What the Hell Happened to Linda Fiorentino?

Linda Fiorentino was a rising star and a major sex symbol in the mid-nineties.  She scored critical acclaim with her role as a femme fatale in the neo noir film, The Last Seduction.  Then she achieved mainstream success in the sci-fi comedy blockbuster, Men in Black.  A few short years later amid rumors of difficult behavior, Fiorentino’s career had cooled to the point where she essentially retired.

What the hell happened?

Was Fiorentino a Trouble-Maker… ?

This one is a bit frustrating.  For years, rumors have swirled that Fiorentino torpedoed her own career by being difficult to work with.  Tempermental actors and actresses typically make for interesting articles filled with stories of on-set outbursts and outrageous demands.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t dig up a lot of dirt on Fiorentino.  If she was as big of a diva as her reputation suggests, it wasn’t documented anywhere.  With expectations properly set, let’s review the rise and fall of Linda Fiorentino.

She was part of a large Catholic family; born in Philly and raised in New Jersey.  Fiorentino admitted that she was “trouble” in high school where she was banned from senior prom for smoking.  After high school, she got her BA in political science.  She contemplated law school but decided to pursue acting instead.  While she struggled with landing her first role, she worked as a bartender along with a then-unknown Bruce Willis.

A Promising Beginning

Fiorentino got her big break in 1985 opposite Matthew Modine in the coming-of-age drama, Vision Quest.

Modine played a high school wrestler who decides drops two weight classes in order to challenge an undefeated opponent.  His coach and teammates oppose the idea due to the potential health risks of his radical weight loss.  Fiorentino played an older woman who rents a room in Modine’s house.  Naturally, the young wrestler falls for her and their relationship proves a distraction from his wrestling goals.

Jon Peters and Peter Guber produced Vision Quest. Previously, they had a great deal of success with Flashdance.   Clearly, Vison Quest was intended to duplicate the success of that film.  Flashdance made Jennifer Beals a star overnight, but Vision Quest wasn’t anywhere near as popular.

Just a few months later, Fiorentino starred opposite Anthony Edwards in the action-comedy, Gotcha.  Edwards portrayed a college student who participates in an assassination game played with paintball guns.  He and his roommate travel to Europe where Edwards meets a Czechoslovakian spy played by Fiorentino.  They become romantically involved which leads Edwards into a complicated espionage plot.

Scorsese and Hitchcock

Starring in two movies would be a big debut year for any actress.  But Fiorentino wasn’t done yet.  Later that year, she had a small but memorable supporting role in Martin Scorsese’s dark comedy, After Hours.

After Hours starred Griffin Dunne as a meek word processor who meets a girl played by Rosanna Arquette in a coffee shop.  Later that night, Dunne decides to pay Arquette a visit in her Soho apartment where he meets her roommate played by Fiorentino.   From there, Dunne goes on a series of late night misadventures.  

Fiorentino’s role was a small one, but she got to work with Scorsese. Lots of actresses have to wait their whole career to work with a director of his caliber.

She capped off 1985 with an episode of the anthology TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents titled The Night Caller. Fiorentino played a single girl who receives menacing phone calls from a stalker played by O’Keefe (aka Danny Noonan from Caddyshack).

If you have ever seen an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, you can probably guess how it will end.

Movies You’ve Never Seen

After a jam-packed first year, Fiorentino’s output slowed down.  Her next film role was in Alan Rudolph’s ode to 1920’s Paris, The Moderns.  Keith Carradine starred as a struggling American artist living in Paris among the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein.  He spends most of his time enjoying the social scene at Parisian cafes and galleries.  For money, he paints forgeries.  This leads to a run-in with his ex-wife (Fiorentino) and her new husband played by John Lone.

Later that year, Fiorentino appeared opposite Steven Bauer in Zalman King’s drama, Wildfire.  Bauer and Fiorentino played orphans who meet in boarding school.  They seem to be destined to wind up together, but then Bauer goes to jail for holding up a bank with a water gun.

Several years later after he is released from prison he discovers that Fiorentino is happily married.  Despite that inconvenience, he attempts to rekindle their romantic relationship. Zalman King would go on to make a name for himself in erotica.  The poster for Wildfire certainly suggests that it fits into that genre.  But it was actually rated PG.

