Alec Baldwin is the first to admit that many of his movies made in the new millennium tanked big time. Then along came 30 Rock to save his ass.
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Here are some other stars whose careers were rescued by the tube.
GLENN CLOSE
(Damages)
Not that Close was dying, but films like Heights and Hoodwinked didn’t earn her a sixth Oscar nomination. Playing a judge in two episodes of The West Wing and a police captain in The Shield helped pave the way for her turn as Damages’ diabolical (maybe) corporate lawyer, Patty Hewes, for which she copped a Golden Globe and Emmy.
PATRICK DEMPSEY
(Grey’s Anatomy)
The Can’t Buy Me Love and Loverboy star was quickly descending into Pauly Shore-style obscurity when he put on doctors’ scrubs and morphed into Grey’s Anatomy’s Dr. McDreamy for a whole generation of moviegoers who originally fell for him as giggly adolescents.
SALLY FIELD
(Brothers And Sisters)
The big screen is famously unkind to women of a certain age – even if they’ve won Oscars. But TV has found a place for them (see also Holly Hunter). Sally Field won an Emmy for her performance in ER as Abby’s mom. But her big comeback has come as the matriarch of the Walker family in Brothers And Sisters. Her 2007 Emmy proved we all still like her, we really like her.
THE SHEEN FACTOR
(The West Wing, Two And A Half Men)
Martin Sheen went through a decade when he was virtually invisible. Then he won the presidency in The West Wing. Son Charlie Sheen was turning into a walking scandal sheet – frequent Heidi Fleiss john, high-profile split with wife Denise Richards – until the sitcom Two And A Half Men. Saved!
KIEFER SUTHERLAND
(24)
He may not have scored Oscar-worthy roles in his early movie career (The Lost Boys, Flatliners), and for a while there it looked like dad Donald was going to be the best-known Sutherland. Then came his role as Jack Bauer, beautifully timed – every hour of it, in fact – to capture post-9/11 paranoia. The rest is DVD box set history.
