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Entertainment behind the scenes
Charlie Sheen could be ready to quiet down
It may be hard to believe after recent weeks of his rants on subjects ranging from “trolls” to “tiger blood” and the makers of his former hit sitcom “Two And A Half Men,” but Charlie Sheen says he is ready to give up on giving interviews to the media. Sheen, who was fired from his lucrative job as the star of the CBS show earlier this week, told the Dan Patrick radio program on Wednesday that it might be the last time he talks to a reporter.
“This could be my final interview, which is sort of symbolic because it’s where it all began and it’s where it all ends,” Sheen said, because “all they do is vilify me in their narrative speak.”
Three weeks ago, while on leave for rehab, Sheen called in to the sports radio program and began a series of rants against “Two And A Half Men” co-creator Chuck Lorre, the sitcom’s makers at Warner Bros. Television and TV network CBS, which airs the program.
Sheen escalated his verbal attacks in several other TV news interviews that followed, and by Monday of this week, Warner Bros. and CBS fired the “winning” actor. He then began his own series of webcasts called “Sheen’s Korner” in which his behavior (smoking a cigarette from his nose) seemed erratic and just plain weird to many Sheen watchers. Some blamed his drug use, although Sheen claims he is currently sober.
Sheen vs. Gaddafi – who has better value?
Charlie Sheen or Muammar Gaddafi? Once thought to have nothing in common, the longtime Hollywood bad boy and embattled Libyan leader have not only topped the headlines this week, but popular culture blogs, news websites, media outlets and social networking sites. The Web has been abuzz with comparisons of both these colorful characters over who offers the better entertainment value for their outlandish quotes and in Gaddafi’s case, his unabashed fashion sense.
Britain’s The Guardian newspaper offered a much emailed quiz this week with 10 over-the-top quotes and a choice to pick in each case Sheen or Gaddafi, such as “I have defeated this earthworm, with my words.” Unless you have been following every development in each case, you might be surprised at what you get wrong.
Sheen’s one-liners have become so popular that he has achieved, through loose lips, a record-setting Twitter run, gaining more than 1 million followers in 25 hours and 17 minutes after joining this week. And The Hollywood Reporter says Sheen is about to become the next possible celebrity to earn endorsements for their tweets. It may not be close to the roughly $2 million per episode he earned on “Two and Half Men”, but each tweet could get him between $200 and $25,000 – not unlike Kim Kardashian.
Sheen’s boast of having “tigerblood” became a hot trending Twitter word. Gaddafi’s choice speeches have become widely followed, too. So, it may not pay in politics to ramble, but in entertainment the looser the mouth, the bigger the payday.
Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan. Double standards?
Two Hollywood stars. Two different stories.
1) Former child star turns wild child, convicted of drunken driving, goes into rehab a few times, parties ’round the clock, gets dumped from at least one movie, plans role as porn queen — and becomes laughing stock of the celebrity media.
2) Middle-aged actor, three times married, plays raunchy womanizer, couple of stints in rehab, former client of notorious Hollywood Madam, pulls knife on wife during drunken Christmas Day argument – and almost doubles salary to become highest-paid actor on TV.
Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen have both found themselves in a whole lot of trouble this year. But while Lindsay’s star has long since fallen, Charlie has emerged virtually unscathed in the eyes of the public, the media and the industry.
Sheen is expected to be sentenced to 30 days in jail on Monday as a result of his violent and drunken Christmas Day fight in Aspen with third wife Brooke Mueller. But his latest violence-related dust-up with the law has had no effect on audiences for his TV show “Two and a Half Men”, which remains the top-rated comedy on U.S. television.
After negotiating a new contract in May that reportedly almost doubled his pay to about $1.8 million — per episode — for the next two years, Sheen is now, by far, the highest-paid actor in Hollywood.
Recession? What recession? Just ask Charlie Sheen
While most Americans are pinching pennies because of soaring food and gas prices, evidently Hollywood’s TV stars aren’t feeling much pain — at least not according to a recent TV Guide survey.
TV Guide’s poll of America’s top-paid TV actors named Charlie Sheen as the highest-paid prime-time TV star in Hollywood with an annual salary of around $20 million for his role on “Two and a Half Men.”
Makes you want to quit your day job. But get this, you don’t even have to act, really, to earn the big bucks in Hollywood. ”Family Guy” writer/producer Seth MacFarlane recently signed a $100 million deal with 20th Century Fox Television.
The fivesome behind America’s irreverent cartoon family “The Simpsons” — Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith and Hank Azaria –make $400,000 an episode for bringing their yellow animated characters to life. At 23 episodes per season, which is roughly an industry standard, that equates to a $9.2 million paycheck a year from Fox, just to crack famed catch phrases such as ”D’oh!” and “Cowabunga, dude!”
(Reporting and Writing by Jennifer Martinez)
Dern! Maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel? It would be nice to have something positive to talk about for a change! The constant insanity of the last 2 weeks has to have an ebb tide action sooner than later? For every action there is a reaction! And the famous wheel of Karma? I would love to see some balance flow into the situations we have been witness to these last few weeks!G’day.