In 1991, Fiorentino appeared alongside an impressive ensemble in the indie comedy, Queens Logic. The cast included Kevin Bacon, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Malkovich, Joe Mantegna and Tom Waits.  The story centered on a group of childhood friends who come together for the wedding of one of their own.  This leads to the kind of comedic hi-jinks that defined indie comedies of the 90’s.

Queens Logic was actually filmed in 1989, but sat on the shelf for two years before receiving a very limited theatrical release in the US.  It opened to bad reviews and closed quickly.

Hitting Rock Bottom

Later that year, Fiorentino appeared opposite John Travolta in the rock and roll drama, Shout.

Travolta starred as a musician on the run from the law in the 1950s.  He ends up taking a job as a music teacher where he introduces his students to rock and roll.  One of his students is a rebellious kid played by James Walters, aka the “How Do You Talk to an Angel Guy”.  Heather Graham co-starred as the hot blonde Walters falls for.  Fiorentino played the hot brunette who falls for Travolta.

Shout was blasted by critics and bombed at the box office. Travolta’s performance earned him a Golden Raspberry nomination for Worst Actor.

By this point, Fiorentino had been paying her dues for nearly a decade and no one seemed to notice her.  That may explain why she started taking roles in erotic thrillers like Strangers and Chain of Desire (both released in 1992). Things were looking bleak for the would-be movie star, but she hadn’t hit rock bottom yet.

The following year, Fiorentino starred opposite Charlie Sheen and Michael Madsen in the direct-to-video action flick, Beyond the Law.

Sheen, at his fattest and most hairy, played undercover cop, Dan Saxon.  The story is actually based on the exploits of a real life undercover cop as chronicled in an article in Playboy.  Fiorentino portrayed a photojournalist who can’t resist pudgy, bearded biker guys with a mullet and weird sunglasses.

Yeah, that’s rock bottom all right.  Don’t believe me?  Check this out.  But be warned, some things can not be unseen.

fiorentino - rock bottom
Linda Fiorentino – Beyond the Law – 1993

No matter what happens to you in life, at least you can take solace in the fact that you never had a pasty, shaggy Charlie Sheen on top of you.  Unless you have in which case, sorry about that.

By 1993, you could write off Fiorentino as the star of direct-to-video trash like Beyond the Law and the C. Thomas Howell movie, Acting on Impulse.  She appeared to be one the multitude of actresses who was lucky enough to work in movies without ever becoming a household name.  But then, one of those erotic thrillers caught the eye of critics and reinvigorated Fiorentino’s career.

Seducing Critics

Fiorentino - The Last Seduction
Linda Fiorentino – The Last Seduction – 1994

In 1994, Fiorentino finally got noticed playing a sexy femme fatale in John Dahl’s neo noir, The Last Seduction.

Her character was a beautiful woman who convinces her husband, a doctor  played by Bill Pullman, to sell medicinal cocaine.  She then steals the money and leaves him high and dry in debt to drug dealers.  Desperate to reclaim his money, Pullman hires a series of detectives to track her down.  Fiorentino hides out in a small town where she seduces a local boy and convinces him to protect her from her husband.

Critics loved The Last Seduction and praised Fiorentino for her brave performance.  She was nominated for numerous critics awards and took home quite a few.  One award she was not nominated for was an Oscar.  The Last Seduction debuted on HBO before being released in theaters.  As a result, she was not eligible for consideration.

The Last Seduction was a small movie that did very well on the art house circuit.  More importantly, it scored Fiorentino a lot of buzz.  Even without the benefit of an Oscar nomination (which was all but a certainty if she were eligible), Fiorentino was suddenly one of the hottest rising stars in Hollywood.

She was given the option of using a body double for her nude scenes.  But Fiorentino opted to do the scenes for herself instead.  Does that sound like the act of a “difficult” actress?

The Next Seduction

By this point, Fiorentino had a couple of direct-to-video movies in the can.  Both Bodily Harm (another erotic thriller costarring Daniel Baldwin) and The Desperate Trail (a Western with C. Thomas Howell) were rushed into video stores as quickly as possible to capitalize on Fiorentino’s newfound popularity.

