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Post by proper stranger on Jul 19, 2006 16:57:36 GMT -4
I love Robert and am glad that he seems to have gotten his life back together, hopefully for good this time. He's so gifted.
I put aside my Ally McBeal hatred for him. He was great in Chaplin, Less Than Zero, The Singing Detective, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and pretty much everything I've seen him in. I have a soft spot for Only You, too.
Sleepy, whenever Bravo reruns his Actor's Studio episode, you should definitely check it out. He's as weird and funny as always. His wife was in the audience and Lipton asked her if she thought Robert was weird when they first met. She answered, "I still think he's weird!"
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bitsygirl
Landed Gentry
Posts: 702
Jul 20, 2005 13:34:53 GMT -4
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Post by bitsygirl on Jul 19, 2006 17:26:59 GMT -4
Weird is good. Unless it's Tom Cruise weird then it's less good.
I'm glad he finally seems to have got his life in order and hope it sticks. I think he's very talented too.
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Post by Ginger on Jul 19, 2006 17:39:25 GMT -4
When I saw this thread, I thought he was getting divorced. Next time, then.
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Post by Wol on Jul 19, 2006 18:44:53 GMT -4
If he was in any other industry, nobody would put up with his druggie behavior, but Hollywood just keeps giving him chance after chance, and time and time again he keeps blowing it. I'll go you one further and say it has been my opinion for many years that the fact that the industry kept giving him chance after chance was enabling him to continue using. The only way a junkie will even consider recovery is when they hit bottom, and it's pretty hard to recognize bottom when you keep getting jobs and making money and working with people like Curtis Hanson and Michael Douglas. I hold his agents (there have been many over the years) very responsible for keeping him strung out. Everybody was turning themselves inside out to get him insured and hire minders for him on set, when some tough love and "no one will work with you anymore" threats might have helped him get clean before he had to do jail time. I know for a fact Michael Douglas and Sean Penn both staged interventions for him, but apparently no one had the guts to tell him his career was over until he stopped. And part of that problem is that, in the beginning, he only used when he was NOT working. He used to stay clean during filming because he LOVES to work and he was terrified of the down time between jobs (a lot of theories about that, the most poignant I heard, from one of his agents, is that he is only happy in character and miserable when he just has to be Bob). Sorry for the rant. I think he is beautiful and so gifted and I met him at the depths of his using and it broke my heart to see him that way, and I also believe the entertainment industry eats its own and a lot of people made money off of him while he was sick, and that breaks my heart, too.
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jdkwfan4ever
Sloane Ranger
Posts: 2,655
Jan 28, 2005 14:59:05 GMT -4
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Post by jdkwfan4ever on Jul 19, 2006 18:47:45 GMT -4
Chance Are is one of my guilty pleasures.
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jenedreamer
Guest
May 5, 2024 21:35:13 GMT -4
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Post by jenedreamer on Jul 19, 2006 19:00:08 GMT -4
I think part of the problem was also that he always showed up for work and seemed to function well enough when he was strung out. I remember reading bunches of quotes from directors who talked about how impressed they were that he would always show up and do his work and do it well. I think it got to the point where the majority of people in the industry didn't want to work with him, but it had nothing to do with helping him get clean, it was simply to save their own asses.
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Post by kostgard on Jul 19, 2006 19:03:37 GMT -4
I completely agree. Just like everyone tells the bobble-headed starlet who has dieted down to skeletal sizes that she "looks great" and every agent cover his client's stupid actions that land him in the hospital with the "it's exhaustion" excuse and everyone on the set bends over backwards for these people. They may say that it is the privledge that celebs earn for being so fabulous, but really, they aren't doing them any favors. At all.
But I am glad that RD Jr seems to have been able to move past the coddling (didn't they even let him out of jail to do Ally McBeal or something like that?) and get his act together. He seems to be doing well and I hope he can maintain it.
