So this was an example of a poster getting out of their lane…
James Dean.
Norman Mailer was a successful novelist who directed four films, all of which were critically savaged. The highest rated one on the IMDB is at 4.9.
It did result in one of the great quotes from a legal deposition. Dennis Hopper sued Rip Torn, saying Torn attacked him when he was replaced in Easy Rider by Jack Nicholson. Torn said in the deposition that “he could not have possibly killed Hopper as he was, at the time, on the set of Maidstone trying to kill Norman Mailer.”
On the other hand, Anton Yelchin stayed in his lane.
Jan of ‘Jan & Dean’.
Won’t come back from Dead Man’s Curve
You wouldn’t happen to have a cite for that?
There are some barristers I would like to share it with…
The primary cause of failure is the world doesn’t need two professional football leagues.
Does no one remember when Michael Jordan tried to become the Bo Jackson of basketball? (unlike Jackson who was an All-Star in both baseball and football, Jordan’s second career in baseball was less than spectacular.)
I think that’s a joke (possibly a joke that Torn was making) - he did get into a big fight with Mailer on the set of Maidstone, but Torn never denied fighting with Hopper, either. Torn sued Hopper because Hopper claimed that Torn had come at Hopper with a knife - but in fact, Hopper had come at Torn with a knife.
And as far as I can tell, Easy Rider and Maidstone were made at different times.
Jordan was mentioned a few posts ago.
While it was nowhere in the same stratosphere as Bo Jackson’s accomplishments, it was still pretty impressive, IMHO. He had been out of playing any baseball for how many years by then? At least a decade? Did he play any post-high school baseball? Even though he barely hit above .200 in the minors with three homers, that he could even keep up at professional (albeit minor league) level is quite an accomplishment and a testament to his athleticism. No, he’s no Bo, but I find it still impressive.
Isn’t Bill Murray and The Razor’s Edge the standard for this topic?
Well, if Murray contributed to the early-90’s AC/DC album, he did OK for himself.
I still prefer the film to the book, despite Murray’s lumpen performance in it.
Roger Ebert was arguably the best known film critic ever but his attempts at writing his own screenplays are poorly regarded.
The film was a failure, but Murray still went on to reasonable success in non-comedic roles, so I’d say it probably doesn’t count.
Steve Martin’s Pennies from Heaven is probably a closer fit, since I don’t believe Martin ever attempted another musical after that.
He left the NFL due to injuries after just 2 years, earning many millions in that short time. He has had something of career, no blockbuster hits but he didn’t fail either. He’s somewhere in that middle zone and a moderate success compared to Howie and many others mentioned in the thread.
The Wikipedia cite is: * Mailer, Michael (2011). “Overexposed: My First Taste of Film-Making”. The Mailer Review . 5 : 167–169.
To be fair, all the songs in that were lip-synced anyway.
And Martin (who got a Golden Globe nomination for “Pennies From Heaven”) has had a decent musical career playing his banjo (including winning a Grammy) and has written a musical (nominated for multiple Tonys). So while the film was a box office flop, he still seems to have done pretty well in that lane.
Oh, yeah, good point about the banjo career - I’d forgotten about that.
I just checked - actually he’s won three Grammys for music, following his two for comedy.