Her big-screen follow-up to The Last Seduction was the erotic thriller, Jade. David Caruso played the Assistant District Attorney investigating the murder of a politician.  The late governor was messing around with prostitutes one of whom may have been Fiorentino’s character. Chaz Palminteri played her husband.  All the characters were caught in a web of black mail, murder and secret sex tapes.  In other words, it was written by Joe Eszterhas.

Legendary director William Friedkin helmed Jade.  He massively rewrote Eszterhas’ script to the point where the writer asked to have his name removed from the credits.  Friedkin, who has directed The French Connection and The Exorcist, considers Jade to be the best movie he ever made.  It just goes to show you that those who make art are rarely in a position to be objective about the merits of their own work.

There was a lot of buzz about Fiorentino starring in another sexy thriller.  But that was nothing compared to all the noise that was being made over Caruso.  Caruso had shot to stardom in 1993 with the successful TV show, NYPD Blue.  He made national headlines when he left the show during its second season.  Immediately, every one turned against him.  It seemed like the press, critics and audiences all wanted to see Caruso’s movie career fail.  And fail it did.  Caruso went into exile for years until he finally resurfaced on CSI: Miami.

Critics panned the picture and it bombed at the box office..  Jade was nominated for two Golden Raspberry awards.  Eszterhas was nominated for Worst Screenplay which had to hurt seeing as how his script was almost completely rewritten by Friedkin.  But then again, Jade lost Worst Screenplay to Showgirls which was actually written by Eszterhas.  

Largely Forgettable

In 1996, Fiorentino starred opposite Ray Liotta in John Dahl’s follow-up to The Last SeductionUnforgettable. Liotta played a cop who was framed for the murder of his wife.  In order to clear his name, he takes an experimental drug that allows him to experience other people’s memories.  As he gets closer to solving his wife’s murder, the drug takes a toll on his health and career.

There was a lot of anticipation to see Fiorentino reunited with Dahl.  They were both hot properties following the success of their previous collaboration.  But critics trashed Unforgettable calling it “a mess”.  Roger Ebert wrote:

“In the annals of cinematic goofiness, Unforgettable deserves a place of honor. This is one of the most convoluted, preposterous movies I’ve seen… The actors play this material perfectly straight, as if they thought this was a serious movie, or even a good one. That makes it all the more agonizing. At least in the old horror films, the actors knew how marginal the material was, and worked a little irony into their performances. Here everybody acts as if they’re in something deep, like a Bergman film, or Chicago Hope.”

Unforgettable flopped so badly in the US that it was not released in the UK until two years later.  

Time was running out for Fiorentino to find a hit to capitalize on the success of The Last Seduction She had a cameo role in the Bill Murray bomb, Larger Than Life.  Then she appeared in the indie crime comedy, Kicked In the Head. Neither of these movies did much to advance her career.

Here Come the Men in Black

MSDMEIN EC004
Linda Fiorentino – Men in Black – 1997

Fortunately, Fiorentino landed in a blockbuster in 1997.  She starred opposite Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in Barry Sonnenfeld’s sci-fi comedy smash, Men In Black.

Smith and Jones played agents in black suits tasked with hiding the existence of aliens on Earth and deporting trouble-makers. The agents use a device referred to as a “flashy thing” to erase the memories of civilians who have witnessed alien activity.  Fiorentino played a deputy medical examiner who helps Smith and Jones save the world..

The story goes that Fiorentino “won” her role during a poker game with Sonnenfeld.  Sonnenfeld jokingly warned her that she would not be doing any nude scenes in the movie.  That tells you something about her filmography up to this point, doesn’t it?

Men in Black was a huge hit with critics and audiences alike.  It went on to spawn two sequels and a cartoon.  The first film ends with Fiorentino’s character joining the team which lead most people to assume that she would participate in any sequels.  But when Men in Black II was released in 2002, Fiorentino was not involved.  Her character is written off in a single line of dialogue.

Rumors have swirled for years regarding the reason Fiorentino did not return for Men in Black II.  Some claim that Fiorentino asked for an outrageous amount of money to reprise her role.  Others have said that the entire cast and crew of the first film hated the actress and refused to work with her.  Yet another rumor puts the blame on Tommy Lee Jones who supposedly refused to return if Fiorentino was in the movie.  Fiorentino herself said she was “unavailable”.