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swanflake
Guest
May 5, 2024 21:35:13 GMT -4
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Post by swanflake on Jul 19, 2006 19:38:27 GMT -4
Sorry, but I think he's pathetic. If he was in any other industry, nobody would put up with his druggie behavior, but Hollywood just keeps giving him chance after chance, and time and time again he keeps blowing it. So he had a less-than-perfect childhood-yeah, get in line, Robert! I'm sick of him using that as an excuse to still do drugs a good 30 years later. He needs to grow up already. SpinsterLiz, I agree with you and Wol. The way Robert has often talked about his drug abuse has bugged me. In interviews he's been quite candid and has opened up and "taken responsibility" for his actions, and then he usually got credit for admitting he has a problem and talking about it, like he was so humble or whatever. And I think that was giving him way too much credit too many times. Admitting it is the first step, it's not the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and so on. I think he's bordered on playing a character the way he would act about it. Like he's the misunderstood kind hearted gentlemen whose made a few mistakes and has the courage to admit it to the world. I even remember one time on "The View" when he was singing and he messed up at the beginning of the song, so he stopped and, with a big smile on his face, said they had to start over. Even that came off to me as another display of "Look, I'm overcoming my mistake and I'm not embarrassed at all. Aren't you proud of me?" Oh, and I think he's a horrible musician, by the way. And I don't have particularly discriminating taste in singers.
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thecupcakekid
Guest
May 5, 2024 21:35:13 GMT -4
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Post by thecupcakekid on Jul 19, 2006 20:30:16 GMT -4
I don't see why he's gotten so many chances. I was furious when they let him out of prison to work, and always annoyed when he got off with a slap on the wrist. Yeah, the dude's got talent. I love Chaplin. But he doesn't deserve all the chances he's gotten. It's like he knows no matter what he does it won't matter because he'll be working again in a year or so. The clincher for me was when he was in jail (finally) and I think it was Jodie Foster had one of those AFI Lifetime Achievement dinners and he filmed something for her from jail and sent it, making all sorts of jokes about how he was in prison. Everyone was just laughing with this sort of, "Oh, Robert, what a card" sort of attitude about it. Like he's cute for being a screw up.
I love a documentary he did at the Democratic National Convention in 1991 or 1992. It was really funny, but you could see how damned screwed up the guy was.
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kafka
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May 5, 2024 21:35:13 GMT -4
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Post by kafka on Jul 21, 2006 0:47:41 GMT -4
Sorry for the rant. I think he is beautiful and so gifted and I met him at the depths of his using and it broke my heart to see him that way, and I also believe the entertainment industry eats its own and a lot of people made money off of him while he was sick, and that breaks my heart, too. I agree with every word you said, Wol. But a small part of me wonders about how much blame should be apportioned to his handlers or those around him, as opposed to him. Someone upthread commented about how he was happiest when disappearing into a role; that makes me think he's not happy within his own skin, and needs or needed the drugs to escape. It makes me feel badly for him, but clearly a huge portion of the blame is on his head. But is it 80/20? 65/35 in favour of the handlers who may have exacerbated a mild problem? Or 65/35 in terms of his inability to face life unless he could escape, whether in a role or through drugs? That doesn't mean people around him weren't terrible enablers who didn't use him and then spit him out. I have absolutely NO doubt that they did that. But I have to wonder if they magnified a small problem into a situation where he couldn't function without tons of the hardest stuff; or if he did that all by himself, and the handlers just placated him thereafter? On a slightly tangential note, I want to make clear that my love for him is purely because of his talent and that I'm not minimising his drug issues. As someone who has never touched drugs and is very disdainful (if not contemptuous) of those who have a habit, I know my love for him is utterly illogical and hypocritical. I suppose I simply separate his talent and the characters he plays from his real life and his escapades. I truly can't think of *one* performance where I didn't think he was amazing. Wol, if it's not too prying, how did you meet him, how bad was he at the time, and what was the attitude you witnessed of people around him to his condition?
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