Shatner was doing ads long before – back when he WAS in his prime. Remember his ads for Promise margarine? You won’t get the ending of the John Belushi-as-Shatner SNL skit if you don’t.
Yeah, the number of celebrities I’ve seen shilling for those is ridiculous. More surprising was seeing Kathy Bates and Pedro Pascal doing ads for Merge Mansion, although the ads were amusing in themselves so I don’t think it impacted their reputations at all.
Reynolds also did an ad for UK broadband - BT in this case. Jeremy Renner did one too. Don’t think either of them hurt their reputations any, and certainly not as much as Renner’s solo album did. Or, you know, all of Renner’s harassment allegations.
But their ads are great. Some of Sylvester Stallone’s best work.
Better than being remembered for his yellowface performance in Breakfast at Tiffany’s…
Six ex-wives is a lot of alimony to pay.
Speaking of football players: remember when OJ Simpson did those Hertz car rental commercials of him running through an airport? Boy, that must have been the biggest hit to his reputation ever…
/s
And then he said to himself:
Self, hold my beer!
In a similar vein, Mel Gibson used to be a beloved actor, then in the early 2000s his reputation took a huge hit. Must have been because he made ‘The Singing Detective’ right after ‘Signs’. I can’t imagine what else could have caused such a big drop to his popularity and rep 
I don’t know if Tony Cavalero qualifies. He could have been pigeonholed into the Hanes underwear “Ball-ance” guy, but he’s been in the Righteous Gemstones and the recently-cancelled DMV sitcom.
I started playing Merge Mansion solely on the basis of those ads, so it apparently worked on me!
Actually, that was kinda typical of using fame to your advantage. At the same ti me he was making thiose commercials, he was shilling for Dingo boots in full-page and back cover color ads in major magazines. They read “O.J. Dingo and showed him wearing three boots.
Shatner was paid in Priceline stock and made a great deal of money although he missed out on some big gains by selling early.
Check out that 'toupe, eh? 
Shatner is in the same category as Kevin Hart, psychologically incapable of not working. They can’t have enough money. I’ve listened to comics who came up as comics with Kevin Hart. None are surprised he takes any paying gig despite being fabulously wealthy. His drive and work ethic was what got him to the top and he is incapable of turning it off. I suspect it is similar with Shatner. He’s 95 years old and may someday be ready to retire.
There was a joke going around at the time about a [fake] Hertz commercial that proclaimed, “Hertz will get you to the airport with an hour to kill!”
I’m surprised Eddie Murphy hasn’t been mentioned yet. He used to be a rockstar comedian. He had his Raw comedy special in the red leather.
Then he got caught with a transgender prostitute. I’m not entirely sure that this was the ruin of his reputation - he’s done cheesy pop singing, and some dreadfully awful movies, too. But it didn’t help.
I literally didn’t remember the prostitute thing at all. He dropped in my eyes solely because he seemed to forget how to be funny.
Same here. 20+ years of mostly forgettable, unfunny comedy films* did the trick.
*- With the Shrek films as a notable exception, though those are animated, and he had little-to-nothing to do with the writing or production.
I’m looking at Murphy’s filmography. Raw came out in '87, his arrest was in '97. In between, he made:
Coming to America
Harlem Nights
Another 48 Hours
Boomerang
The Distinguished Gentleman
Beverly Hills Cop III
Vampire in Brooklyn
The Nutty Professor
Metro
I’ve seen all of these except Nutty Professor and Metro, and the only genuinely good one was Coming to America. Nutty Professor and Coming to America were the only two that were both popular and critically successful.
In the five years post-arrest, he had four significant films: Mulan, Shrek, Dr. Dolittle, and Bowfinger - plus several bombs. Post-Bowfinger, nothing he’s done has really been notable or successful, aside from the Shrek sequels.
So, his career was already spiraling pretty hard before the arrest, and immediately post-arrest, he had a bit of a comeback for a bit before returning to his ongoing creative slump.
Conclusion: the arrest didn’t really have much effect on his career.
I’m admittedly not great at pop culture. but Eddie Murphy more or less disappeared for me after Trading Places and 48 Hours. I’d seen his face advertised in this or that since, but it seemed to ignorant me that he’d simply done what most stand-up comics did/do: slowly turn into a mediocre B-movie character actor with an extra dollop of name recognition.
I had never known of the stand up films (what a nutty idea?!?) nor the arrest until the posts here.
So for me and the many show-biz lite Americans out there, I dont’ think Murphy’s reputation has jumped a shark. I think he simply got old and dropped out of sight. Just one more bit of silt in the murky waters of Hollywood on-screen faces.
Murphy got a lot of critical praise for his supporting role in Dreamgirls, including an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe win. I can also report that Dolemite Is My Name was highly enjoyable and has a 97% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
But yeah, there were a lot of stinkers in there too.
I suspect Shatner is the type of person who tries to “retire”, get bored and starts working again because he can NOT think of reason to stay “retired”.
Don’t worry - he’ll have time.
That’s a good point. Every celebrity has a ‘best by’ date and eventually they expire. That’s a normal progression. Jumping the shark in this context means something radically alters our perception (usually negatively) of them.