If Fiorentino was unavailable, it’s doubtful it was because of her work load.  She would most likely have made room in her schedule for Men in Black II if she was offered a role assuming she wanted to do it.  But by 2002, it’s entirely possible Fiorentino didn’t want to do another big Hollywood movie.  She was more or less retired by then.  

Whether Fiorentino was dropped from the movie or chose not to return is unknown.  Despite the rumors, no one has ever come out on the record and said that Fiorentino was not welcome on the sequel.

Post-Men in Black Blues

As it turns out, Men in Black didn’t open as many doors as you might have expected it to.  The following year, Fiorentino appeared in the indie crime drama, Body Count.  The movie reuinted Fiorentino with her Jade costar, David Caruso, who was already serving his penance for leaving NYPD Blue.  By this point in Caruso’s career, it wasn’t a good sign to see him on the set of your movie.  Sure enough, Body Count didn’t even get a theatrical release.

In 1999, Fiorentino starred in Kevin Smith’s religious satire, Dogma. The writer-director was arguably at the peak of his filmmaking career at the time.  Using his indie cred and connections, he managed to assemble an all-star cast that included Ben Affleck, George Carlin, Matt Damon, Salma Hayek, Alan Rickman and Chris Rock alongside Smith regulars like Jason Lee and Jason Mewes.  

Fiorentino starred as an abortion clinic worker who may be a descendant of Jesus.  She works with “prophets” Jay and Silent Bob to stop a pair of angels played by Affleck and Damon from destroying the world.

Smith wrote the original script for Dogma before his breakout movie, Clerks.  He rewrote the screenplay several times.  The third draft of the script was leaked on the internet which angered the Catholic church.  Disney was reluctant to release the controversial film, so Harvey Weinstein bought the film back from Disney and released it himself. (We’ll get back to Harvey.)

Dog-fight!

After the movie was released, Smith talked a lot of trash about Fiorentino to anyone who would listen.  According to Smith:

“The biggest pain in the arse I ever worked with… Linda Fiorentino. When we were making Dogma, the cast was working in a favoured nations type of affair where everyone was getting paid the same – scale, which is the minimum wage for the movie business. And we were all trapped out in Pittsburgh shooting this movie, which is the middle of nowhere, so whenever people had a few days off they would ask if they could go to New York, or back to Los Angeles, or elsewhere. I always said “sure”, because why would I want to make anybody sit in Pittsburgh if they’ve got something else to do?

Linda, on the other hand, had to work every day on the movie because she was in every scene, so she really never got to leave and she got irritated when cast members would go elsewhere. She got really angry about that and asked me to do something about it. And I said, “What am I supposed to do? I mean, they want to go away and they’re not working, so that’s fine.” And one day she stopped talking to me for a whole day, because she was so irritated by the fact that other people got to leave the set. That was kind of weird. The weirdest experience I had making a movie.”

Incidentally, Fiorentino is not in every scene in the movie.  In fact her part was scaled down to make more room for bigger stars like Damon and Affleck who were featured prominently in the film’s marketing.  Smith touched on this in an interview with TV Guide in which he talked more trash about Fiorentino:

Linda created crisis and trauma and anguish.  She created drama while we were making a comedy. She was ticked off that there were other people in the movie who were more famous than she was.”

“She saw the poster and went nuts. They put her head on another body because she never did a photo shoot. The body had more cleavage than she has and she was pissed that nobody approved it with her, so she refused to do any more press. It’s not like we were hinging on all that Fiorentino press — I fought to cast the woman in the movie.

Clearly, Smith was at odds with his leading lady.  But at least one cast member had nice things to say about working with Fiorentino.  Salma Hayek said, “”I really bonded with Linda. She’s such a strong woman and she’s become my mentor in that way.”

Her Too?

Linda Fiorentino and Harvey Weinstein

This is probably as good a time as any to bring up the Weinstein factor.  It turns out that producer Harvey Weinstein has been a major factor in several “What the Hell Happened” stories.  Whether or not that was the case with Linda Fiorentino is unknown.  She has yet to come forward with her #MeToo story. 

