Grace Slick said it was getting a membership offer from AARP.
Ernest Borgnine said he agreed to do McHale’s Navy when a college age door to door salesman didn’t recognize him and never heard of the movie “Marty”
there is a joke variously attributed to Jack Elam, Mary Astor and Ricard Montalban about the 5 stages of an actors career.
Charlize Theron did it in 1999 when she was transitioning from “former model who’s a promising character actress” to “good actress looking for her breakout role.”
Sally Fields pimping osteoporosis meds.
Jamie Lee Curtis selling products to make you shit regularly.
Suzanne Somers:
Getting dumped from Three’s Company
Pitching Thighmaster.
Diet Books
Whoo Whoo Medicine Books
My understanding is she made a fortune on the Thighmaster, having gotten a piece of the company in exchange for pitching it. And several years later she got in a sitcom with Patrick Duffy that ran for seven seasons, although it was one of those that critics seldom talked about.
I think he was trying to post in this thread:
You see a lot of actors who get a good role on a TV series and see it as a stepping stone to the movie career they think they deserve. So they strain to escape from the show.
Sometimes you feel like slapping them and telling them, “You don’t get it. This TV show isn’t an obstacle in the path to your career peak. This show is your career peak. Once you leave this show you’re going to start going back down.”
Recording an album of “standards”.
I not sure about this but I believe those photos weren’t specifically done for Playboy. They were old pre-fame modeling photos that Playboy acquired after Theron starting becoming known as an actress. If that’s the case, citing Theron isn’t the best counter-argument.
Jaime Pressley arguably might be a better counter-example. She was in Playboy twice and ended up landing an Emmy-winning role in “My Name is Earl.” However, her career seem to have stalled since the show went off the air.
Drew Barrymore was in playboy before her recent resurgence to stardom.
You replace Charlie Sheen on a TV sitcom.
Joe Pantoliano, best known from Risky Business, The Sopranos and The Matrix, also claims to be the source of this showbiz lament.
:o I hadn’t even heard of him before Grey’s so I thought it was his big break, and not a revival. Whoops.
If this is the case, then I certainly appreciated their effort. 
I can’t believe nobody mentioned that it’s when they ask you to jump a shark.
Add Sally Struthers infomercials for some fly-by-night mail order college diploma.
It does seem rather obvious now that you point it out. :smack:
So explain Shatner then…
Can’t Buy Me Love, Outbreak, and Loverboy
That didn’t seem to hurt Tom Hanks.
Hanks was in a major carrer slump when he made that - he has a series of flops after Big, which didn’t really end until *Sleeples in Seattle *in 1993, five years later. Even then, it was only when he reinvented himself as a serious actor in *Philadelphia *that he became the icon he is today.