Last Tycoon. Although itflopped, she was still cast opposite Dustin Hoffman in Straight Time before spending the'80s rarely working apart from her director husband, Nicolas Roeg. Her one hit as a leading ladywas the 1987 film noir Black Widow, opposite the genuinely talented Debra Winger, butsubsequent starring roles came to naught.
- Piper Perabo. This young actress was chosen, almost JeanSeberg-style, by uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer to star in his lumbering chick flick CoyoteUgly. Before that film was even released, she was somehow considered a hot commodity amongstproducers and was also cast opposite Robert DeNiro (another one!) in the embarrassing Rocky &Bullwinkle. Hollywood quickly saw that audiences did not warm to her, and so Peraboescaped to the refuges of low-budget indies and a supporting role in the blandCheaper By the Dozen movies. Although upstaged by a CGI dog voiced by Drew Barrymore, herpresence in the surprise hit Beverly Hills Chihuahua may mean Perabo's studio career hassome legs yet - though likely only in the inevitable Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2.
- Skeet Ulrich. The reason I list Skeet Ulrich here, asopposed to other never-wases like Devon Sawa or James Van Der Beek, is because in 1997, when I wasshooting my movie Foreign Correspondents, one of the film's stars, Wil Wheaton, wascomplaining about how every role he went out for was instead offered to Skeet Ulrich. Also,because "Skeet Ulrich" is a ridiculous name. Given a plum role in the breakout hit Scream,the actor fizzled in starring roles in duds like The Newton Boys, Touch and Ride Withthe Devil. He made the usual retreat to straight to video along with other non-starters likeNatasha Henstridge, Kristy Swanson and Radha Mitchell. His more recent foray in TV, "Jericho," didhim slightly better, but it was too little, too late.
- Norm MacDonald. There are three kinds of "Saturday NightLive" stars: those who become superfamous (Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler), those who are neverhousehold names (Gary Kroeger, Laraine Newman), and those who seem to have the potential forstardom, but almost immediately crash and burn (Chris Kattan, Victoria Jackson). MacDonald, leaderof the third group, had a huge following on SNL, but he left the show to star in his firstvehicle, Dirty Work, which was a total dog at the box office. Still, he was forced upon themasses in "The Norm Show" for three seasons, but after two more dead-in-the-water sitcoms, todayhe mostly does voiceover work.
- Julia Ormond. Proving that aborted star experiments arenot just limited to American talent, let's have a look at UK-born Ormond, who followed a few TVroles in the UK by suddenly starring in a trio of big-budget Hollywood movies in 1994-95:Legends of the Fall, First Knight, Sabrina. What happened? Well, Sabrina wentnowhere, and Hollywood decided that Ormond was not going to be the next Audrey Hepburn. One morestarring role in the high-profile 1997 Euro film Smilla's Sense of Snow also was a miss.Ormond has since been only briefly glimpsed in the tiniest of supporting parts.
- Emile Hirsch. It may be too harsh (or harsch) to already write offthis young actor's career as a leading man; after all, he's only 24. But he was given the two bigtests of stardom - a leading role in an Oscar-bait film (Into the Wild) and a leading rolein a mega-budget special effects blockbuster (Speed Racer) - and he failed both tests;the first film not landing him an Oscar nod and the second bombing big time. He recovered, as partof the glowing ensemble of Milk, but he may never be perceived as an A-list star (a.k.a. awise investment) again. Newly minted personalities such as Isla Fisher and Chris Pine - and theirhandlers - are surely watching Hirsch's career trajectory closely.
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