All we can do is speculate, but given the producer’s history it’s easy to imagine such an encounter.  That may have contributed to Fiorentino’s ill temper on the set.  Or maybe not.  Beyond Weinstein’s documented bad behavior, there is no evidence that he was abusive towards Fiorentino.  But it might help explain why she chose to leave Hollywood

Flailing in the 21st Century

Fiorentino kicked off the twenty-first century with a flurry of movie roles. First she appeared opposite Kevin Spacey and Colin Farrell in the heist movie, Ordinary Decent Criminal.  Then she had a supporting role in Mike Nichols’ sci-fi comedy, What Planet Are You From?  That was the most high-profile project Fiorentino had been involved with since Men In Black and unfortunately it was a massive bomb.

Fiorentino ended the year by starring opposite Paul Newman and Dermot Mulroney in the crime comedy, Where the Money Is.  Newman played a bank robber who faked a stroke.  Fiorentino portrayed his nurse who figures out he is faking.  Together, they plan a robbery.

Where the Money Is received mixed reviews and flopped at the box office.

In 2001, Fiorentino was supposed to star opposite Ben Kingsley in a Georgia O’Keefe biopic titled Till the End of Time.  The project got scrapped when the actress balked at the nude scenes that were written into the script.  (Recall she volunteered to do nude scenes in The Last Seduction after being given an out.)  She was sued by the movie’s German producer, but the suit was dropped a year later.

Fiorentino claimed that she had agreed to some nudity in the picture, but the script went far beyond what the story called for.  In addition to filming sex scenes with Kingsley, Fiorentino would have been seen masterbating on a rock.  She claims the producer also demanded that she wear Marlene Dietrich’s unwashed silk panties which he had Fed-Exed to Germany.  Fiorentino objected to the historical accuracy of these scenes. Her research into Georgia O’Keefe did not include Marlene Dietrich’s under-garments.

When the lawsuits were dropped, Fiorentino commented, “You have rights, as an artist and as a woman.  It’s not as if I didn’t agree to do some nudity. But they crossed the line. It was a question of integrity.”

fiorentino - liberty stands
Linda Fiorentino – Liberty Stands Still – 2002

In 2002, Fiorentino starred opposite Wesley Snipes in the thriller, Liberty Stands Still. She played an executive at a company that manufactures guns.  Snipes played a war hero who lost his daughter in a school shooting.  He takes Fiorentino hostage to teach her a lesson about gun control.  And yes, her character’s name is Liberty and she stands still because she is handcuffed to a bench.

Liberty Stands Still premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival where it received mostly negative reviews.  Snipes and Fiorentino were praised for their performances, but critics didn’t care for the movie they were starring in.  Liberty was intended to receive a theatrical release but was released direct-to video instead.

Fiorentino did not make another movie for seven years.

An Odd Footnote

In 2008, Fiorentino was involved in a bizarre situation.  She was dating former FBI agent Mark Rossini who was arrested for prying into confidential files on a private investigator to the stars.  Fiorentino was working on a screenplay about the investigator who had been convicted of using illegal wire taps.

Allegedly, Fiorentino put Rossini up to the break-in as research for her screenplay.

fiorentino - once more with feeling
Linda Fiorentino – Once More With Feeling – 2009

Fiorentino briefly came out of retirement the following year when she reunited with her Jade co-star, Chaz Palminteri, for the karaoke-themed middle-age drama, Once More With Feeling.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t much of a comeback.

So, what the hell happened?

Well, Fiorentino definitely stopped working.  How much of that was personal choice, we’ll never know.  Aside from the critical acclaim from The Last Seduction and the overall success of Men In Black, her career never really gained all that much momentum.  Even if she wasn’t difficult to work with, it’s likely her career would have cooled off anyway.

Whether she was actually difficult to work with or not, there is no denying she had a reputation for being difficult.  Kevin Smith spent years trashing the actress to anyone who would listen.  And it’s not hard to imagine Harvey Weinstein black-listing her as he had so many other women who had spurned him.

Was Fiorentino difficult to work with?  There really isn’t a lot of evidence to suggest she was.  At least, no worse than your typical Hollywood leading lady. But those rumors are persistent.  When you hear a rumor often enough, you start to believe it.

Putting that aside, Fiorentino rose to fame in a genre that was already dying out.  Erotic thrillers peaked in popularity in the early ’90s and quickly became direct-to-video fodder.  She was able to find some work outside of steamy crime stories, but aside from Men in Black most of her work wasn’t seen by the mainstream.  Eventually, she reached a point where the work she was able to get just wasn’t worth doing and she decided to hang up her spurs.

