TV stars who were fired?

Did anybody mention Michael Pitt from "Boardwalk Empire" ? And actually, Paz de la Huerta from that show as well

 

I also have read things to the effect that his mom was a "stage mother" and the producers were sick of dealing with her.

 

Actually, he said "I don't give a f***".

 

His mom was extremely hot back in the day; she had a bit role in 1955's The Big Combo, the gal who gets killed by mistake.

 

seems like he was on the brink of really making it too

 

Wasn't one of the guys who did the voices for The Beatles cartoon show in the sixties fired?

 

I dunno if I told this story already, but Ken Swofford (a fine character actor) was fired from the 1980s TV series Fame after yelling at producers on camera. Sad incident. He was technically correct: they had given him permission to take 3 weeks off to do a feature film role, then rescinded it at the last minute, saying he had a part in an episode that week. He reluctantly cancelled the feature project, came in for the day, and then discovered he only had one scene which could've been shot in half an hour. Once the scene was shot, Swofford gave a blistering dressing-down to the producers while the cameras were rolling... and he was gone by the next week. During dailies, they had us take down the film and hand it in a can to the producers, so that little moment is never going to be seen by anybody.

I can recall coming in for the second season of the NBC Fred Savage series Working, only to discover they had fired and replaced half the cast. What I liked about how they did it is that they made that a part of the opening scene, so they acknowledged it was weird, and then got past it.

There are all kinds of stories about actors who come and go from shows. What's interesting to me is when an actor and a showrunner butt heads, and the actor goes to the network and says, "which one of us is easiest to replace?" You find out real fast who has the most power. And there have been many situations where actors were "quit/fired," where both sides agreed things weren't working out and the actor was replaced; Dick York on Bewitched was a good example, since his pain-pill addiction and health problems were causing issues on the set.

 

I had some inside knowledge about his situationon "BE" ...he was "pretty difficult"....I'll leave it at that

 

I'm still bewildered by Dick Van Dyke's unceremonious departure from The Carol Burnett Show after barely half a season. (He had joined for the final year to more or less replace Harvey Korman.) What I've read is Van Dyke left by mutual agreement because it "wasn't working out." ?????

 

Maybe I heard this wrong, or simply misunderstood, but I thought it was whoever she worked for or was representing her (not the studio) that wanted more money. That group was then out of the picture and she was collateral damage. Did I get that wrong?

 

Gretchen was under contract to Universal, they wanted more money, Cherokee Productions would not give an increase and she was fired. She never told her agent or anyone else she wanted more money.

 

I knew it wasn't her that wanted the increase, I just didn't know who was pushing for it. Truly an unfortunate out come.
I was a huge fan of the show and enjoyed her character. I certainly missed her after she left.

 

In first season of the animated series The Real Ghostbusters Lorenzo Music was the voice of Peter Venkman (played by Bill Murray in the movie). Music was let go because he sounded like Garfield (who Music also voiced) and he was replaced by Dave Coulier.

P. S. In the "live action" Garfield movies Garfield was voiced by Bill Murray.

 

People blame Q5 for why Lorenzo was replaced, but they had nothing to do with it. Even if Q5 didn't get involved, replacing Lorenzo would have been inevitable anyways.

 

Yes, what happened was Dick joined the show (after his new sitcom had failed), but instead of the CAROL BURNETT SHOW ratings going up, they kept going down! Both Dick and Carol were puzzled and upset about it, and I think Dick voluntarily agreed to step down rather than cause the show any further damage. You could argue that it wasn't so much Dick's fault -- I think the comedy/variety format was dying by 1977 and nothing would ever really revive it. The extensive Wikipedia entry covers it pretty well:

The Carol Burnett Show - Wikipedia

 

I think losing Harvey Korman hurt the show considerably, no matter who replaced him. (By the way, I love "auto-fill" or whatever you call it. When I typed "Harvey," it then anticipated "Oswald" or "Weinstein.") The chemistry between Korman and Tim Conway was a big part of the show, and could not be replicated no matter who replaced Korman.

