Hell, yes I watched Celebrity Boot Camp last night. I thought it was a riot. And when Coolio won, well, it was more moving than when he won Celebrity Fear Factor.
Then it occurs to me: in the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen quite a bit of Coolio as a “guest star” on re-runs of V.I.P., Charmed, and Sabrina: the Teen-Age Witch (yes, I watch mostly brain-dead TV; but I likes it!) And he’s not alone–in the above-cited thread, Barry Williams is quite a standout.
I think we are seeing a rise in a not-so-new, but growing, class of “celebrity”: the professional guest star. Actors and Musicians who may or may not have once been big names in their respective fields of celebrity, but now pretty much just play guest roles on TV shows and the requisite “Celebrity” editions of game shows (including Reality TV). Indeed, not only are “true” starts of TV and movies no longer seen as “guest stars”, but guest stardom has become somewhat of a twilight-hearalding career move.
But who exactly are the professional guest stars and–here’s my official question for Café Society–who or which group of celebrities past was/were the first professional guest stars?
Coolio is an obvious one–25 listed guest appearances to 28 “actor” listings (wherein a significant number he portrays either “himself” or someone with a name like “Cool”). Barry Williams is another, with only 15 listings as “actor” versus 23 as “guest”.
I recall a whole slew of people from the '60s and '70s who never seemed to do much of anything but “guest star.” Remember all those Movie of the Week stars? They showed up on every goddam ABC Tuesday night, and guest-starred on every episode of Medical Center and Marcus Welby: Salome Jens, Kim Darby, Monte Markham, Ruta Lee, Bert Convy, Gary Collins . . . Excuse me, I’m having junior-high flashbacks . . .
Check out the Game Show Network for a near-endless supply. Many of these people were huge Broadway stars back when the country still cared about Broadway and being in a hit could make you famous. As they got older and as Broadway lost prominence to television (and to a lesser extent movies although movies for whatever reason dimmed the Great White Way less than the idiot box) they moved into supporting and guest star roles (and in some cases starring roles) on TV. Game shows, afternoon talk shows (think Merv and Mike Douglas) and pretty much any of Samantha’s relatives on Bewitched became their new venues.
What I find more interesting is the rise in the 70s of celebrities who were famous for apparently no other reason than appearing on game shows as celebrities. People like Elaine Joyce and Joyce Boullifant must have done something to get booked on Match game but I’m damned if I know what it is.
Pretty much everyone who was ever a regular on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In falls into this category, wouldn’t you say?
But there’s a whole other category of “celebrities” worse than the standard game-show / “Love Boat” / “Fantasy Island” celeb. I mean, Danny Bonaduce and Barry Williams ARE washed-up has-beens, but at least I know what they USED to be famous for: they WERE stars on very popular TV sitcoms, once. Charles Nelson Reilly hasn’t had MUCH of a career, but at least he WAS a second banana on “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.”
But… what the heck makes Bruce Villanch a “celebrity”? What did Grace Jones ever do to become famous? Did Zsa Zsa Gabor EVER make a movie?
What are those people famous for BESIDES being famous?
> But… what the heck makes Bruce Villanch a “celebrity”?
Bruce Vilanch is supposed to be one of the all-time great quip writers. He’s written quips for many Oscar shows, for instance. Check his IMDb entry.
Another interesting case of a professional guest star was George Gobel. In the '50’s he hosted a talk/variety show that was extremely influential. (Johnny Carson learned how to do it by watching Gobel, supposedly.) But then he just gave up full-time work and became a professional guest star. In the '70’s version of _The Hollywood Squares he was very funny, but many people watching the show had no idea who he was.
Grace Jones put out a few albums, which were known more for the album covers then for what was in the grooves, she was a constant prescence at Studio 54 back when that was actually a cool thing to do and she has some influential friends in the entertainment world, plus I think she was a villianess in one of the more awful Roger Moore Bond movies, maybe View To A Kill.
I think Danny Bonaduce is elevated slightly from the Professional Guest Star category. He is, after all, the morning DJ for a major L.A. Radio station that reaches over a million people (including yours truly.) IOW, he has a career other than guest appearances.
The quintissential example of this has to be Brett Somers.
She was Jack Klugman’s wife, and had virtually no TV career at all. She got her gig on Match Game PM b/c she was in the partying crowd and had a flair for it.
It seems that almost all of them fade into obscurity rather quickly, but before they do they manage to make a couple of quick bucks as professional guest stars (e.g., Nikki Ziering (sp?) on the aforementioned Celebrity Boot Camp). And in the recent past, Jenny McCarthy may’ve gotten some employment as a co-host and a shortly-lived sitcom, but I’d wager that she has far more “guest star” than “guest” credits.
Thank you! I have always wondered just who the hell she was. I liked - like - her, she was very good for the show, but there was always this niggling question.
And as for Grace Jones: I lump her with Cher. Both are striking looking and have ranges of about four notes - but wow, what notes. Nightclubbing, appropriately, is probably her best album (known for the title track, “Pull Up To the Bumper,” and her cover of “Demolition Man”), but I’m also especially fond of Slave to the Rhythm.