C. Thomas Howell

C. Thomas Howell (the "C." is an abbreviation of Christopher) is a former child star best known for his lead role as a young white man pretending to be black to get a minority scholarship to Harvard Law school in the 1986 comedy, Soul Man.




Howell was born in Los Angeles, California on December 7, 1966. He is son of a stuntman and rodeo rider. As a child, he was more interested in pursuing the rodeo circuit than in having an acting career. Howell traveled quite a bit with the rodeo and was named the California Junior Rodeo Association’s All Around Junior Boy’s Champion for 1980 and 1981.

His acting career began in television at the age of four, when he was a regular on the TV series Little People. In 1977 he had a minor role in the TV movie, It Happened One Christmas, a remake of the Christmas classic It's A Wonderful Life. Howell's next role was a minor one in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, one of the biggest box office hits of all time. After E.T., Howell landed choice roles in the hit movies The Outsiders and Red Dawn.

By the mid-1980s Howell must have felt like he was on Cloud 9. He had already appeared in several huge hit movies and was being offered many more top roles. He was also a teenage heartthrob, the object of affection of many young girls. In 1986 he acted in The Hitcher, a horror cult classic where a psychopathic hitchhiker antagonizes Howell while going on a killing spree along a highway in the southwest. Howell also landed his career-defining role as Mark Watson in the smash hit comedy, Soul Man.

In Soul Man, Howell played a young white male who was accepted into Harvard Law School, but had to pay his own way because his parents cut him off financially. When he was unable to secure private loans on his own, he decided to load up on tanning pills to fool everyone into thinking he was black so that he could secure a minority scholarship. I personally thought that Soul Man was very funny. It basically gave an over-the-top view of the black-white stereotypes. However, the black community did not take kindly to the humor, given that Howell wore black face make-up throughout the film.



Although Soul Man was a hit, garnering $27 million at the U.S. box office, it was Howell's last major role. His career quickly hit the skids and has yet to recover. Has appeared in many productions over the past 20 years, but none of them are choice roles. For example, he appeared in a War of the Worlds movie in 2005, but it wasn't the big hit in which Tom Cruise starred. He also appeared in a remake of The Poseidon Adventure in 2005. Again, it was not the big remake that hit theatres in 2006. Instead, it was a crappy made-for-TV movie that hardly anyone watched.

On the personal side, Howell married his Soul Man co-star, Rae Dawn Chong, in 1986. In 1990 they divorced. He later remarried his current wife, Sylvie Anderson, and now has three kids.

C. Thomas Howell was a big star in the mid-1980s and was very bankable at the time. Unfortunately, after Soul Man, his career went down the toilet and has yet to recover. It's a shame because I always thought that he was a good actor. He is now relegated to acting in made-for-TV and straight-to-video flicks. Accordingly, there is no doubt that C. Thomas Howell is one washed-up celebrity!


*** Update - May 1, 2008 ***

C. Thomas Howell is currently appearing on the VH1 reality show, Celebracadabra. He is competing with other washed-up stars to be the best magician in a contest for cash and prizes. I watched a portion of the first episode last week. Howell impressively made a dollar bill appear to float while out on the street performing magic. After pulling off his trick, he raised his hands in the air and shouted, "Wolverines!," a line from his 1984 movie, Red Dawn.

 
*** Update - July 28, 2012 ***

C. Thomas Howell  recently appeared in the 2012 hit Spider-Man reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man, where he plays Ray.  It remains to be seen whether this role will springboard Howell back into choice roles in the future.

Brigitte Nielsen

Brigitte Nielsen is a Danish actress best known for her mid-1980s marriage to Sylvester Stallone and her acting roles in Rocky IV and Beverly Hills Cop II. Nielsen has morphed from being internationally known as one of the most beautiful women in the world in the mid-1980s into a washed-up overweight skank a mere 20 years later.


