Didn’t Paula Poundstone serve as Jay Leno’s “political reporter” during the 2000 presidential campaign? It still seems utterly preposterous that it was perfectly legitimate for the SFPD to announce what crimes she was charged with, but “privacy concerns” for the children left them unable to explain the reason for the charges, leaving everyone months to tar her with the label of child molestor.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned O.J. Simpson yet.
Uh, the OP did. 'course he also mentioned Micheal jackson and someone listed him, with details.
Oops, skipped over that. Sorry.
I agree they were never alike. Bloom County and Outland were funny.
He didn’t perchance inspire that crap-fest movie COOL WORLD, did he?
I had heard that he lost his artistic drive after prison. Did the scandal itself distroy his reputation and kill his career? Wasn’t he pretty much known to be homosexual long before the trial and accepted by society as such?
In their “Swipe File” feature, The Comics Journal ran a Doonesbury strip and a Bloom County strip side-by-side, a strip with Mike/Milo engaging in a conversation with his/their bathroom mirror and getting dissed about his/their acne in the final panel. Both strips were in their infancy when the panels were originally published, but the Doonesbury one was about ten years earlier. Homage or swipe?
I refer you to the bottom entry of the Doonesbury FAQ page “Out There” section:
Feel free to disagree with me, but this view didn’t originate with me and I’m far from the only one to hold it.
As for Breathed’s Pulitzer, the cartoonist himself speculated (in a speech to assembled editorial cartoonists) that the prize had less to do with the quality of his editorial vision than with the general sameness of all the op-ed cartoons that year. I’d link to the speech, but I can’t find it archived anywhere. The “scandal” part comes in because he nominated himself and won for a category that most other cartoonists believed he didn’t qualify for.
There was a world of difference between “known to be homosexual” and "confronted by deviant sexuality in an extraordinarily public way in a Society That Does Not Speak Of Such Things. Wilde wasn’t particularly public about his sexuality anyway. He was a dandy and an aesthete, certainly, but he was also married and had two children. The first Wilde trial was initiated by Wilde, when he sued Queensbury for libel after Queensbury (Lord Douglas’s father) left a card accusing Wilde of “posing as a Somdomite [sic].” His closest advisors begged Wilde not to press the charge but Douglas prevailed upon him as part of his ongoing grudge with his father. Wilde withdrew the suit after Queensbury made it known to Wilde that he had a parade of “rent boys” ready to testify to the sex acts Wilde performed with them (truth being an absolute defense). Queensbury then turned the material over the the Crown, which used it to initiate the criminal trials against Wilde.
Another spectacular flameout was Michael Barrymore, a light entertainment kingpin in the UK who hosted several popular family television shows. He weathered numerous storms including admissions of drug abuse and homosexuality but the final nail in the coffin was when a man was found floating face-down in his pool with what were described as “anal injuries caused by a firm object”. Barrymore escaped prosecution, but his career didn’t; I believe he is currently cooling his heels in New Zealand.
Huh? Sure, Keanu has had some rumors of fluid sexuality since appearing in My Own Private Idaho, but he’s had longterm relationships with women. I think he’s gotten married recently, in fact. He wasn’t exactly cursed with failure in the years between Speed (1994) and The Matrix (1999) either. He made several movies, at least two of which were modest successes – A Walk in the Clouds and The Devil’s Advocate.
Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet, was accused of molesting some boys several years ago. I believe there was an out of court settlement, but he never returned to his TV show after that. He had a history of heart problems and died recently. A very sad case, and I don’t think it was ever determined whether the allegations had any basis in fact.
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned Trent Lott and his interpreted enthusiasism for some of that “old-time segregation.”
While still a senator, I would imagine that since resigning as Speaker of the House his days as a senatorial force are numbered.
Not to defend his self-nomination or swiping, but he does have a point here. And, well, they can’t keep giving the Pulitzer to the same three guys.
Actually, that would be Senate Majority Leader. Speaker of the House is in the House of Representatives.
Patty Duke hasn’t worked much since the revelation that her son Sean Astin was fathered by Michael Tell, with whom she had a month long relationship and an eleven day marriage. She insists to this day that the relationship was never consummated, and the DNA testing is wrong. Since at the time she was suffering with severe mental illness and in a quandry over whether the father was teen ager Desi Arnez Jr. or married John Astin (who later adopted Sean), she could have just said “I don’t remember sleeping with Michael Tell.” But she still denies it.
Miss American Vanessa Williams did manage to reemerge on Broadway several years after resigning over the Hustler lesbian photographs.
How much was she working prior to that? I think it’s pretty well accepted that she’s nuts (er, bipolar), and I can’t imagine anyone other than the gentlemen involved – and, oh, her son – caring all that much.
She’s a fine actress, but she’s reached “a certain age,” and I suspect that has more to do with her working less, rather than any scandal.
According to her IMDB bio, the photos ran in the same issue of Penthouse (not Hustler) as Traci Lords’s centerfold, and since Ms. Lords was underaged at the time it is illegal to own the magazine unless the centerfold has been destroyed. Just some random trivia.
Funnily enough, Vanessa Williams seems to be the only former Miss America who went on to become a real celebrity. Aside from her stage work she’s had a fairly successful recording career (“Save the Best for Last” hit #1) and been in quite a few movies. I don’t think I can even remember the names of any other Miss Americas past.
Bess Myerson (who of course had her own shoplifting scandal a couple of decades later). And, uh, Mary Ann Mobley.
twicks, lifelong (“whaddya mean, they’re not going to do the talent segment any more?”) Miss America fan
:smack:
Actually, Ol’Gaffer is a dumbkopf.