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Shemp
10 years ago

I sense echoes of Michael Keaton and Kim Basinger — they both did good work(s), then for one reason or another did not “follow-up” their triumphs with something equally good or better. Or, as you eloquently suggest above, even if Linda F WAS NOT indeed “difficult,” her career was likely to “cool off” anyway because she was in LOTS of mediocre and/or little-seen movies following her acclaimed turn in “Last Seduction.”. (Btw, I thought “Acting On Impulse” was lots of fun!)
So, I guess she’s “retired” from the movie biz..?

RB
RB
10 years ago

Maybe it’s a different sort of Hollywood double standard that has affected her career. So many bad movies… and so many roles just this side of porn..this probably contributed to her not exactly becoming a household name despite working as much as she did, and despite being so attractive…..there are probably too many other gorgeous actresses that could be called for more mainstream fare.

Shemp
10 years ago
Reply to  RB

re: RB: I’m not disagreeing with you…as with Keaton and Basinger, when an actor stars in SEVERAL bad/bomb/direct-to-DVD-mediocrities, they become “identified” with same. Look at how DeNiro practically ruined his rep/virtual legend-hood with SO MANY crap/paycheck roles! At one time — oh, maybe 15 years ago — if DeNiro starred in a movie, many cinema-hounds would make a mental note to either see it or at least look into it…then he started appearing in SO many turkeys that many (or at least some) of his fans concluded if DeNiro is starring in it, it MUST be a turd…Nic Cage too,… Read more »

Shemp
10 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

re: Her Beyond the Law co-star, Charlie Sheen, continues getting chances to reinvent himself no matter how big he screws up.
YEAH, how ABOUT that? As a friend of mine once told me: “All the world loves an S.O.B.” (Note how Wall Street conman/scumbag Jordan Belfort did less than 3 years in jail and now he is a “motivational speaker” — and if you check out the comment/message-boards at the movie’s IMDB page, you’ll find a few “Well, gosh, Belfort wasn’t SUCH a bad guy, really”-type posts!)

Wade Sickler
8 years ago
Reply to  RB

When did she have a movie role, muchless so many movie roles, “just this side of porn?” In your first sentence you said she may be a victim of a Hollywood double standard, then you stereotyped her with a double standard of your own choosing. Do you see that?

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

I don’t know for sure if this is really Linda Fiorentino’s Twitter account (since it isn’t verified as of now), but I really would like to know her “side of the story” (for why her career died down and of course what really happened between her and Kevin Smith) like many others:
https://twitter.com/lfiorentino999

Jake
Jake
10 years ago

“Over the years, Smith has transitioned from a promising film maker into a public speaker who is better known for his feuds than his movies.”
Smith has also become known for being George Lucas’s main a$$-kisser, as his lame defense of the Star Wars prequels show.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)
Reply to  Jake
Jake
Jake
10 years ago

Oh, yeah! He actually thinks Revenge of the Sith is as great a tragedy as “Othello.” That is funnier than most of his films.

RB
RB
10 years ago

Charlie Sheen (incidentally that was funny Lebeau) can you imagine his WTHH? Lebeau would have to quit his job, and it would be “WTHH to Charlie Sheen… Parts 1-20”

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)
Reply to  lebeau

The thing w/ Charlie Sheen is that he for all intents and purposes (and I’m assuming Sheen himself is pretty aware of this), has become a caricature of himself. It isn’t like for example, his character on “Two and a Half Men” was that far removed from the real Charlie Sheen. It’s funny that three cast members of “Major League” (Tom Berenger, Rene Russo, and Wesley Snipes”) as thus far, gotten a WTHHT retrospect. It seems like that movie is giving the 1989-1997 Batman film series a “run for its money”.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)
Reply to  lebeau

Career killing decisions by celebrities: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=7828730&postcount=13 Someone like Charlie Sheen threw away his movie career with all his partying, drinking and snorting. He was on such a high after Wall Street, Platoon and Major League, and then starting making one bad movie after another. Hell, he even got to work with Clint Eastwood and it turned out to be one of Eastwood’s worst movies as a director. I guess you could say career-wise that Sheen made more money on Two and a Half Men then he ever could’ve in the movies, but the film career trajectory pretty much ended. Same… Read more »

Craig Hansen
Craig Hansen
10 years ago

You’re right to an extent about Willis, though it’s obvious Willis’ starpower is fading real fast now. Even his gold-standard franchise, Die Hard, got severely damaged because the last one was just an awful turkey (and that comes from a guy who loves the earlier Die Hard films). He’s in show-up-for-the-paycheck-mode now, and everyone can see it. That doesn’t bode well for his future career.

jeffthewildman
10 years ago
Reply to  Craig Hansen

Yeah. But Willis has proven his chops over the years. We can only hope he focuses more on that and less on the paycheck roles.