Nielsen, sometimes called "The Great Dane," was born on July 15, 1963 in Rødovre, Denmark. Nielsen physically developed at an early age and was devastatingly beautiful by the time she reached her teenage years. She dropped out of high school at 16 and moved to continental Europe to pursue a modeling career. She got married in 1983, at age 20, to Kasper Winding and quickly got pregnant and gave birth. She abandoned her first husband and child a year later, in 1984, to come to America to pursue a career as an actress.

Nielsen made her film debut in Red Sonja with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Nielsen reportedly had a hot affair with Schwarzenegger, who took Nielsen home to meet his mother in Austria. The couple parted ways when Maria Shriver, Schwarzenegger's other girlfriend and future wife, made him to decide between her and Nielsen.

Nielsen allegedly met Stallone, her second and most famous husband, by sending him a nude photograph of herself to Stallone's hotel room. Shortly thereafter, she was cast in Rocky IV, as Ludmilla Vobet Drago, the wife of Russian boxer Ivan Drago. Nielsen married Stallone in December 1985. Nielsen claims that Stallone was so obsessed with her that he had her likeness carved into the furniture in their mansion. There marriage, however, only lasted 18 months until she left amid rumors over an alleged lesbian affair with her female secretary.

Nielsen was on top of the world in the mid-1980s. She gained a worldwide audience with her role in Rocky IV and also posed several times for Playboy. She also scored a major role in Beverly Hills Cop II, as Karla Fry, a master thief.

Nielsen's star, however, has quickly faded since Beverly Hills Cop II hit the theatres in 1987. Nielsen recorded an album of dance music, Every Body Tells A Story, and sang the pop duet "Body Next To Body" with Austrian singer Falco. During the 1990s Nielsen continued acting, but was relegated to appearing in crappier and crappier B- and C- movies.

Nielsen has remained in the tabloids over the years primarily due to her numerous romantic relationships. She became engaged to professional football player Mark Gastineau in the late 1980s, and bore him a son. She then married Swiss racecar driver Raoul Meyer from December 17, 1993 to 2005.

Nielsen appeared on The Surreal Life 3 in 2004. Most of America was shocked to see how fat, nasty, and skanky Nielsen had become. Nielsen hooked up the diminutive and extremely ugly Flava Flav during the show, disgusting viewers.

After the completion of The Surreal Life, VH1 gave Nielsen and Flava Flav their own reality TV series, Strange Love, which showcased their odd relationship.

Nielsen and Flava Flav broke up shortly after the show ended and Nielsen got married to Italian bartender Mattia Dessi in July 2006.




It is truly amazing how fleeting beauty and fame can be. Nielsen's looks have quickly faded over the years. She used to be one of the most beautiful women in the world. Nowadays, she is known primarily for her skanky/whorish ways and only the most hard-up guys would even stoop so low as to call her a MILF. Nielsen looks a good 10 years older than her biological age of 44. She also recently checked herself into rehab.


Accordingly, there can be no doubt that Brigitte Nielsen is one washed-up celebrity!

Danny Bonaduce

Danny Bonaduce (born Dante Daniel Bonaduce) is a former child star best known for his role in the early 1970s as Danny Partridge on The Partridge Family and his many run-ins with the law.

I. Early Life

Bonaduce was born on August 13, 1959, in Broomall, Pennsylvania into a family connected to the entertainment business. His father, Joseph Bonaduce, was a TV writer/producer for various TV shows such as Mayberry RFD, One Day At A Time, and Good Times.

Bonaduce began his TV acting career in 1969 with small roles on the TV shows The Ghost & Mrs. Muir, Mayberry R.F.D., and Bewitched. In 1970 he was cast as little Danny Partridge on the hit TV show The Partridge Family. Danny Partridge was a young boy in a family of musical siblings that toured from town to town in The Partridge Family. Bonaduce was well known for his role and achieved quite a bit of fame during his pre-pubescent years.





