Herve Villechaize was making obscene money for the early '80s on FANTASY ISLAND but wanted a huge pay raise and a larger role for his character (no size pun intended). Aaron Spelling said no, replaced him with another character, and the show- which had already run its course anyway- sank. Villechaize floundered for a few years in episodic guest appearances and commercials before shooting himself.
Brian Dunkleman has blamed leaving American Idol on various things including his objection to the treatment of the contestants and deliberate sabotage of him by Ryan Seacrest (who, admittedly, you rarely hear anything good about). Whatever the case, he left and never found a major audience in anything else.
Yup…and the show became horrible, awful, horrible after he left. It was pointless once they weren’t high school kids anymore.
So sorry that Ashton Kucher became a big start instead of Topher. But the former had the right kind of looks, and married high up on the chain.
Bill Shatner kind of fits into this category. His dream was to become as fine an actor as Laurence Olivier and do high drama.* It was more for financial reasons that he started doing TV, and Star Trek in particular (just prior to Trek, he had done a laughably bad pilot called Alexander the Great, produced by the same people who did Combat!). Alas, his hopes went largely unfulfilled after TOS ran its course, and he’s now Captain Kirk, more or less, for life.
He was cast as Clemenza in The Godfather and was, per some reports, paid more than Pacino. It was the role for which he’ll always be remembered.
Coppola famously wanted him to reprise the role in the sequel but a battle of the egos prevented it. Per Coppola, Castellano wanted to write his own dialogue (in his defense his most memorable line- “Leave the gun, take the cannoli”- was Castellano’s) and wanted his wife hired as a writer and some other demands that Coppola wouldn’t grant, but they couldn’t make a love connection. Consequently GODFATHER 2 missed being another layer of epic by replacing Clemenza with Pentangeli.
Castellano never had a role of that caliber again, and in fact did basically a Clemenza parody in low budget and TV gangster flicks.
There’s no clear moral to the story, if the only question is “Should I keep a safe, steady TV job or try to do better on my own?” People have succeeded and failed after making BOTH decisions.
David Caruso and Suzanne Somers left popular TV shows and failed.
George Clooney and Ron Howard left popular TV shows to seek movie careers (Clooney as an actor, Howard as a director), and succeeded.
Pierce Brosnan WANTED to leave a TV show for a movie role, wasn’t allowed to, but eventually made it as a movie star anyway.
Michael J. Fox and Henry Winkler became extremely popular on TV sitcoms, and made some movies, but stayed with their TV sitcoms to the end.
No matter what you do, you may succeed and you may fail.
The only real lesson is, WHATEVER you decide to do, don’t be a jerk about it, don’t let your ego get too big, be a professional, and don’t burn bridges.
Clooney was professional enough and smart enough NOT to alienate the producers or ER, and was even willing to come back to the show once in a blue moon (like in Julianna Margulies’ last episode).
I certainly wouldn’t say that Mark Harmon made a mistake in leaving St. Elsewhere, but he sort of fits the category.
He left TV to make movies- a few of them were pretty good, a few were minor hits (Stealing Home, Summer School, The Presido). But in the end, he came back to TV where he’s been the star of a very popular show.
I recall reading an interview with Clooney. Apparently he was pretty frugal and invested his money well when he was on ER. When his contract was about to end, he went to his accountant and asked how he was doing. He was told that if he kept living the same way he was living, he would never have to work again. He thought, “perfect. I don’t have to do this boring shitty show anymore. From now on I will only do things that I think are either fun or good.” He didn’t even negotiate. When his contract was over he just stopped and on good terms.
Caruso was the opposite and was a total dick with an over inflated ego. Apparently when he delivered his last ever line on NYPD Blue and the director said “cut”, he walked straight out the door and drove away without even saying good bye to everyone.
He was on another TV series (TJ Hooker) that ran for five years.
TriPolar has probably mixed up Sherry Stringfield, who (unlike Julianna Margulies) actually did leave the show and then came crawling back, and so would fit the thread’s theme. Although I’m not sure she quit trying to go on to better things; it was more for personal reasons.
As I’ve said in previous threads on this topic, most of these actors are delusional. Most actors never achieve any major success in their careers. A small fraction will achieve the success of starring in a popular TV series.
So quitting the TV series so they can go after movie roles isn’t reaching for the prize. It’s throwing away the prize.
I remember reading an interview with Ted Shackelford, the actor who played one of the Ewing brothers on Dallas and then went with the spinoff Knots Landing. The interviewer asked him if he was thinking about leaving Knots Landing to try for something bigger. And Shackelford said he was aware that this series would most likely be as high as his career would ever get and he planned on staying with it as long as he could. (And he meant it - the series ran for fourteen seasons and Shackelford stayed until the end.)
Plus, he was jumping directly into a starring role in Spider-Man 3. It’s only in hindsight that that movie turned out to be terrible. A nip here and a tuck there and Grace becomes the star of one of the biggest blockbusters of all time and then is handed the keys to the Venom movie that Sony wanted to do at the time.
That said, Grace seems to have done alright for himself with Predators and roles in various smaller projects.
I’m with you, mocking actors for having ambition is a sad thing to do. It takes ambition to seriously attempt an acting career at all. It’s the most glamorized profession there is, the number of people who want to be actors is so much greater than the number of paying roles for actors that it’s ridiculous. Of COURSE actors will take risks to advance in their field, just GOING INTO their field is an enormous risk. Some succeed, some fail when they try to leap from TV to movies, well, that’s the way it is.
Like this gem: