I read Jim Backus’ book, and he said that the network came to the cast after GI ended:
“Well, there were only three seasons, and the first was in b/w. You can have the payout, or the residuals.”
“Hmm… Who’s going to watch this goofy show, really? We’ll take the payout.”
I don’t know how venal this was on the part of the network. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that someone knew of the demographic appeal and hoodwinked the cast. OTOH, is it possible that the show was popular for reruns because it was offered for low cost, because of no residual payments needed?
ralph124c asked about Basil Rathbone. Even without checking the iMDB, I can recall that he was in Roger Corman flicks in the early 1960s. You might regard that as a severe letdown, but, heck, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre and, of course, Vincent Price were doing it, too. And those flicks were playing in the big theaters, so it wasn’t exactly the slums. The Magic Sword was actually big-budget for Corman, and Rathbone played the villain.
The charges were not that recent and although I don’t know the status of the case for Jeffery Jones, he is still working, currently on the third (and final) season of HBO’s western drama “Deadwood”.
What a wonderfully terrible movie. It also had Vampira, IIRC.
I saw Alan Young (Wilbur Post) a couple of years ago guesting on a bad sitcom. Who cares though? I love that stuff. Hollywood’s a roller coaster. Thank God some people don’t take it seriously enough to think honest work as a guest star is beneath them.
What is very interesting on the revival of this thread after four years is the first post. Robert Vaughn – the name that started the thread – is back and successful in the UK TV show Hustle (also on AMC in the US). So even when a actor reaches bottom, it’s not always the end.
Actually, Robert Vaughn is doing okay. He has a starring role in a hit BBC TV series called Hustle, which has recently completed its third series (mind you, this is the BBC and a ‘series’ consists of only 6 episodes). It’s a high profile series, very successful around the world, and with quite a hefty budget behind it, so I imagine Robert gets rather well paid for his services. Even nicer for him, he barely has to actually do anything in the show. His role is the least demanding of all, and a lot of the time he’s there merely as a sort of ‘father figure’ to the rest of the gang, so he just sits around in a nice suit looking wise.
I know this thread dates back to 2002, but even around that time Robert Downey Jr. was making something of a comeback with Wonder Boys under his belt and a starring role in The Singing Detective. Currently, he’s starred in Good Night and Good Luck,* Kiss Kiss Bang Bang*, and A Scanner Darkly (due out later this summer), and has quite a few leading roles coming up on IMDB. I wouldn’t say his career is in the tank by a very, very long shot.
He’s also a fixture at autograph shows which always seemed to me to be really degrading. Of course he has a reason for it- he married a much younger woman in his mid sixties and had two little boys over the next few years, so by his own admission at a recent interview he’s trying to rake in all he can to put into their college trust fund (the same reason James Doohan kept doing STAR TREK appearances after he was deaf and on oxygen and beginning to lose his mind a bit- he wanted to leave a nice trust for the daughter born when he was 80).
This thread is a compelling argument for the return of a pair of series that performed a public service by “recycling” discarded or otherwise out of circulation actors:
Love Boat
Fantasy Island
If you’re talking about the yopunger fallen actors, one could revive
Love, American Style
But “reality” shows and infomercials have taken up some of the slack.