Unfortunately, Bonaduce had a bad relationship with his father - Bonaduce claims that his father had nothing but animosity for him from the day he was born, and that the situation grew worse with Danny's pre-pubescent success on The Partridge Family. When Shirley Jones, the actress who played his mother on The Partridge Family, noticed that Bonaduce was coming in with bruises on his arms on Monday mornings, she realized that he was being abused at home, and tried to protect Bonaduce by allowing him to stay with her or with other cast members during the weekends.

In 1973 Bonaduce released a self-titled album. Bonaduce has admitted that his vocals can barely be heard on the album and that most of the singing was provided by Bruce Roberts. The album was apparently so awful that a record store, Rhino Store, paid customers 5 cents to take home Bonaduce's album.

Bonaduce's career hit the skids shortly after The Partridge Family was cancelled in 1974 and he drifted into a life of drug abuse and endured a period of homelessness during his late teens and early twenties.

II. Bonaduce's Life After The Partridge Family

Bonaduce briefly worked as a stable boy for Kenny Rogers after The Partridge Family was cancelled. He drifted aimlessly at this point in his life and eventually developed an addiction for cocaine. In 1985, he was arrested with 50 grams of cocaine in his car. In 1990, he was arrested at a Daytona Beach crack house. He went through rehab in 1991, 2001, and 2005.

Bonaduce claims that at one point he was so addicted to smoking crack that he could no longer wait for the pipe to cool down. He says that he had giant burns on his fingers and lips because he would pick up a red-hot pipe and stick it in his mouth. He also claims that he could hear the searing of flesh burning from the hot crack pipe.

His mother eventually tracked him down in Hollywood Hills and convinced him to move back in with her and get his life back together.

Bonaduce eventually did get his life back together and started a radio DJ/commentary career on WEGX in Philadelphia. He then went to KKFR in Phoenix, Arizona. Bonaduce worked at KKFR until 1991, when he was fired after being charged with assaulting and beating Darius Barney, a transvestite prostitute. Bonaduce later stated that he thought that the prostitute was a girl when he picked him up and let him into his car. When he found out that the prostitute was a man, he ordered the prostitute to leave. When the prostitute refused to leave unless Danny paid him $40, Bonaduce opened the passenger side door of his car and pulled him out of the car. Bonaduce then punched the much larger Barney because he feared that Barney was going to attack him. Although he only received probation, the resulting bad publicity caused KKFR to terminate his employment.

Bonaduce has been a staple on FM-radio over the years and currently co-hosts the morning talk show, The Adam Carolla Show, with Adam Carolla. Bonaduce also co-hosted the morning TV talk show, The Other Half, from 2001-2003.

Bonaduce married real estate agent Setsuko Hattori in 1985; they divorced three years later, in 1988. On November 4, 1990, Bonaduce met his second wife, Gretchen Hillmer, on a blind date. Bonaduce married Hillmer a few hours into their first date. Hillmer put up with Bonaduce's infidelities for many years until April 9, 2007, when she filed a divorce petition, citing irreconcilable differences.

III. Celebrity Boxing

Despite being very short in stature, Bonaduce has participated several celebrity boxing matches for charity. In 1994, Bonaduce participated in a charity boxing match against Donny Osmond. Osmond and Bonaduce were both living in Chicago and worked out at the same gym. They apparently were not friends and Osmond made fun of Bonaduce when he saw Bonaduce looking at himself in the mirror, calling Bonaduce a "poseur." Osmond appeared on a DJ radio show the next day and mentioned the incident. The DJ asked Osmond whether he could kick Bonaduce's ass, and Osmond replied that he could. Bonaduce took offense and eventually a charity boxing match was arranged between Osmond and Bonaduce.

The three-round fight took place at the China Club in Chicago. Bonaduce apparently fought dirty, hitting on the break, stuck his thumb in Osmond's eye, backhanded, and threw elbows at Osmond. Bonaduce bloodied Osmond's nose during the match and won a two-to-one split decision. Osmond was upset with the judges' decision and wanted to go another round. Bonaduce said that Osmond should go fight his sister (Marie Osmond) and offered to fight a bare knuckle round against Osmond. Eventually cooler heads prevailed and both Osmond and Bonaduce walked away from the ring.

