I would submit Bob Dylan as an actor. His debut as Alias in “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” landed with a thud. Not to mention 1987’s “Heart of Fire”. Do yourself a favor and leave the past alone. Sheesh.
I think there are tell-tale signs about some people even in their medium.
I bring this up because of the OP’s mention of Dan Savage.
I used to read his columns regularly. But then I noticed certain weirdness that got worse and worse. E.g., he actually argued that gay people should be allowed to have sex in public bathrooms. Any store, airport, whatever. Um, dude. Nope. If the owner doesn’t want you to do that there: their toilet, their rules. Other stuff like that.
Not just his positions, but the lack of reasoning he gives for them.
So I stopped reading. If you reason out things a bit different from him, it’s all bad.
Very few celebs can create a real double life. Alice Cooper, for example, is one of the few. But I don’t have any real reason to declare him a non-genius in any other area (leaving general political views to the area of personal choice).
But mostly, what you see is what you get and if find something else they do weird, you might not have been looking at them right.
Several posts above mention that many stars from the silents didn’t make it well in the talkies.
Similarly, a lot of stars from radio days never got traction in film or TV. I’m too young to remember any of that; but my father occasionally mentioned Milton Berle as an example.
You’re saying the man dubbed “Mr Television” never got traction in television? :dubious:
Do you have a cite for the bathroom sex thing?
Dick Cavett was a brilliant talk show host, the wittiest and most erudite of his era. Some of us who remember those times think he’s the best interviewer of celebrities and important cultural figures ever to grace a TV screen.
Unfortunately, as he states in his autobiography, he always yearned to be an actor. He gave acting a try and was just awful. Cast as a sherif in one episode of the TV comedy Western Alias Smith and Jones, he turned in a performance that was toe-curlingly bad. So bad that I still wince when I remember it 40-plus years later. His other subsequent performances, such as when he played a dinner guest in Beetlejuice, weren’t much better.
It occurs to me that the SDMB is the kind of place where Dick Cavett might hang out, so if you are here, Dick, and if you see this post, I apologize if I’ve bruised your feelings. If it helps, I am still a huge fan of your talk show. The Groucho interview! Best TV ever!
Amen.