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Young Hollywood’s Last Party
Is the media murdering our most talented movie stars?
James Dean starred in East of Eden (1955).
James Byron Dean, 1931-1955
Films Include:Rebel Without a Cause (1955), East of Eden (1955), Giant (1956).
Cause of Death: Car crash. Age: 24.
River Jude Phoenix, 1970-1993
Films Include:Stand By Me (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), My Own Private Idaho (1991).
Cause of Death: Drug-induced heart failure. Age: 23.
Brad Barron Renfro, 1982-2008
Films Include:The Client (1994), Sleepers (1996), Ghost World (2001).
Cause of Death: Acute heroin intoxication. Age: 25.
Heath Andrew Ledger, 1979-2008
Films Include:Monster’s Ball (2001), Brokeback Mountain (2005), The Dark Knight (2008).
Cause of Death: Overdose of prescription drugs. Age: 28.
There’s no shortage of obituaries like these. Chris Farley, 33, speedball overdose. Jonathan Brandis, 27, suicide by hanging. Chris Penn, 40, heart disease exacerbated by drugs. Anna Nicole Smith, 39, overdose of prescription drugs.
It’s a sobering list that raises critical questions: What causes a rising star to abruptly decline and fall? Is it partly the effect of modern-day media hype via blogs, Websites, ‘zines, cablevision, you name it? Are the pressures of fame—YouTube embarrassments, TMZ headlines, 24/7/365 journalism, shameless paparazzi and the rest—especially hazardous to the psychological health of twentysomething celebs like Ledger and Phoenix, who play the game for a while but then abruptly self-destruct? Or is this just the traditional price of fame with a few contemporary twists?
One insider who takes the traditional-price-of-fame view is James Schamus, the head of Focus Features and producer of such films as Brokeback Mountain and The Ice Storm. “In many ways,” he says, “the pressures of working in Hollywood are basically the same as they’ve been for a long time and they’re not so particular to Hollywood either.” What is different is the specific form the pressures currently take. “I’ve worked with a lot of young stars in my day,” Schamus continues, “and the vast majority are every bit as professional and hard-working and sane and together as anybody else. But the technologies of gossip have ramped things up and I think you have to be more vigilant and tougher-skinned than you probably ever did before… It takes extra will power and discipline to avoid getting caught up, but a lot of [celebrities] do avoid it and others [have serious problems] but then figure out a way to move on. In those cases [the media] doesn’t pay attention.”
Beneath the buzz touched off by every new tragedy, it’s certain that the celebrity spotlight is shining on young stars more brightly—and blindingly—than ever before. The tabloids have never been more tabloidy and even “respectable” news sources think nothing of starting a story with a sensationalistic spin. “Amy Winehouse drives another nail in the coffin that is her career,” shrieks a headline on MercuryNews.com, reporting that a YouTube video shows the “drug-abusing, whacked-out” singer spewing racial epithets near a table strewn with drug paraphernalia, then “snoring loudly” on a sofa after passing out. Earlier this year the TV show “Entertainment Tonight” reported that 15-year-old Miley Cyrus had done a topless photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair and The New York Times soon put a picture on its Website. This sounds scandalous until you see the shot: Cyrus is covered with a bedsheet and the only bare body part is her back. The titillating report was clearly cooked up to capitalize on voyeuristic lust for revealing glimpses of very young girls.
Brouhahas like these point to the fact that young celebrities can’t consider themselves “safe” from exploitation in any media venue, even supposedly reputable ones. “It’s become possible for tabloid-style items to find their way into formerly more upscale venues such as The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair and the NBC Nightly News, to give just a few cases,” says Murray Pomerance, a Ryerson University sociologist whose books include Johnny Depp Starts Here and An Eye for Hitchcock. “Tabloid coverage now seems to be virtually everywhere, becoming not only a media genre but also—and more importantly—a way of doing business in the media.
“Since celebrities come equipped with worldwide recognition, no work is needed to pump up the appeal of a story; it’s packaged automatically… and at no cost. So we see more and more stories on a wild variety of subjects, each one selling advertising more efficiently than stories ever have before. The net effect of this is that coverage now focuses on absolutely any aspect of a celebrity’s [image], since the identity of the celebrity alone is sufficient to sell the story.” Add in the fact that media outlets have a “constant demand for a huge volume of material,” and you have the recipe for All Celebrity Scandal All the Time, no more fair and balanced than a Vegas pole-dance extravaganza.
Still, every case has its own dynamics and generalizations are hard to come by. “There’s a vast difference between a Ledger or Phoenix on one hand and Amy Winehouse or Lindsay Lohan on the other,” says Thelma Adams, film and DVD critic for US Weekly. “Ledger was an incredibly talented, malleable actor who had fewer skills on the stage of real life. His death was a tragedy because it was so obviously unintended—he messed up the mix, he didn’t intend to leave his family behind. He wasn’t hounded by the press so much as bored to tears by the relentless tedium of having to answer the same questions over and over again when junketing for a film. For many actors, acting isn’t work, promoting the movie is.”
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by celebrity fashion on 4/09/09 at 6:15 am
really great information. thanks for sharing…
- Comment by Nevada Drug Rehab centers on 4/09/10 at 7:33 am
I don’t know what makes a young celebrity to fall down after they had a quick rise. Perhaps they can’t deal with being famous, all of a sudden they draw too much attention and they simply can’t handle it. They get criticized and judged by thousands of people, everything is happening in a very short time so it’s no wonder they get overwhelmed. Too bad they don’t realize that using drugs won’t make them feel any better or neither they’ll have their problems vanished by them. Drug usage draws more problems, throwing their lives apart in the end.
- Comment by Florida Drug Rehab on 6/23/11 at 10:58 pm
I would never want anyone to have to go through any type of addiction. I only want the best for those around me. I hope that anyone struggling through an addiction can find help through a great Florida drug rehab before anything terrible happens.
- Comment by Elizabeth88 on 7/28/11 at 5:20 pm
In young Hollywood we have all heard the influences of drugs and alcohol and it can go from bad to worse. There are some that want to change their ways and want to make a new life for themselves and I hope that others going through the same way would decide to get help as well. A long term drug rehab treatment can help turn your life around.
This story was published in the Summer 2008 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Hollywood Then and Now
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