I thought Debra Winger was exiled mostly because of all the conflicts she had with people.

I thought Debra Winger was exiled mostly because of all the conflicts she had with people.

It could be because she was difficult. Or it could be that she was termed "difficult" by the male PTB when she was actually just demanding to be taken as seriously as her male counterparts?

I think Sean Young may have suffered from this problem, too. About two years ago, I was invited to many of the London Film Festival's events by a friend, and one of the showings they had was of yet another Director's Cut of Blade Runner. The cool part was that Rutger Hauer, who had a prominent role in the movie, took Q&A afterwards. Hauer is a crazy, excentric, likely hard-drinking Dutch actor who -- as is the norm with the Dutch -- is a straight-shooter. Says what he thinks about people, consequences be damned. He loved Ridley Scott, the director of Blade Runner, said Harrison Ford was a crusty bastard who refused to really engage with anybody, but reserved his toughest critique for Sean Young -- saying she was perfectly cast as a robot! He also said that she was both stupid and difficult.

Now. He could be a mean old misogynist. Or Young really could have burned all her bridges back in the day by being a total b!tch. Who is to say? It depends on whose side you are on. It could be a bit of both. Young, like Debra Winger, built a reputation for herself as being difficult and conflictual with her co-stars. To the point where they were became unhireable. Did they turn unhireable when their movies stopped making a lot of money? When they turned 40? Sometimes I wonder. Hollywood is almost better at this smoke and mirrors stuff offscreen than it is on!

It could be because she was difficult. Or it could be that she was termed "difficult" by the male PTB when she was actually just demanding to be taken as seriously as her male counterparts?

She had some big conflicts with people like Shirley Maclaine. In spite of that her career still continued on for much of the 80's, but ultimately faded. While that might have been due to sexism, so many from that era, male and female, also faded away.

It's tough to say with some of these people. I think some of them just had the career trajectory they were always going to have, whether they were difficult or not. Charismatic as she is, would Young have ever been a major star? Someone with some charisma, looks, and somewhat neglible acting talent has to count on the right movies and marrying the right person - Demi Moore is the best example of this.

Well Shirley MacLaine, as much as I love a ton of her work, has been known to be damn difficult as well (I had a friend who worked on the Canadian tv Anne of Green Gables sequel she did a few years back--which was pretty awful--and the stories of her behaviour on the set are absolutely horrendous). That said, Debra Winder has more recently done some interviews (after her 7 or so year retirement from film work) where she has admitted that she did behave difficultly, and things like her deciding to not do any promotion for Officer and a Gentleman except to bad mouth it (granted it's no classic, but that's not exactly going to make studios want to hire you to star in their movies) slowly and surely made her less likely to be hired, I think. There's an interesting documentary Searching for Debra Winger which addresses her retirement and the difficulties women in Hollywood can have--some of it is kinda glib and not as interesting as the subject should be but it has some grat interviews.

With Sean Young, while I do think SOME of what's happened to her was undoubtedly due to her being seen as a "difficult woman" in a way that wouldn't have mattered as much with a male star, I also think she's something of her own worse ennemy. A few years back she did a big interview for Ent Weekly which I think ended up doing some damage just from some of what she said. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20056516,00.html

There's an old adage that goes, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." If you ask me, though, bad publicity can turn someone like SY into the sad case she has become. Granted, she never was the greatest actress or the most cooperative, but if Hollywood is going to single out every bad, uncooperative actor in the industry....

If she was making studios millions, Hollywood would have put up with any amount of bad behavior.

Or it could be that she was termed "difficult" by the male PTB when she was actually just demanding to be taken as seriously as her male counterparts?

I'm of the firm belief that this is what it was.

She was a fixture on Harper's Bazaar's Ten Most Beautiful Women of the Year issues back in the late 1980's.

And I agreed then and now. Too bad personal tragedies have overshadowed her triumphs.

If she was making studios millions, Hollywood would have put up with any amount of bad behavior.

Not necessarily.

Ask Lindsey Lohan.

Exactly.

As long as Lohan's films were making money, studios put up with the nonsense. It's when audiences got tired of her antics and stopped going to her films that she became an "insurance risk."

It depends on the star. Judy Garland was still making money when MGM curbed her.

Good points DeeeDee, Khan, and Carl. It's also about pr. If you're an addict, nobody wants to look like they're condoning your bad behaviour unless you're a repenting RDJr. type, or if you're a racist or a homophobe, nobody wants to look bad by putting money in your pocket. But if you're just a "zany bitch", people will put up with you until it's just not worth it to them anymore.

If you're an addict, nobody wants to look like they're condoning your bad behaviour unless you're a repenting RDJr. type male

If you're a male addict Hollywood loves you (even when you don't make money).

If you're a female addict Hollywood hates you (even when you make money).

It depends on the star. Judy Garland was still making money when MGM curbed her.

OTOH, Carl, JG also was costing the studio money, thanks to production delays caused by her numerous absences and tardiness. Because of her addiction issues and erratic behavior, in fact, production on at least three pictures -- Barkleys of Broadway, Royal Wedding and Annie Get Your Gun -- had to be put on hold and then recast, with the producers of one, Annie, having to scrap all prior footage of her at considerable expense to MGM.

True, but that was down to them never giving her a chance to rest. If they'd let her rest she might have had a chance. They said they had too much money tied up in her. Aside from The Pirate, I don't think she ever had a movie which didn't make a profit.