I understand TV actors whose casting is critical to a show (think Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones) will sign multi-year contracts - what happens if they break them?
Of course I would assume they would forfeit all future earnings, and would likely never be hired again - but if they decided they didn’t care about any of that and just up and quit, what would the further consequences be? Could they be sued for past earnings, damages, etc?
Has any major actor ever done it before?
(And just to be clear, by “actor” I mean both male and female performers.)
Often, the producers and the network have almost as much to lose by being a hard-ass. But sometimes things work out with minimal problems.
When Letterman left NBC for CBS, he couldn’t call his little sidekick Larry “Bud” Melman. Somehow,the Late show owned that, even if they weren’t going to use it again.
It was on this forum I learned that McLean Stevenson left MASH to star on “Hello Larry” breaking his contract. Its said that’s why Col Blake dies, so he couldn’t ever come back. Seemed a little petty.
When Terry Farrel left DS9, to play a non-spotted character on Becker, they did an elaborate death scene as a result of Gul Ducat’s Pah Wraith summon. Problem is, hoisting her up like that in a rig made her look fat. Which is, apparently the WORST THING YOU CAN DO TO AN ACTRESS, and left her in tears. The producers had to dig into the special effect budget to cover it up. We probably lost half of an Odo transformation on that one.
Letterman’s NBC show was Late Night; his CBS show was The Late Show. Those titles are still used even though the hosts are Seth and Stephen.
It was because it was the best dramatic turn they possibly could have done with the situation. How, or why, could he have ever come back after he had been replaced with a character who was just as good, or better, given the direction they were taking the show. They (not the same they) ruined Suzanne Somers career when she broke, but Col. Blake going down just after he had seemingly escaped from the horror of Korea was tragic magic.
Well breach of contract cases with actors do happen somewhat often, but they are usually with movie deals that involve a few weeks or maybe months of production, rather than the multi-year TV deals you’re talking about. The studio / production company can and sometimes does sue the actor for millions when that happens.
I’m sure it happens sometimes in TV too, but I don’t know of a specific case, or at least not anybody really high-profile. When you’re locked in to a job that pays obscene buckets of cash like having a starring role on Game of Thrones, most people are smart enough not to mess that up no matter how much of a diva they may be.
A famous example is Dave Chappelle, who walked away from his own show during its third season. Chappelle insisted to David Letterman that he never actually quit (he was just “years late for work.”)
Comedy Central was understandably confused, and kept delaying the show’s season premiere (originally set for February 2005, the three completed third-season episodes were finally shown in July 2006.) I can’t tell if there were any lawsuits, although Chappelle admitted his decision cost him a lot of money.
Farrah Fawcett walked away from Charlie’s Angels after one season. Lawsuits ensued, but they were eventually settled.
Not a long-term contract, but actor John Drew Barrymore bailed at the last minute on a Star Trek episode. The studio was inclined to let it go, but the show producers were so angry they filed a complaint with the Screen Actors Guild. They won, and Barrymore was suspended by the Guild for six months.
I’m pretty sure Barbara Bain was sued and had to fork over money when she broke her contract on “Mission Impossible”. Her husband, Martin Landau, was on the show but didn’t have a multi year contract as she did. He was unable to get one that satisfied both him and Paramount so he left. Bain decided to support her husband and not show up for work.
Result? Ten years later they were doing “Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island”.
Suzanne Somers - “She’s the Sheriff,” two seasons. “Step By Step,” seven seasons. Nine seasons as the major co-star of a sitcom after “Three’s Company.” I’d like to be that ruined.
I remember hearing that story at the time too. Larry Gelbart (MASH’s creator & head writer) always statedthat they did it just to show that war is hell.
I don’t think there was a specific ‘list’ of items, but NBC did make a big deal about a lot of the stuff from Late Night being their ‘intellectual property’. So much so that in the first few weeks at CBS Dave openly joked about it constantly. In fact, in the very first show’s opening monologue Dave had Tom Brokaw come out and say his jokes ‘Were the property of NBC*!*’, and then he grabbed the cue cards and left. They really didn’t change too much. They didn’t use the name Larry ‘Bud’ anymore, they changed ‘Viewer Mail’ to ‘The CBS Mailbag’ etc. They still continued the ‘Top Ten Lists’, I guess they figured NBC couldn’t challenge something so generic. They also continued ‘Stupid Pet Tricks’ I believe because they actually started doing that on Dave’s NBC morning show, which Letterman did own the rights to (which is why its never been syndicated or shown anywhere).
By the end of the first (maybe the second) season of “Friends,” the show was such a run-away hit that all six stars threatened a walk-out if contracts weren’t “re-negotiated” (read: HUGE salary increases). They all won.
Genevieve Bujold was cast as Capt. Elizabeth Janeway on “Star Trek: Voyager” (the character’s name was changed to Nicole Janeway at her request). Bujold, who was primarily a feature film actress, wasn’t prepared for the demands of filming a weekly TV series (both the shooting schedule as well as the expectation that she would participate in TV interviews), and she quit the series on the second day of filming.
When Kate Mulgrew was then cast as Janeway, the character’s first name was changed (again) to Kathryn, at Mulgrew’s suggestion.
Hello Larry didn’t start until almost four years after Stevenson left MASH.
On a side note, Wayne (Trapper John) Rogers decided between seasons 3 and 4 that he didn’t like being Alan Alda’s sidekick, so he declined to come into work, starting a major breach-of-contract lawsuit.
If for nothing else MASH should go down in history as the show that had to replace not one but two prominent players and pulled it off spectacularly. 
True. The way it is explained in MASH remembrances is that Stevenson told Loretta Swit, “I have to be number one.” She wanted to tell him that they were all number one together, but he felt the need to be #1 alone. There was the Mclean Stevenson show pretty quickly after Mash, but it was short lived.
Wayne Rogers? Yeah, they handed bigger moments to Alan Alda and they stripped Trapper of being a thoracic surgeon, giving it to Hawkeye. Also, they wanted Wayne Rogers to sign a morality clause that he was not comfortable signing. With Mclean Stevenson leaving, he thought they had no chance of firing him and losing another big lead actor.
Wayne Rogers did admit later that:
He had no idea MASH would last 8 more seasons and be so good.
He regretted leaving and wouldn’t have done it again had he had knowledge of the future.
Still, he’s massively rich and I doubt it really affected his life negatively in any way.
David Caruso asked out of his contract on NYPD Blue to go into feature films. There was some arguing, but eventually he came to an agreement to do four episodes before being released.
In general, the producers don’t force the actor to stay on the show. They’re not going to give their best when they’re angry, and it will result in a poor performance. In most cases, some accommodation is made.
It turned out that Rogers never actually signed his contract because he objected to its morals clause.
Breach of contract is a very old action in the common law system. In most cases, you have to prove damages, but many contracts might have a liquidated damages clause, meaning that the contract itself sets the penalty in anticipation of breach.
In the case of an advance payment, most of the time, the damages are going to simply be the return of the money paid in advance.
Why would you assume that they would never be hired again? Breach of contract is often a business decision, and for any particular individual, breach might be the right decision. It’s not a moral issue.
In most cases, someone seeking to walk out of a contract is doing so precisely because he or she has a better offer.
In other cases, he or she might be seeking a change in lifestyle, like Dave Chappelle. In that case, the “consequences” are exactly what he was looking for.
I would be curious about the impact on future earnings for filmed work. After all, series TV is all about residuals earnings. I’m suspecting that the standard SAG contract stipulations regarding residuals would hold sway.
It shows that there are a great many swelled heads in show business (and sports, as well). 
What are you talking about?