I haven't seen every episode Dick Van Dyke was in, but I have several on DVD (as well as the two where he guest-starred before becoming a regular) and while the chemistry was obviously different, it still seemed to work, such that it was. There is kind of an awkward running joke with Van Dyke dragging out guest star introductions and Burnett cutting him off. He had done a similar bit on "Van Dyke And Company."

 

As much magic as the original Three's Company cast had, I enjoy RF and Terri Alden. Three's Company has a 70s side and an 80s side and I enjoy both.

 

York badly injured his back whilst filming the western They Came to Codura in the late 1950's.

Wikipedia talks about York's back pain on the Bewitched set at some length;

During the first two seasons, York's back pain was manageable with the right accommodations, but by Season 3, the pain worsened considerably, frequently causing shooting delays and York requiring assistance to walk around. Because of his back injury, which sometimes caused him to seize up in debilitating pain, the scripts for some of his later episodes on Bewitched were written around his being in bed or on the couch for the entire episode. In spite of his suffering, York maintained a professional presence on camera.

While filming the fifth season-episode "Daddy Does His Thing", York fell ill: "I was too sick to go on. I had a temperature of 105, full of strong antibiotics, for almost 10 days. I went to work that day but I was sick. I lay in my dressing room after being in make-up, waiting to be called on the set. They knew I was feeling pretty rotten, and they tried to give me time to rest. I kept having chills. This was the middle of the summer and I was wearing a sheepskin jacket and I was chilling. I was shaking all over. Then, while sitting on a scaffolding with Maurice Evans, being lit for a special effects scene: They were setting an inky - that's a little tiny spot[light] that was supposed to be just flickering over my eyes. That flickering, flickering flickering made me feel weird. And I'm sitting on this platform up in the air...and I turned to Gibby, who was just down below, and I said, 'Gibby, I think I have to get down.' He started to help me down and that's the last thing I remember until I woke up on the floor. That's about all I remember of the incident...and I'd managed to bite a very large hole in the side of my tongue before they could pry my teeth apart."

From York's hospital bed, he and director William Asher discussed York's future. "Do you want to quit?" Asher asked. "If it's all right with you, Billy," York replied. With that, York left the sitcom to devote himself to recovery. He never again returned to the set.

York wasn't fired, he simply couldn't continue any more... it's a very sad story indeed; he went from being a top-earning star on a top-rated sitcom to being poor and unemployed, with a family to provide for (they even resorted to collecting cans for money!), and whacked out on painkillers all day... poor guy .

 

I always seemed to go to my doctor's office right after school. He had TV on that would broadcast soaps (Edge of Night, I think).
I vividly remember one soap stating and there was a banner across the bottom saying 'the part of ______________ will now be played by _________'. WTF
My mother was with me and we shared a quizzical look.

 

Who's RF? Oh, Ralph Furley? I like him too. Don Knotts is great to begin with, and he fit in well. There is an episode where the Ropers come back to visit, and somehow Furley accidentally ends up in bed with Mrs. Roper. That was pretty good.

I liked Jennilee Harrison as Cindy as well. Her role as the klutz meshed well with John Ritter's physical comedy.

But what went down with Suzanne Somers was really a shame, for it to end so acrimoniously.

 

After watching those 1960s Jackie Gleason shows with the "Color Honeymooners," I almost had a Twilight Zone moment when I first watched the 1970s specials which are similar (other than not being musicals, and Ralph being thinner and more tanned) -- when Audrey walked on as Alice, it was great to see her but felt like some bizarro universe.

 

She had just gotten married to a man who later was one of the producers of Sesame Street, as I recall. I think she only stayed for 15 episodes, not even the entire season.

 

May not have affected Todd's work, but it certainly affected his physical appearance - as the decade wore on, Todd had a bloated look (especially around the middle) which was typical of many with livers damaged by drinking.

 

well, most people really

 

She was represented by MCA and they wanted to charge quite a bit more for her to appear in the show. I don't know the figures but Corbett wasn't involved in the decision. It was Garner's production company and they were being nickle and dimed by Universal left and right as well. As I recall, Corbett didn't find about this until years later and, had she found out, she stated she would have figured out some way around the issue. She was under contract to Universal so it wasn't like she had a choice in the matter.