Buggles - Video killed the radio star (1979)
The title sums it up. Are there any examples of someone not surviving the transition of radio to television or movies? Surely there was someone with an amazing voice and a face that would stop a clock.
actually there are reverse examples in the movies … clara bow for example was considered ne of the greatest and most beautiful actress of the tweens and 20s
Then sound came to movies and they found out she had the voice and speech pattrens of a Brooklyn truck driver … but theres tons of others along the same pattern
One example comes to mind. For years the character Matt Dillon was portrayed on radio by William Conrad. When “Gunsmoke” moved to television there was no way audiences were going to buy the marshal being a big hefty dude, and the rugged looking James Arness ended up being cast in the role instead.
William Conrad went on to play a number of other well known roles on television, but video certainly killed that role for him.
I’m going to go with my standby, Christopher Cross.
He had a smooth voice and catchy tunes. He also had a receding hairline, sweatstained armpits and paunchy belly. He didn’t survive MTV.
I’d nominate Sinead Lohan and Shawn Mullins.
I submit H. Jon Benjamin who is the voice actor portraying Sterling Archer in the very adult animated tv series Archer. He’s not terrible looking, just not at all what you visualize when you hear his voice.
Didn’t the Car Talk brothers try to do a TV show that failed miserably? They always did say they had faces made for radio.
My standby is Donnie Iris, who didn’t have that MTV “look” either.
And I think both Billy Squier and Phil Collins have groused about video killing their radio stardom. (For Squier it was one video in particular.)
Todd Rundgren did a duet with Bonnie Tyler on a song called* Loving You’s A Dirty Job*, and the video stars her - and some other guy lip-syncing his part.
Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll are another example of radio actors who didn’t get to play the same characters on TV because they didn’t look the part.
When I started a similar topic 6 years ago, Cross was the example I used in my OP as well.
Similar to Christopher Cross, while no way near as popular or famous, was the band Romeo Void who had small hit in 1982 with “Never Say Never”. At the dawn of MTV their video couldn’t get any airtime because of the “Rubenesque” look of lead singer Debora Iyall.
In a way, though it didn’t kill their career, the extremely popular band, Heart, ran into a similar problem when lead singer Ann Wilson began gaining weight. Suddenly, sister Nancy was given much more screen time in Heart videos while Ann’s images were blurred or skewed.
Milli Vanilli.
N/M. Reading comprehension failed me.
Our Miss Brooks started as a radio show before it became a TV show. As it was making the transition, Eve Arden and the rest of the cast convinced Philip Boynton, who played Jeff Chandler, “the shy and often clueless object of Miss Brooks’ affections”, that his future was in movies, not on the TV show. According to Arden, the reason they didn’t want him to do the TV show was in real life Boynton was a big strapping guy who didn’t visually fit the part.
I had totally overlooked the transition of silent movies to ‘talkies’, but this is certainly a valid addition to the query.
Quite a few more examples here than I expected in this short of a time as well.
The original Def Leppard was made up of 4 good looking guys and one who was, ahem, rather homely. He was always relegated to the background, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that kind of thing contributed to his early death from alcoholism.
In this video, notice that the drummer is by far the best-looking member of the band - and guess who got the most face time and was put out in front for the video?
Nitpick: Jeff Chandler was the actor, Philip Boynton was the character.
Martha Wash (of “It’s Rainin’ Men” fame) sang on a number of dance hits for the groups Black Box and C+C Music Factory, but was not shown in their videos. They didn’t just leave her out, they hired younger, sexier women to mouth her parts. She sued both groups and won.