Today's Blind Items - The Horror

This actor was not A list at his peak but he was in a number of starring roles in studio films often appearing with A+ stars.  One day this run suddenly ended and the actor seemingly overnight went from roles like in a film featuring a number of elderly actors from Hollywood’s golden age and a film by an A director which copied a certain film by this permanent A+ director to straight to video films and TV shows. In the following decade, he had a role on a soap opera. Currently, he mostly does voice work.  He has also tried his hand at music.

The reason why the actor dropped down a notch or several was due to an incident and its aftermath which occurred during his last over the marquee cinematic release. This was part of a franchise that has a lot of installments.  The deceased director/creator of the franchise was not directing this installment but was on set as he was the co-screenwriter of the film.  This director had a bad reputation with young girls although he was largely free from criticism during his lifetime.  The actor caught the director on set in a compromising position with an 11 year old girl and did what would be natural - punched the director and called the police. However, the Hollywood machine quickly jumped into action telling police the actor was delusional and making sure the 11 year old girl was nowhere to be found.

The studio called a meeting with the actor and told him if he completed the film which was almost finished, they would come clean to authorities about the director and make sure he was prosecuted.  The actor agreed but once the film was finished he discovered the studio took no action against the director who would go on to make many more films and in fact have another successful franchise. At the same time, the actor’s own career dried up and he received no offers for similar level films to the ones he’d been making.

At this point, the actor decided to go to the press. He went to a reporter he knew. However, the reporter was on the take from the studio and reported what they they’d been told by the actor. What followed was a clumsy “accident” that failed to harm the actor at all.  The actor then had another meeting with the studio and advised them that he knew the name of the 11 year old girl and a few other victims of the director and had written them down in a manuscript which was hidden away under lock and key only to appear if anything further was to happen him. The studio backed off and even ended up paying the actor a monthly stipend which continues to this day.