Then something derailed all three. With Keaton, I do believe it was BATMAN. And Murphy started making kids' movies-- but bad ones. Crystal--I don't know. Perhaps he was the least credible in a movie to begin with. But he sure nailed Harry.
Can any of them reclaim their former glory? What the heck happened?Has anyone successfully resurrected a career after 60?
26 comments:
Maybe Michael Keaton should embrace his villain side. I thought he was a terrific psychopath in PACIFIC HEIGHTS.
Who knows? Maybe the other two should also try something completely different.
Bruce Dern is amazing in NEBRASKA. His career went downhill after he shot John Wayne in THE COWBOYS. Talk about a wrong turn! You put your finger on it, Patti: bad movie choices. Now, with our CGI dominated movies, it's impossible to come back. The movie business has completely changed.
Oh, that's an interesting question. I think Billy Crystal was really quite good in the Analyze... movies, but you're right that something...happened.
Eddie Murphy made a valiant attempt to revive his career with DREAMGIRLS. He was sure he was going to win the Oscar but the performance just wasn't of that caliber.
I'm not interested in seeing Billy Crystal in anything, frankly.
Last good thing Keaton did was in JACKIE BROWN back in 1997. WHITE NOISE, I think, truly sealed his fate. According to imdb.com he's doing mostly voiceover work these days. Sad he hasn't had a longer career of good work because of the three he was the most versatile and talented actor.
Michael Keaton (originally Douglas) was the worst Bruce Wayne. I think Billy Crystal (Monsters, Inc.), Eddie Murphy (Shrek), and Michael Keaton (Cars, Toy Story 3) might have tried to resurrect their careers by lending their voices to animated films. I liked Crystal in "America's Sweethearts."
I wouldn't say resurrect but I think Sean Connery had a second successful career after 60?
Mickey Rourke seemed to resurrect his career with The Wrestler but has since gone back to doing mostly straight to video dreck.
I think it ate another of my comments. Not going to repost it.
Jeff M.
Crystal is 65
Keaton is 62
Murphy is only 52
Jeff M.
Crystal is 65
Keaton is 62
Murphy is only 52
Jeff M.
Men certainly have an easier time of maintaining a career but perhaps no advantage in resuscitating one. I am thinking on that guy in Jackie Brown though. Robert Forster who made a second career for himself of sorts. Yes, voice-overs have become a way to support yourself.
Robert Forster and John Travolta both got valuable boosts from Quentin Tarantino.
I dislike him but you could say John Travolta has reinvented himself. Bruce Willis did it with smaller but better supporting roles. How about Robert Downey, Jr.? Going from jail to the highest paid actor is no small deal.
On the other hand, I don't see Mel Gibson making it back depite his buddy Jodie Foster trying.
Jeff M.
GMTA, Al.
Jeff M.
Mel's problems stem from a different source, which is another good topic. Whose political/religious affiliations have hurt their career?
Are you prone to dismiss an actor who is a member pr sypathizer of a group you abhor. Maybe not intentionally, but it does weigh in.
Yes it does weigh in with me, not necessarily if they are a group member as much as if they are very vocal about it. I'm not as extreme about Scientologists as Cap'n Bob (but then he has the experience to back it up) but "public scientologists" like Travolta and Cruise and Kirstie Alley are on my list of people to avoid at all costs.
Prejudice? Perhaps. But this sect has done untold damage and I don't want to contribute one cent to their ill-gotten gains.
Jeff M.
For me, Marlon Brando pulled off the most spectacular comeback with THE GODFATHER, but he wasn't even 50. The comeback I would like to have seen that never happened--Orson Welles.
I think Wells got himself into trouble with the studios. And then his oversized ambitions perhaps. Hard to succeed so well so quickly.
I don't know how old Dennis Hopper was when he started his comeback, but he wandered in the Hollywood wilderness for a decade or more. Of course, much of his problem was drug-related.
You couldn't pay me to go to a Mel Gibson movie. I prefer not to contribute to the finances of a rageaholic, anti-Semitic misogynist.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, Mel.
Yes, certainly drugs/alcohol enter into many failures.
A few years a producer optioned a script of mine. It would be low budget of course. He started listing some names for leads we could afford. He saw these guys as has-beens. I still thought of them as mid-level stars. Bad movie choices, personal problems, being out of vogue--but also LUCK. LUCK is everything.
And amazingly that is true in everything. I know people who have never had a bad thing happen to them and others, never a good. Why? You almost want to believe in God so he can explain this to you.
Keaton was fine as Batman, and had a pretty secure gig. He's apparently someone who hates getting into ruts, even if it costs him career momentum. (Bale is faintly ridiculous as Batman, Clooney with good reason seemed a bit embarrassed by his script, among other things.)
Murphy and Welles apparently decided that they had all the answers. Sadly, no. Welles had more reason to, but that never works too well. Also, Welles made such powerful enemies so young.
I dunno...I can still enjoy the work of Tom Selleck or Steven Hill or any number of people I don't want in positions of power over political or social life. While Sean Penn, whom I largely might agree with on a number of issues, is too busy masticating scenery to be tolerated.
Luck and ability to put up with what you need to put up with are both important.
Yes, that's true about Selleck. Although I never thought he went out of his way to parade his ideology around like some of the others. Smugness like Penn's doesn't please me despite his good work in Haiti. Same with Jolie.
Selleck was pushing his politics among other things in the lesser, latter seasons of MAGNUM...but that wasn't the problem with them so much as the spark was gone. Another situation where the star mistook himself (or herself) for a writer or guiding producer.
There has been a running thing the last couple of episodes of BLUE BLOODS about "stop & frisk" which was an issue in our recent Mayoral election. Selleck's character is the NYPD Polcie Commissioner but he took a relatively middle of the road position. Jackie likes his Jesse Stone TV movies a lot and I like the westerns he did.
Of course the fact that BLUE BLOODS is filmed around here - "his" house is five blocks from us - doesn't hurt, despite the ridiculous nature of the scripts, in which it seems that Donnie Wahlberg is the only police detective in New York.
Jeff M.
Jeff said it for me. I won't support anyone who's a member of the $cientology Organized Crime Family.
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