Craig Hansen
Craig Hansen
10 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

Does anybody remember last year when Sly Stallone said of Willis that he is “GREEDY AND LAZY…….. A SURE FORMULA FOR CAREER FAILURE”? Word is he was offered 3 Million for 4 days of work on Expendables 3, but he demanded 4 Million instead. It looks like Willis was expendable after all….. It won’t be long before Willis earns his own WTTH story, right Lebeau?

Martin
Martin
2 years ago

I think the crazy money Sheen got from “Two and a Half Men” helped tank his career, went to his head… Sheen was one of my favourite actors in movies.

Beyond the Law is one of my favourite movies, had a real gritty feel to it and showed what a long time being undercover can do to a person. Sheen was also great in Platoon, The Arrival, The Rookie, Major League and Cadence.

Dar
Dar
10 years ago

I recall seeing “The Last Seduction” in the theaters and being blown away by how awesome it was. I too was going through my “indie movies” phase then. It helped too that Fiorentino looked like a girl in my high school class then that I had a crush on. But looking at her career it’s obvious that “The Last Seduction” was a fluke in an otherwise unremarkable sub-par career. ====== Incidentally, “After Hours” was great! It has a dreamy atmosphere. Plus it’s kind of wish fulfillment: What man stuck in a boring life hasn’t dream of one day going out… Read more »

Shemp
10 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

INTERESTING entry, Mr. Clay! The above EXPLAINS PERFECTLY why she’s not been in nearly anything since ’07!
In the world of music, Ms. Linda F would be termed a “one-hit wonder” — one sizable/indie hit film with PLENTY of acclaim (I recall an Esquire article about her!) but she never came close to repeating it. She done lotsa mediocre movies, though…

jay kay
jay kay
9 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

Excuse me? Evidently you didn’t hear all the horror stories surrounding Fiorentino; because she hit her peak before the internet really came around (and also because the studios were foolish enough to assume that she was a ‘big star’) – she was ‘protected’ by the media – the problem is that Fiorentino would not only tick off all the ‘small fry’ but he’d go out of her way to upset the director and her co-stars, some of whom were bigger than her! Heck, I even read an article in Empire magazine (dated 1994) where the interviewer brought up the subject… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)
Reply to  lebeau

I’m not necessarily saying that this is total validation of what Kevin Smith said about Linda Fiorentiono, but I find it interesting that Smith also worked with Shannen Doherty, (on Mallrats) who got fired from both Beverly Hills 90210 and Charmed for being difficult to work with. And yet, Smith has for all I can tell, been on very good terms of her.

daffystardust
Editor
9 years ago
Reply to  jay kay

Sorry, but if you think playing a character you have a lot in common with doesn’t count as acting, then you don’t know much about acting. Or maybe you’re just falling into a bad argument because you’re worked up. It’s called “personality acting” and it is what most actors do most of the time.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)
Reply to  lebeau

Not to long ago, I brought the subject of what went wrong with Linda Fiorention’s career on Quora. In regards to the allegations that Kevin Smith made about Linda, it’s hard (depending on your point of view) the imagine how something like Dogma could’ve seriously had a negative impact on her career. I mean, the film itself was a relatively low budget affair, which was barely acknowledged at the box office when it was released. And even if Kevin Smith’s complaints about Linda were in fact true or have some merit, his complaints were oddly vague though. Apparently, she wasn’t… Read more »

Joboots
Joboots
10 years ago

Let bid Linda a happy 56th today!!!!

Pasta
Pasta
9 years ago

Well, unfortunately she did not age well. Hollywood is a bit of an evil monster. She went from a budding star who was a P.I.T.A. to a character actress with fading looks. Maybe she doesn’t need the money.

spy
spy
9 years ago

I really miss her. There’s a plenty of serials nowadays and i’d like to see her starring in some of that serial(s).

