Plus Hugh Grant played him in Music and Lyrics.
Sorry. Your pie is in the mail.
How could I forget Beyonce’ and Justin Timberlake? Though both Destiny’s Child and N’Sync were enormously successful, Only those two, respectively, went on to stellar solo careers.
And speaking of Justins, Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini had diverging career paths after American Idol.
Batman and Robin?
Agreed. Fry isn’t exactly unknown in the USA.
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So he discovered Peter Cushing and Alec Guinness?
Agreed. Although I never cared a bit for or about either of them.
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Announcer: And now, Avis Rent-A-Car is proud to present the second best band in America. Will you welcome Garfunkel, Messina, Oates, and Lisa singing their number two hit, “Born to Runner-up”.
[Audience boos]
Lisa: Why would they come to our concert just to boo us?
Well…she was known for “Last Picture Show” and got some publicity for “Taxi Driver” although DeNiro got more. But in the mid80s Joan Rivers had a joke on how her career was in such shambles because of movies like “All My Loving” that she went home to Memphis and married an auto parts dealer. Then “Moonlighting” came along.
There is also the shared monarchy of Bleda and his brother Attila the Hun which lasted for 11 years until Bleda died, circumstances unknown.
Hmmm… I’d rather have Harold Ramis’s career than John Candy’s. Also, you’re setting your parameters to exclude Martin Short and Betty Thomas, both of whom matched or exceeded Candy’s career in many respects.
Isn’t 2 & A Half Men the most highly rated current sitcom?
Mork and Mindy.
Robin Williams and “her-never-to-be-seen-again”. He certainly rocketed up the fame ladder. Her, not so much.
If I can sully the conversation with pro wrestling, The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannety) instantly come to mind. They were marginally successful in the 80’s. Then the infamous interview where they broke up.
Shawn then went on to capture every title in the company, brought the ladder match and ironman match into the American market, created one of the most popular factions in wrestling history (Degeneration X), and is widely regarded as among the very best performers in wrestling history
Marty got kicked through a window.
Interesting theory and one I hadn’t thought of before. However, ALW has definitely written more hit shows than Tim Rice and with different lyrcists too (Trevor Nunn, Don Black, Charles Hart & T.S. Eliot).
Marty had a bunch of problems outside of the ring, including some (according to rumor) that would have reflected poorly on the WWF and that they wanted to avoid. If you think about wrestlers and their habits, and then think that they wanted to disassociate themselves of one of them for conduct reasons back at that time, you get an idea of how bad the rumors were (he did also have issues with being clear minded for TV, too).
Has anybody mentioned “the other Square Pegs girl” yet? The one that so-starred with Sarah Jessica Parker?
In fact, I recall someone started a CS thread a while back asking whatever happened to her, and somebody quipped that she most likely spends her days shredding pictures of SJP and shrieking “It should have been me! IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!” (Why I remember that, I don’t know.)
And Stephanie Zimbalist isn’t exactly at the level of fame of Pierce Brosnan either.
Sure, there were reasons for Marty to be dropped, and in addition to his personal life there was a significant talent differential. And I was happy to see Marty get a little bit of a return with the New Rockers, tagging with Al Snow, a number of years later.
I never heard much of details about the rumors around Marty, but compared to some of the stories about Macho Man and Superfly Snuka, I wonder if he’s in their ballpark.
How about the surviving members of Nirvana? Before Cobain biffed it, I’d have said Krist Novoselic was the second most recognizable member of the band. You might even argue that post-Nirvana, Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters are more famous (certainly commercially, by dint of being around longer). No idea what Novoselic is doing. I thought he was in a band with a 12 year old for a while.
And then there’s the people who left bands before they hit big: Rod Evans and Nick Simper of Deep Purple, Paul D’Anno and Dennis Stratton of Iron Maiden, the original singer in Journey, etc.
Of course, they may not have hit big if they hadn’t changed personnel.