Every now and then an e-mail comes in about some celebrity expressing astonishment that they ever got famous to begin with. This often happens after someone passes away and the media seems to overindulge in an extended mourning.
I do get the question, though.
For example, today, TCM wasted hours on one celebrity: Debbie Reynolds.
Movie after movie, film after film. And she really does not have a lot of films worth watching. Nor is she herself worth watching as she gives the same performance over and over and, most importantly, since she's so unattractive.
Long before I was born, she was married to Eddie Fisher and he left her for Elizabeth Taylor which became one of the big stories of the 50s. Confusing to me because the fact that he or any man would leave Debbie seems less news and more obvious.
She's a boner killer.
That giggly, little girl at 40-plus? That face. And, yes, that body.
Sometimes, I'm surprised because she'll look almost pretty (SINGING IN THE RAIN). Often that results from her hair looking natural or close to it. But even when she's almost pretty, there's still that line between her and pretty that she can't cross.
Late in life, that's not an issue -- when she's playing Bobbie Adler on WILL & GRACE or Albert Brook's mother in MOTHER -- but when she's being cast in films where men like Frank Sinatra, Glenn Ford, Dick Van Dyke, etc are enthralled with her.
Her face is too thick and her eyes are too close for me -- and I don't mean wide cheekbones that taper off as you move towards the jaw, I mean she looks like she has the mumps and her lower face is about to explode.
This is all before my times, but I'll read something about how, for instance, Barbra Streisand was considered iffy for films because of her looks and I'll just be puzzled. Barbra's to great eyes, great lips and a beautiful face. She's also got a nice body and she comes across as very sensual onscreen -- yes, in THE WAY WE WERE but check out her chemistry with Ryan O'Neal in both WHAT'S UP DOC? and THE MAIN EVENT or the heat between her and Jeff Bridges in THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES.
As an elderly performer and a character actress, Debbie's inability to leave the box of her own character -- she never seems to interact with others in most scenes -- is often funny.
Shoving that into a leading lady slot in the 50s and 60s? I don't know how they got away with it.