Nick J
Nick J
9 years ago

Being a fan of Fiorentino, I’ve done a little web digging into her career, and I have a few bits I can add. In regards to MIB II, I uncovered an interview done with Barry Sonnenfeld and he was directly asked why Fiorentino wasn’t in the sequel. Sonnenfeld said that while he loved the character, the movie had to have Jones and Smith as it’s leads. He felt that having Laurel Weaver around would turn her into a 3rd wheel (And this makes sense, as Fiorentino is the lead female role of the 1st film, but really doesn’t play an… Read more »

Steven Hamilton
9 years ago

I know Linda and she’s never been difficult or acted like a bitch or pain in the ass that I know of. I’ve never even heard anyone else say any of those things in real life, only here and there on the internet.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

In light of recent events, it’s pretty save to assume that Linda like fellow WTHHT subjects Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd may have gotten “(Harvey) Weinsteined”. Dogma was a Harvey Weinstein production and the working conditions may not have been ideal for a rising actress, who was being feted as a sex symbol. It was after-all, the right era, and she was an actress who was somewhat known for being willing to remove her clothes for a role. And if she told him no, it’s pretty likely that he torpedoed her career.

shitbrick
shitbrick
9 years ago

bruce willis does not have drawing power his last hit 07 die hard he had flops after that sin city 2 flopped latest last die hard movie flopped he is not really that big of a draw. Iam surprised he is not on the website. nic cage jim carrery eddie murphy robin williams (when he was alive any ways) john travolta all are bigger draws them him there movies gross more then him and all of there recent movies still do better then bruce yet how bruce is not in this list baffles me. bruce bar none had more flops… Read more »

Steve Sailer
Steve Sailer
9 years ago

Nic Cage is a Coppola and Coppolas like spending money on the scale of a Renaissance prince. There’s a scene in the documentary about making “Apocalypse Now” where Francis Ford Coppola explains, “I want every moment of my life to be magnificent!”

Wade Sickler
9 years ago

Oh one of my biggest crushes growing up. I know that she didn’t like the movie business and she sabotaged her movie career, but I don’t think she cared a bit. And again, one of my biggest crushes during my teen years.

Andymovieman
Andymovieman
9 years ago

Hey Lebeau I noticed you’re talking about Linda fiorentino and her movies. And I will have to say men in black and now Jade happen to be my two favorites. You should rate jade and every one of William friedkins films on a scale from 1-10. Jade and To live and die in LA are the two best Friedkin films with great car chases par to the French connection.

perculatinggenius
8 years ago

I knew Linda in HS before she became a star. I didn’t know her well, or really personally at all, but I was in one of her classes. I’m gonna give anyone who visits this thread, if ever, a clue about Linda, Linda’s running the show with her life, and she makes no bones about it. She probably didn’t get the opportunities she wanted, had money, and said fuck it. Like in some of her roles, she was no, and probably still isn’t, a pushover. Kevin Smith probably got on her bad side. That isn’t the point with her career,… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Linda Fiorentiono seems like an actress who peaked in the wrong era. She had an edginess about her that may have felt more at home had she been around a decade earlier.

JediJones
JediJones
2 years ago

Yeah, I mean, if you are surprised that someone from Philly would be pissed off at the things she complained to Kevin Smith about, you don’t know Philly very well. They are no-nonsense people who don’t have any patience for any sort of unfairness. That’s their baseline. Linda’s interpretation of what was going on may not have been completely accurate, but if you understand where she’s coming from, you could easily handle her complaints and make her happy.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Category: Hidden Treasures Created on Thursday, 11 December 2014 14:43 Written by George Rother http://www.movieguy247.com/iMovies/index.php/blog/hidden-treasures/2413-gotcha This is going way back, but who remembers the assassination game that students used to play on college campuses? It was called “TAG” (as in the 1982 action-thriller TAG: The Assassination Game) the idea was for the players to perform mock “hits” using paintball guns. It’s this game that provided the basis for Gotcha!, a surprisingly entertaining blend of teen sex comedy and espionage thriller from the director of Revenge of the Nerds (1984). Nerds co-star Anthony Edwards plays Jonathan Moore, a virginal freshman at… Read more »

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