Jake Lloyd

Jake Lloyd is a former child star best known for his role as the young Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.  Star Wars fans generally disliked The Phantom Menace and cast much of the blame on Lloyd, effectively killing Lloyd's acting career and causing him to grow up to become incredibility bitter young man.

Lloyd was born March 5, 1989 in Fort Collins, Colorado and broke into acting in 1996, when he had a recurring role on the TV show ER and appeared in the TV movie Apollo 11 and the motion picture Unhook the Stars. Although most people know Lloyd as "the kid who ruined Star Wars," more astute movie buffs may also remember Lloyd as "the kid who ruined Jingle All The Way." In Jingle All The Way, Lloyd played Jamie Langston, the incredibly bratty son of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Howard Langston character. Perhaps Lloyd was instructed to be a little brat in the movie, although even if he was following directions, his character was nevertheless very grating and annoying and generally detracted from the overall movie experience of the casual viewer.

Notwithstanding his performance in Jingle All The Way, Lloyd continued to receive choice role and appeared to be heading for stardom.  Lloyd appeared in several episodes of the moderately successful NBC drama, The Pretender, between 1996 and 1998.  In 1999, Lloyd really hit the big time when he was cast as the young Anakin Skywalker in the first movie of the long-awaited Star Wars prequels, entitled Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

Lloyd played the young boy who would become the Jedi knight who turned to the Dark Side of the Force and later became the evil Darth Vader.  Lloyd seems to have been horribly miscast as Anakin Skywalker in large part because he seemed to be far too young for the role.  The start of a romance with the much older Padmé Amidala (played by Natalie Portman) was difficult to believe, as Lloyd was only 10 years old when the movie was released, whereas Portman was 18 years old.  Fans also complained about Lloyd's inability to deliver his lines in a believable manner and with realistic emotions.

Lloyd also had to give up to 60 interviews a day, which is a lot of ask of a 10-year-old boy.  Lloyd quickly grew to resent Hollywood in general and blamed George Lucas for putting him through the ordeal.  Lloyd effectively stopped acting after The Phantom Menace, although he did lend his voice to several Star Wars video games.

Lloyd claims that all of the criticism from his appearance in The Phantom Menace made his life a living hell.  He says that his classmates would tease him by making light saber sounds whenever they would see him.  Here is an itnerview where Lloyd complains about treatment by his former high school and college classmates:



Lloyd became so angry and bitter that eventually destroyed all of his Star Wars memorabilia. I bet that Lloyd is also angry because he appears to have stopped growing at age 10. Lloyd looks pretty shrimpy in this photo:

Even though more than 10 years have passed since The Phantom Menace was released, Lloyd is still very angry, as is evident in this 2009 interview at the Supanova Pop Culture Expo held in Perth, Australia. Lloyd apparently traveled to Australia to meet Star Wars fans, yet he came across as a complete jerk in this interview:



Despite having little apparent acting talent and ability, Jake Lloyd was a successful young actor who received choice roles. However, fairly or unfairly, Lloyd received much of the criticism from fans unhappy with The Phantom Menace. Lloyd has grown up to become a very unhappy and bitter young man who is still hung up a role he had when he was 10 years old. He still goes to conventions because he presumably is paid to do so and needs money, yet he seems angry when asked about his experience in The Phantom Menace. For this and the other reasons discussed above, Jake Lloyd is one washed-up celebrity!

*** Update - June 21, 2015 ***

Jake Lloyd was arrested on South Carolina police on a 25-mile high-speed chase at speeds up to 100 mph on Saturday, June 20, 2015. Lloyd reportedly crashed through a fence while attempting to evade police. Lloyd told the police that his name was "Jake Broadbent." He has a $10,700 bond and is being held on charges of resisting arrest, reckless driving, driving without a license and failure to stop.

Carrie Fisher

Carrie Fisher is an actress who achieved incredible fame with her portrayal of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy. Known as one of the most beautiful actresses of her day, Fisher has completely let herself go in recent years, packing on close to 100 lbs and losing her femininity in the process.

Carrie Fisher was born on October 21, 1956 in Beverly Hills, California. Fisher grew up in a famous family - her father was singer Eddie Fisher and her mother is actress Debbie Reynolds. Fisher's parents divorced when she was two - her father remarried to popular actress Elizabeth Taylor and her mother remarried to Harry Karl, who owned a chain of shoe stores. Taking advantage of her family's entertainment connections, at the tender age of 12, Fisher began appearing with her mother in Las Vegas, Nevada. In one of her first acting roles, Fisher appeared as a debutante and singer in 1973 in the hit Broadway revival Irene, which starred her mother.

Fisher broke into movies with a role in the 1975 comedy movie Shampoo, alongside Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn. Fisher's next movie was Star Wars: A New Hope, where she played her career-making role of Princess Leia. Fisher received acclaim for both her beauty and her acting abilities in Star Wars as well as in sequels The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, three of the biggest box office hits of all time.





Fisher's role in Return of the Jedi provided the iconic image of her in a gold bikini as Jabba the Hutt's slave. After audiences saw Fisher in the gold bikini, she became one of the reining Hollywood sex symbols for years to come.





Fisher appeared in other major movies around the time of the Star Wars trilogy, such as 1980's Blues Brothers where she played the jilted lover of John Belushi's character. In that movie, her character chased after and shot at Belushi with a machine gun after he stood her up at a wedding. In a famous scene, Belushi pleaded for forgiveness in a dirty underground tunnel, kissed Fisher's character, and then dropped her in a mud puddle and walked away.

Fisher must have felt like she was on top of the world by the early 1980s. Unfortunately, her career was at its peak and had only one way to go from there - down, and it did crash spectacularly.

Fisher did continue to appear in movies, although the roles were fewer and farther in between. Fisher moved over to the writing side of entertainment as her roles diminished. In 1987 she published her first novel, Postcards from the Edge, and wrote the screenplay for the 1990 film adaptation of the novel. She also had supporting roles in the successful 1989 movies When Harry Met Sally and The 'Burbs.

Throughout the 1990s Fisher seemed to do more writing than acting. She published the novel Surrender the Pink in 1991 and Delusions of Grandma in 1993. She appeared in the 1997 comedy, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, which was a moderate success at the box office, but became much more popular via movie rentals and sequels. She also became a busy "screen doctor," reviewing scripts for movies and TV shows, such as the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Fisher also appeared in minor roles in few movies during the 21st century, such as Scream 3 in 2000, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in 2001. As the movie roles dried up, Fisher began acting in her own one-woman auto-graphical play, Wishful Drinking, from 2006-2009. Fisher later wrote a book of the same name, Wishful Drinking, which earned a nomination for a 2010 Grammy Award in the Best Spoken Word Album category.

Away from the entertainment business, Fisher's personal life has been rocky to say the least. She was engaged to actor Dan Aykroyd and married diminutive singer Paul Simon for a couple years in the early 1980s. Fisher also had a three-year relationship (and a daughter) in the early 1990s with top Hollywood agent, Bryan Lourd. Lourd infamously left Fisher to pursue a homosexual relationship with a man. A few years ago, Lourd claimed that Fisher's abuse of codeine was responsible for causing him to turn gay.

Fisher also became an alcoholic and a drug addict, as she has discussed in numerous media outlets, such as during a Today Show interview. Fisher also experienced a bout with mental illness - she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and spent some time in an mental hospital. She also apparently became addicted to fast food such as McDonald's or Hostess Twinkies and Ding Dongs, ballooning up from 100 lbs in the days of Return of the Jedi to 180 lbs by 2010. Fisher is almost large enough to play Jabba the Hutt in a Return of the Jedi sequel.



Fisher has followed in the footsteps of fellow washed-up celebrity Kirstie Alley and is currently a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig weight-loss products.

As if the weight gain wasn't bad enough, Fisher also chopped the beautiful long hair she used to have, giving her a somewhat masculine look, as shown below:

Fisher also recently outed John Travolta as a homosexual in an interview she gave to the Advocate.

Although she was an international sex symbol in the early 1980s, Carrie Fisher has really let herself go in recent years as her movie roles evaporated. I hope she can regain control of her life and gets back down to a healthy weight, which would cause at least some of her conspicuous former beauty to reappear. However, until her gets her life and health back under control, there can be no doubt that Carrie Fisher is one washed-up celebrity!