Paris Hilton<\/p>\n
Jennifer Lopez<\/p>\n
Mischa Barton<\/p>\n
Ben Affleck<\/p>\n
Ashlee Simpson<\/p>\n
Hillary Duff<\/p>\n
Jessica Cutler<\/p>\n
I walked by Macy’s today, and there was a sign as large as a house: JENNIFER LOPEZ LINGERIE and I groaned out loud at the very sight of her name.<\/p>\n
She has completely bungled (in my opinion) her career. She has squandered what she had going for her in the beginning, by letting her personal life take the front page – and by getting sucked into her own celebrity. I would be very surprised if her career bounced back from this nadir.<\/p>\n
I just read a biography of Cary Grant. (Big shocker, right?)<\/p>\n
Cary Grant retired in 1966, without any fanfare. He basically just withdrew from acting. He felt he would no longer “be believable” as a leading man (even though directors and other actors begged to differ), and he didn’t want to embarrass himself. Better to withdraw voluntarily. People in the business, until the very end of his life (and he lived for 20 more years) pestered him constantly. Wrote parts for him, scripts were still sent to him – he was offered millions and millions of dollars to do movies where he would have had only one scene. The answer was always No.<\/p>\n
He was done.<\/p>\n
There’s a lot to be said for that.<\/p>\n
The author of the biography, in the epilogue, discusses this self-imposed retirement, in conjunction with his entire successful career, and said, “He never wore out his welcome.”<\/p>\n
That’s quite a lot to say for a man who made almost 80 movies and had a career that spanned decades. He knew when to withdraw, he would do 3 movies one year, and then take a year off – to let interest in him grow again, to keep himself from getting bored, he always kept a low profile, he never (or rarely) did interviews, he was purposefully vague about his personal life in interviews … After his death, people who tried to piece together the truth about his life had a hell of a time of it. Because he would lie. Or he would tell half-truths. He would set people off on the wrong track. He thought that his personal life was nobody’s damn business but his own.<\/p>\n
But his reticence had more to it than just a natural reserve about sharing such things with strangers. It had to do with his own gut-level understanding of what the job of a performer actually is.<\/p>\n
He understood that MYSTERY is one of the primary factors that makes a great movie star. If the audience knows too much about you, then they might not find you believable in different kinds of parts. If you reveal too much, if you give too much away … then the audience gets bored.<\/p>\n
My point of all of this is:<\/p>\n
The people in the list above are, supposedly, at either the very PINNACLE of their fame, or just beginning the skyrocket up – and they have ALREADY “worn out their welcome”.<\/p>\n
Oh and of course – feel free to add your own names.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paris Hilton Jennifer Lopez Mischa Barton Ben Affleck Ashlee Simpson Hillary Duff Jessica Cutler I walked by Macy’s today, and there was a sign as large as a house: JENNIFER LOPEZ LINGERIE and I groaned out loud at the very … Continue reading