I never watched the show but it seemed that once Lisa Bonet left A Different World the show got better and she got worse- except the part for being married to Lenny Kravitz.
He starred in a series of rather average Disney “meet cute” types of movies in the mid-90’s, then his career kind of stalled. He then made his directorial debut last year with P.S. You Cat is Dead which was so critically panned and such a box office disaster that his career is now most definitely over.
Jennifer Lien. And I thought of another Trek example: Terry Farrell, who played Jadzia Dax. She left DS9 to be on Becker, of all things.
Just thought of another one:
Ken Wahl left “Wise Guy” and then made the movie - “The Taking Of Beverly Hills”
Becker was a reasonably successful sitcom, as it lasted from 1998-2004, so 6 seasons I assume. According to the imdb Terry Farrell was only on the show for the first four years; I don’t watch it so I don’t know what the deal was there, if she left that show too, or if she was fired. Still, DS9 lasted what, one more season after she left? So leaving for Becker kept her employed for longer than staying with DS9 would have.
Keith Larsen left “The Aquanauts” in the middle of the season for a movie career. I bet you’ve never even heard of him.
Or “The Aquanauts” aka “Malibu Run,” for that matter.
Terry Farrell was fired, for some unknown reason. She was much better than the girl who replaced her.
AFAIR, it was mutual, because according to unnamed sources, she was a total bitch. At least, that’s the impression I got from my reading at the time.
RealityChuck
Wow someone remembers the “Aquanauts” later renamed “Malibu Run” to give it a “hip” name. I sure as heck forgot all about Keith Larsen but I do remember Jeremy Slate being on that show. Maybe staying on that show helped him because it seems he has worked steadily (in minor supporting roles) on television and has had some success in movies “Born Losers” and “Lawnmower Man”.
Jeff Conway had a good supporting role on Babylon 5, post Taxi. I never even saw the latter, I knew and liked him from B5.
I’m giving credit to Vanna White of all people for showing some intelligence. There was a time a few years back when she appeared to be on the verge of being a superstar. Movies, record deals, hit television series. Then it turned out she had no discernable talent. But she had made one smart decision; throughout her brush with fame, she never quit her day job on Wheel of Fortune.
Jeff Conaway left “Taxi” in 1981. He joined the cast of “Babylon 5” in 1995. Hmmm another 14 year gap. (See Pernell Roberts) Maybe this is some unwritten rule of television ?
I got an example of a bad career decision going the other way.
Anthony Michael Hall had a a pretty good movie career going (Sixteen Candles, Weird Science) then he joined SNL on one of the really bad years and his career fizzled out. (Although he did show up in Edward Scissorhands)
In interviews during the run of Trapper John, Pernell Roberts definitely regarded his departure from Bonanza as a mistake. He left because he felt the script quality had gone downhill, plus he was extremely active in liberal politics in his private life and wanted some bizarre changes to the series (among other things he wanted Adam to marry a Native American character played by an African American actress- I wish I had a cite for that but I read it in a book on the series). Lorne Greene, Dan Blocker and Michael Landon all counselled him about going away, Greene making a comment to the effect of “I wouldn’t wipe my ass with most of these scripts, but for $45,000 per episode I’m not going anywhere”.
It was a very long decade and a half of episodic guest appearances, dinner theater and occasional low budget movie roles before he hooked onto TJ, which he stayed with til the end. (His life has been hell in recent years due to the death of his only child and health problems, but he’s still alive and at least doesn’t have to add poverty to the rest.)
Regarding Jeff Conaway- does anybody have a clue what he (or Eddie Mekka for that matter) was doing in the ‘Child Stars’ video at the end of Dickie Roberts? (Dickie Roberts movie: D- Child Stars video- A-) He was far from a child when he played Kenicky and in his 30s on Taxi. (Also a major cokehead, at least during his Taxi days.)
My pics:
Amanda Blake from Gunsmoke- her decision to sit out the last season cost her a fortune in residuals and salary due to an odd contract. She contracted AIDS from her bisexual third husband and lost most of her money in a private zoo business that flopped. She wasn’t indigent as in Ed Wood or Singing Nun, but when she died she was living in a middle class apartment and was saved from total financial ruin only by some well timed Gunsmoke reunion movies.
Esther Rolle from Good Times- she was a middle-aged not-particularly-attractive black woman of only okay comic timing, so when she got a starring role on a hit comedy series (a spin-off of Maude that was actually far more popular than its parent) it was almost the equivalent of winning the lottery twice by way of beating the odds. Nevertheless she left the show due to the departure of John Amos (she didn’t want to reinforce the stereotype of fatherless black families) and the shiftiness of JJ’s character (she felt he was a latter day Stepin Fetchit). The show flopped without her, her career went nowhere fast and her money ran fairly quickly as well. She returned to the show but by then it only had one more season of life left in it. She had a modestly successful career for the rest of her life, but nothing to compare with the mid 70s. (John Amos [who, like Sherman Hemsley, was 20 years younger than his TV wife] also had peaks and valleys in his solo career, but he’s been in enough recurring roles on hit-series and had enough really great post GT roles (the middle-aged Kunta Kinte, Cleo McDowell in Coming to America, etc.) that he never really nosedived.
