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Bad career moves
BritFlicks1
Posts: 631 Forum Member
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How many actors can you think of who left a TV show for bigger things, and it didn't work out?
James Dreyfus left Gimme Gimme Gimme to launch a career in the US which flopped.
James Dreyfus left Gimme Gimme Gimme to launch a career in the US which flopped.
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Wasn't that was in a sit com with Bette Midler, which I seem to recall was godam awful?
The Divine Miss M herself went on Letterman and said appearing in it made her feel like 'a dung beetle pushing a turd up a hill!' And that was when she was supposed to be promoting it as a new show! I guess it didn't really stand much chance of success after that...
UK wise, Martine McCutcheon blew it massively, not realising it was Tiffany the viewers loved rather than her, erm, 'acceptable' performance. Thought she was going to be the next Kylie...she wasn't.
Susanna Reid leaving the safety of BBC Breakfast/Charlotte Hawkins/Sean Fletcher leaving the safety of Sky for a job on Daybreak.
and trying to act like a good sport on Celebrity Juice last Thursday. An even bigger comedown than yoghurt ads.
I love that she was killed by a rolling big cheese in Midsomer Murders!
Her ego must take some battering these days, She was even killed by rolling cheese on mid summer murders
In fairness, Barbara Windsor can do what she likes after 50 odd years in the business. I'm not particularly a fan, but she won't struggle. If she wants to return to EE, she can, same as Ross Kemp - neither need to.
Fingers crossed.
We both said similar at the same time. Great minds
Trinny And Susannah (What not to wear)
Anthony Worral Thompson (Saturday Kitchen)
Emlyn Hughes (Question of Sport)
All left BBC shows to do copycat shows on ITV (presumably for more money) - and vanished.
Funniest example was Bob Wilson who left BBC1 to head up ITV's Football coverage.
Then Des Lynam left Match of the Day to join ITV when they won the Premier league highlights package (briefly).
Bob Wilson said in a Radio Times interview years later, that he was told he was "surplus to requirements". He then pointed out that they had just re-negotiated his contract and they had to pay him, in full, for the next 3 years, even if he did not present a single programme for ITV.
The deal was done by for ITV by Brian Barwick, who did such a splendid job for the FA on the contracts of Ericsson and Capello, who were paid extortionate amounts after they left the England job
I've never understood why soaps want them back after they do this. Maybe if they employed decent scriptwriters and weren't so lazy, thinking all they have to do is bring back old characters to prop up falling viewing figures.
He then took out a huge mortgage from the same bank on the back of what they were going to pay him for the ads.
Then the ads got cancelled and he was stuck with the mortgage and less income than he had planned.
I'm not sure if it went to court, based on the fact that they must have known that the ads were being cancelled when they gave him the mortgage, but he was bad mouthing them in the press afterwards IIRC.
David Dickinson didn't vanish, he's still on Dickinson's Real Deal every day even now.
Yes he did!
Oh, hang on. My mistake. I thought you wrote 'varnish*'.
*(c) Blackadder 2.
Yes there's been loads of those, Adele Silva from Emmerdale, got breast implants and moved to Hollywood ended up working as a waitress and then back to Emmerdale, Lisa Faulkner, went out there and came back and she's now a celebrity chef, her from Eastenders who went to Hollywood and did get a plum role in the Bionic Woman but that flopped and she's doing theatre back in England now.
Australian soap actors do much better, you've got Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, the guy who played Jim Robinson in Neighbours, Ryan Kwanten in True Blood, the guy who plays the sheriff in Longmire, there's loads of them.