Eight years later, in 2002, Bonaduce returned to the ring to fight fellow washed-up celebrity Barry Williams (from the Brady Bunch). Although much shorter and smaller than Williams, Bonaduce pummeled Williams, knocking him down five times before the referee finally called the match in the second round.






IV. Breaking Bonaduce Reality Show

Bonaduce was been the star of the reality show based on his life, Breaking Bonaduce. During the course of the show, Bonaduce revealed his marriage infidelities, previous drug use, and current abuse of steroids.

The show showed the world that Bonaduce has serious emotional problems in his life. He tries to fill the void by having affairs and become a juiced-up gym rat. The show had to have hurt Bonaduce's career, as it portrayed him as a raging psychopath. There was an episode in which Bonaduce was playing with his daughter who asked him why he was wearing bandages on his wrists. Bonaduce was wearing the bandages because he had slashed them after his wife, Gretchen, asked him for a divorce. Bonaduce hurt himself at the end of a crazy night that started with hours of drinking and taking pills, and landed him in the psychiatric ward.

V. Altercation With Johnny Fairplay

On October 2, 2007, Bonaduce was in the audience at the FOX Reality Channel Awards show when he mixed things up with former Survivor contestation Johnny Fairplay. I had never even heard of Johnny Fairplay, but apparently he lied about his grandmother dying when he was on Survivor in an attempt to avoid being voted off, and is universally hated for doing so.

Fairplay was on stage towards the end of the Awards show and being booed by the audience. In an unscripted turn of events, Bonaduce walked up onto the stage from the audience and told Fairplay he was being booed because the audience hated him. Bonaduce then turned around and started walking off of the stage.

Fairplay called Bonaduce back and said something to him and then leapt into Bonaduce's arms, and straddled and humped him, supposedly as a blatantly homosexual joke that was part of Fairplay's shtick.

Bonaduce adjusted his balance and his grip on Fairplay and then threw him over his head, causing Fairplay to land face-first onto the stage floor in a loud thud. Fairplay bled significantly, lost some teeth and suffered a broken toe.


Fairplay pressed charges and police opened a felony battery investigation with Bonaduce as the named suspect. Bonaduce maintained his innocence and stated he was acting in self-defense. The L.A. district attorney's office concluded a few days later that there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bonaduce had committed battery because Fairplay had initiated the contact and Bonaduce had acted in self-defense.

VI. Bonaduce's Baby-Dick

Bonaduce is apparently hung like a gnat and sports a tiny baby-dick. In October 2007, Bonaduce was a guest at the Erotic Ball in San Francisco. Bonaduce dropped his pants during the Ball, showing off his tiny junk. PerezHilton.com has an unedited version of a photo of Bonaduce naked (this link is NSFW).

VII. Conclusion

Bonaduce has been in the public eye for nearly 40 years and has lived one unusual life. For the reasons discussed above, there is no doubt that Danny Bonaduce is one washed-up celebrity!

Washed-Up Celebrities Guestbook

There have been some recent requests for me to add a guestbook to this blog. I'm not sure how to add a guestbook to a blogger blog, so I am going to use this post as my "guestbook." If you have any comments or just want to say hello, you can leave a comment to this post for all to see.

Jaleel White

Jaleel Ahmad White is a former child star best known for his role as super-dork Steve Urkel on the 1990s family sitcom, Family Matters.

White has born on November 27, 1976 in Pasadena, California. White started his acting career in TV commercials and guest starring roles on TV shows. At the age of three White appeared in a commercial for Kellogg’s and in other commercials after his preschool teacher persuaded his parents to take him to auditions. During the mid-1980s he had guest starring roles on TV shows such as The Jeffersons, Mr. Belvedere, and in the pilot episode of Good Morning, Miss Bliss. His first recurring TV role was as the son of Flip Wilson and Gladys Knight on the CBS series Charlie and Company.