Bloodworth/Thomasson- I’m using the producers rather than the star. Their high-profile writing out of Delta Burke caused Jean Smart to leave the show as well, which meant the two most talented and comedically gifted cast members from a show that owed most of its best moments to either Suzanne or Charlene became really mediocre really fast. The way underemployed Jan Hooks was decent, but Julia Duffy never helped any show she was on and Judith Ivey was too little too late to save a show that quickly devolved into "let’s see how many liberal screeds the once sassy but increasingly unlikeable Julia can go into while Anthony does nothing in particular and Alice Ghostley does what she can by singing 'Black Man! Black Man! " schlock. When they later made peace with Delta Burke and brought Suzanne back in her own series it was one of the worst spinoffs this side of Checkin’ In, with Suzanne suddenly having an adopted daughter, a seat in Congress, and a retarded brother never-before mentioned- they all should have known it wouldn’t work.
Burt Reynolds has had some “interesting” career decisions: he turned down the lead in Die Hard in favor of Rent-a-Cop (though in all fairness Die Hard probably would have flopped also if hed’ starred in it), turned down the role of Rosemary’s husband in Rosemary’s Baby for the long forgotten Sam Whiskey, and tried his best to get out of his contractual obligation for Boogie Nights which turned out to be his only critically applauded role in well over a decade.
Mickey Rooney turned down the role of Archie Bunker (at least according to Mickey Rooney). Robert DeNiro auditioned for Mike Stivic but was never cast, though Rob Reiner’s real-life first wife Penny Marshall was strongly considered for Gloria.
Jerry Van Dyke turned down the lead in Gilligan’s Island to do the series My Mother the Car, though whether that was a mistake is debatable since certainly the castaways never did much else.
Ed Asner turned down the role of Coach on Cheers (though for good reasons- he had just finished playing Lou Grant in two series after 12 years and wanted a break, plus they didn’t want to pay anywhere near his salary demands [which after two long-running series were understandably high]). He’s had very few memorable projects in the past 20 years for somebody who works as much as he has.
Rod Steiger turned down lots of great roles in the 70s including Patton and Popeye Doyle.
George Segal turned down the lead in 10 after signing the contract, the same role making Dudley Moore an international star. When Moore’s inability to memorize his lines on the set of Mirror Has Two Faces led Streisand to think he was drinking or doing drugs he was fired and replaced with George Segal.
While he didn’t turn down the role, Bud Cort made a really bad career decision when he signed to do Harold & Maude. H&M was low budget with an unknown director- what budget he did have went to Ruth Gordon, who was very hot off of her Oscar win in Rosemary’s Baby. Higgins really wanted Cort for the role but Brewster McLoud had made his salary go up, so he offered him a small salary (something like $25,000) and a percentage of the movie. Cort told him he couldn’t work for less than (I want to say $100,000- I believe that’s the figure I’ve read), so ultimately Higgins was able to get some extra money to secure Cort but retracted the points he’d offered him in the movie. Had Cort taken the 25K + % he would have earned million more over the past 30 years.
(Harold & Maude trivia: Ellen Geer [daughter of the bisexual folksinging Communist and horticulturalist Will “Grandpa Walton” Geer], who played Sunshine Dorè [Harold’s last computer date- the actress] in the film, has played the role of Maude in a travelling stage production and at her father’s outdoor theater [Theatricum Botanicum] in northern California.)
And is now the star of The Dead Zone, one of the few new genre shows to be renewed.
ftg - Rob Lowe quit The West Wing because he wanted the same pay as Martin Sheen and they wouldn’t give it to him.
I can’t believe I’m the first to post this, at least not around here – Claudia Christianson’s (Ivanova) decision to leave Babylon 5. Has she done anything since? I caught her in an episode of Murder, She Wrote while visiting my parents once, but I’ve no idea when it was originally shown.
CJ
George Clooney not only left ER, but also Facts of Life and Roseanne.. He must hold a record for leaving hit shows.
Molly Ringwald turned down the role played by Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
While he was never exactly a household name, Michael Stoyanov left his role as the title character’s recovering addict brother in Blossom to be a writer on Conan O’Brien’s show for a much lower salary. He lost that job soon after and said he never should have left the show due to the financial independence it would have afforded. (On the other hand Joey Lawrence stayed with the show and isn’t exactly the new Douglas Fairbanks.)
Harvey Korman left the Carol Burnett Show, which everyone remembers, to star in The Harvey Korman Show, which nobody remembers. He was good as part of an ensemble but couldn’t carry a show to save his life.
Don Knotts left The Andy Griffith Show at the height of its success and was never really as big a star again (though he continued to work in minor films and most of his money actually came from Three’s Company due to residuals and higher salary scales). Andy Griffith himself has expressed regret over leaving the show- he was offered an ungodly contract for another season but felt he’d done all he could with it (which he had) and he wanted to have a movie career (which never took off).
Of course there are too many soap opera actors who left only to fall fast and hard to list; I’ll mention Tony Geary as one of the many who left with a flash and crawled back with a whimper.
She’s been busy in minor stuff. Her most significant work since leaving B5 was VO for Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
However, Claudia Christian doesn’t deserve to be on this list as she left B5 for the possibility of a lead role in her own series. She was shortlisted for the “female immortal” spinoff from Highlander, and she had to confirm she was available by a set date to be in with a chance. Because of the switch from WB to TNT and the general dicking around at the end of S4, she didn’t know if B5 was going to get a fifth year when she had to decide what she was going to do.