Like so many actors before him, Charlie Sheen has been axed from the show he thought was utterly his. Or utterly about him. Turns out, after a noisy week of TV, radio and Twitter declarations regarding his mental and physical health, the highest paid actor in television is no longer employed by “Two and a Half Men.”
As the announcement of the firing by Warner Bros. went public, attention shifted away from onscreen diagnoses of Sheen to the possible future of the sitcom (“One and a Half Men”?). Chatter about Sheen’s well-advertised drug, prostitute, mania and rehab lifestyle gave way to remembrances of past TV stars whose careers ended abruptly.
On the bad behavior list, Shannon Doherty springs to mind: a tough-to-handle personality who jumped or was pushed from “Beverly Hills 90210.” She had grand plans that never quite materialized.
Remember David Caruso, who quit “NYPD Blue” to become a movie star? The big screen never embraced him. Only years later was his career resuscitated on TV.
Ditto Farrah Fawcett, who left “Charlie’s Angels” with the same sort of never-happened film career in mind? And Suzanne Somers, who thought she was bigger than “Three’s Company”?
Might “Two and a Half Men” pull a “Bewitched” and simply switch actors in the same role, the way Dick Sargeant stepped into Dick York’s part without missing a beat?
While lawsuits loom, we’ll stay tuned.