White hit the big time and became a huge star in 1989, when he was cast as the dorky Steve Urkel on the ABC Friday night sitcom, Family Matters. The Steve Urkel character was the next-door-neighbor of the Winslow family, around whom the show revolved. Steve Urkel was in love with Laura Winslow, the little girl in the Winslow family. White was initially supposed to only appear occasionally on the show as Steve Urkel.

However, during his initial guest appearance, White received a standing ovation for his performance as Steve Urkel and drew approving chants from a group of college fraternity brothers who were in the studio audience. White claims to have created the role by borrowing his dentist father's dental glasses, hiking up his pants, bending his knees, and speaking in a high-pitched geeky tone. He was given a full-time starring role, and soon became the favorite TV character during the run of the series.

Steve Urkel was the Dustin "Screech" Diamond of the black community. However, unlike Screech, the Steve Urkel character was occasionally quite funny and people tuned in to watch his antics. Family Matters was a huge hit in the early 1990s, primarily due to the Urkel character. Urkel would always bug the Carl Winslow, the father and head of the Winslow family, and would often break things or screw something up and then say in a nasally voice, "Did I do that???"

When Family Matters began in 1989, White has a short and skinny kid. However, by the mid-1990s he had grown several inches taller and had gone through puberty. Still wanting to cash in on the Urkel character, the show's producers made White continue to talk in a high-pitched voice and be an annoying nerd even though he was a young man by the mid-1990s.

The last several seasons of Family Matters were horrendous. One of the storylines was that Urkel built a transformation chamber, which allowed him to change from the nerdy Steven Urkel into the hip and suave ladies man, Stefan Urquelle. This was quite possibly the stupidest storyline since the Flintstones added The Great Gazoo, an alien that only Fred Flintstone could see.

By the show's final season, he was commanding $100,000 per episode. Unfortunately for White, he was so tightly defined by his Urkel character that it became hard for him to get other roles after the show's run completed. White did manage to secure a starring role on Grown Ups, a sitcom on the UPN from 1999-2000. However, Grown Ups received terrible ratings and was cancelled after just one season.

White has had to settle for minor roles in movies and TV shows such as Miracle Dogs Too, Who Made the Potatoe Salad?, Dreamgirls, and Boston Legal. Although he did act on the Grown Ups show after Family Matters ended, White has not have any significant roles. He has been forever typecast as Urkel and there probably isn't anything he can do to break out of it.

White is definitely no longer the cute kid he was at the beginning of Family Matters. Like many formerly cute child stars, White grew up to somewhat weird-looking. As an adult, his eyes look sunken and puffy, almost as though someone punched him in the eyes, as shown below:







White was also the subject on an Internet rumor a few years ago. Many people received an e-mail that purported to show White prancing around as a raging homosexual at a party with other gay men. Here are some of the pictures that were being e-mailed across the Internet:





As it turns out, the man in the photos was not Jaleel White. Instead, it was simply an Atlanta hairdresser who had an uncanny resemblance to White. For this and the other reasons discussed above, Jaleel White is without a doubt one washed-up celebrity!

*** UPDATE - July 9, 2010 ***

Jaleel White is being investigated by the police for allegedly beating a woman. Supposedly the woman who was hit is Bridget Hardy, the mother of White's child. According to TMZ, the alleged victim claims White punched her in one of her surgically enhanced breasts while driving along the Pacific Coast Highway two weeks ago, while an infant was riding in the car. The woman also claims that White slapped her when they arrived at home and then pushed her into a toilet so forcefully that it broke the toilet tank.

The composite picture below shows White and Hardy. (White seems to look far older than 33 in the photo below).



*** UPDATE - September 4, 2011 ***

I recently discovered that there are rumors of a gay sex tape involving Jaleel White and former NBA star Anfernee ("Penny") Hardaway. According to the rumor, many NBA players have viewed copies of the gay sex tape. White has denied the rumors and claimed that Penny Hardaway was like a big brother to him. [The audio clip of White's denial is available on this site.]