Sean Young appeared on Letterman last October. She was basically trying to make a joke of it, talking openly about being crazy, etc. The attempt at yuks failed miserably. They then showed a clip of her standing out on a street holding an ad sign wearing a Catwoman costume. Awkward and then some.
She does get work, just not leading lady type stuff.
As to young, 20-something, starlets who seem to start their careers off well: There is a party culture than many of them fall into and after living the alcohol and drugs life for a few years, their career is basically a joke. Some guys fall into it, too, but there seems to be a lot more pressure on the women that makes them more likely to crash and burn.
On the topic of actresses hitting a certain age, I was watching a chunk of Legend earlier on - Tim Curry is fantastic as the Lord of Darkness, and I think it’s a shame he didn’t keep that makeup on all the time - and it struck me that Mia Sara’s career never went anywhere. Her very first two roles were in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Legend, which both came out in 1986 (Legend was filmed in 1985, but delayed in post-production), and then pfft, she seemed to go straight into television. Despite the fact she was still in her mid-teens. Her next and only film role that you or I might have seen was in Timecop (1994). Which is a comedown from (a) an iconic 80s comedy (b) a major and hugely expensive fantasy blockbuster from the mind and lightmeter of Ridley Scott.
My first thought, given that she was only 16 in 1986, was that Hollywood wasn’t quite sure what to do with her; the actors in teen comedies are typically in their late 20s, so she was too young for that, but conversely 16 is too old to play kids. And of course Hollywood producers would probably have felt guilty and wrong about asking her out to dinner. Except that they probably wouldn’t have felt guilty and wrong, because Hollywood producers aren’t subject to conventional moral constraints.
I mean, Molly Ringwald was even younger, and had a decent career. But she had a gimmick - ginger, bolshie - whereas Mia Sara was just… she was perfectly okay, Legend wasn’t a hit but that wasn’t her fault, and yet. Perhaps some people just prefer the quiet life.
I just now watched Pretty In Pink for the first time ever, (clearly a lazy Sunday afternoon for o someone without cable TV) even though I was in the prime target age when it came out in the 80’s, but watching it I thought about this thread and wondered why Andrew McCarthy’s career hit the skids.
I remember him from St. Elmo’s Fire and I would have guessed that he would have been the one singlemost likely “Brat Pack” alum (at least of the guys) to really make it big, moreso than Rob Lowe or Charlie Sheen, but he seems to have disappeared into the void along with Mary Stuart Masterson and poor Molly Ringwald.
Well, Andrew McCarthy wasn’t much of an actor. He always seem to come across as annoyingly smug and not very bright. There was just something about him that made even the most non-violent person want to smack his face. That being said, back during his heyday in the late 80s and early 90s I thought if they ever did The Dan Quayle Story, he would’ve been perfect for the lead.
As for Ringwald, she made some bad choices that would’ve likely taken her career to the next level (e.g., she–or rather her mother–rejected Blue Velvet because she found its script “icky”). There was also the Lilian Gish Incident where she was supposed to meet the legendary actress for some sort of multiple generations of actresses event. Instead, she blew off the meeting without telling anybody much to Gish’s disappointment. Granted, she was only 18 at the time and the vast majority of 18-year olds would’ve had no idea who Lilian Gish was but the way she handled it really was a dumb mistake. Many people in Hollywood got the impression she already had a swelled head and started looking for other actresses in her age group who didn’t seem to have an attitude. It just so happened that an actress named Wynona Ryder came along at that same time and Ringwald’s stock dropped rapidly.
According to Wikipedia, she turned down the lead roles in both Pretty Woman and Ghost. At around the same time she did star in a movie called Betsy’s Wedding (1990), which flopped. It looks like she hasn’t starred in a successful movie since then, although she has apparently has had some major roles on Broadway within the past 5-10 years.
Well, I am certainly not much of a judge of great acting, and as far as I know the only Andrew McCarthy movie I had ever seen until earlier today is St. Elmo’s Fire, but I guess I, as a straight guy, thought McCartney was clearly the best-looking male member (heh) of the Brat Pack, so that was really my sole basis for saying what I did.
As for Molly Ringwald, I think the only two movies of hers that I have ever watched (at least until earlier today) were The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles neither of which I have seen (or given any thought to) for over 20 years. That said, she was a huge star after those two movies, and it’s a shame she apparently let the fame & fortune go to her head. For what it’s worth, IMHO, she was not even in the same league, (as far as sheer physical attractiveness goes), as Ally Sheedy, Mary Stuart Masterson or Demi Moore were.
I don’t think I ever saw anything Molly Ringwold was in. I do remember reading a long interview in a magazine, where she spoke of taking a break from her strenuous career to go loll around Paris for a few years. Somewhat to her dismay, the American film industry wasn’t waiting with open arms when she deigned to come back. Swollen head, indeed.
Mary Stuart Masterson had some fair success in movies in the 80s and 90s, but may be another victim to Hollywood’s preference for youth. She still works steadily, but mainly supporting roles on television. She still looks great.
Bridget Fonda stopped acting completely about a decade ago. Shortly after, she married Danny Elfman and they had a child, so maybe she’s just happy being a mom. I’ve also read that she was in a fairly serious car accident a while back and that may have contributed to her career being sidelined.
That article only gives you, at best, half the incidents that Young’s been associated with. For instance, when her career broke open in 1982, she was at a press conference where a questioning “reporter” praised her on how talented she was. Later, it was found out the “reporter” was her mother and no, Young did not acknowledge her relationship when she answered the fawningly-worded question.
Actually Love, when she’s lucid, can come across as quite intelligent. Case in point: this article she wrote for Salon back in 2000. Granted, I don’t if it was really her that wrote this article but it doesn’t look like something you’d normally associate with Courtney Love.
I don’t think that’s it, both because Winona Ryder didn’t seem to have too much trouble and because Mia Sara was 19 in 1986, not 16. (Ryder hit it big with 1988’s Beetlejuice, when she was 17.)
If I had to pick a reason, maybe there were only so many high-profile parts for young actresses and Ryder got them all. heh.
It’s a reference toThrow Mama From the Train. In it, Billy Crystal plays a teacher of a creative writing class in which the students are asked to put forth a book they want to write. One of them, a mild-mannered balding middle-aged man, submits a book titled, “100 Girls I’d Like to Pork” which, as it states in the title, is a list of 100 mostly celebrity women the guy wants to pork. The “coffee table book” quote is the would-be author’s idea on the type of book it would be.
