The Biggest Ever Comebacks

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1:03Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde. And me Richard Osmond, hello Marina. Hello Richard, how are you? I'm alright, now we're not doing a Q &A this week. We've set quite a fun challenge which is the biggest ever comebacks. I think you're going to do TV and film, I'm going to do music, I'm going to do books and I'm going to do comedy. Can we just get on to the fact of, okay, if you're talking about a comeback, what is a comeback? In my view, you have to have fallen out of the public taste for one reason or another. I mean, I guess it could be scandal or it could just be a matter of everybody's moved on from you.

1:36Indifference, yeah. Indifference. Yeah. The greatest enemy in showbiz. And then somehow you come back. There's a couple of what I've put in mind, which I probably will then say, oh no, actually I think they just used to be cult heroes and then they became mainstream. I'm just looking through mine, I think, because I wasn't aware that you were going to be the person defining all the terms. I think it would be okay. But we will absolutely keep an eye on it. You're welcome to argue with me. I think you know that by now. Do you know what? That's not a bad idea. I should start doing that. Okay, what should we start with?

2:02Biggest ever movie comebacks? Biggest ever actor comebacks? Okay, well, I'll talk about... You're not going to love this. I'm going to talk about actors, but then I want to talk about a genre as well. Why am I not going to love that? Well, maybe you will, but you'll see that it doesn't quite fit in either category. Oh my God, that I don't like. In terms of biggest ever, I would say... I know lots of people think it was John Travolta, because Travolta was a sort of, you know, big star and he had Grease and Saturday Night Fever and all of those sort of things. And then suddenly he has this like abysmal 80s and he's a nothing, he's a zero.

2:35There's look who's talking type things. He was the first name that came to my mind. I mean, those were at least hits. I mean, there's some other really, you know, nothing happens at all and he's almost on TV movies. And then Quentin Tarantino kind of rescues him from Taboo and puts him in Pulp Fiction, which has a number of Taboos in it. and then he becomes sort of cool again. So I get it. It would probably be in my top three. That was going to be, that was, yeah, he, I would say, rather than that, he was going to be in my top three. I'm not doing a top three for movies because I know you're in charge of that.

3:05Nicolas Cage, I feel like Nicolas Cage, you know, because he's become quite ironous and he's become a person who's, like, ironic about being Nicolas Cage now. I went back and I was thinking of the early stuff. I mean, if you're telling me he doesn't get the joke of Nicolas Cage, which I've always felt was his USP as an actor, he does even in, like, Raising Arizona. He certainly does in Moonstruck. So that's going back to the 80s. And I'm not sure he had a super fallow period, did he? No, I don't think he really did. Not fallow enough. Mickey Rourke and Brendan Fraser, I'm sort of bracketing together, because they both did that thing where they have completely fallen away from the public mood.

3:38And then Brendan Fraser gets extremely fat and wears a fat suit for a role for the whale. And Mickey Rourke for the wrestler gets stapled and stuff at the staple gown. But it didn't last. So they do have this amazing comeback and everyone's like, oh, they're on the awards circuit. They're nominated and in some cases win various awards. But then you're not like, oh, what's Brendan Fraser doing now? It's like, yeah, no, I think he did the comeback and then he's gone. What is Brendan Fraser doing now? I don't know. Kei Haekwon, who was short round in Indiana. Oh, that's a really good one. That's a lovely story because he eventually sort of basically leaves Hollywood because he thinks there are just no roles for Asian actors.

4:14And then suddenly like crazy rich Asians happens. and he thinks, oh, hang on. I mean, I guess there is a vibe out there. And it's in fact, Jeff Cohen, who's one of his Goonies co-stars, says you've got really pushes him for everything everywhere all at once. And he comes back into Hollywood and he wins an Oscar. Yes, that's a great comeback. I didn't think about that at all. So I think I'm having him as my three. Oh, he's number three. We don't have to do top threes of all of them. But number two, I know everyone thinks Robert Downey Jr. because obviously he had this great career and then he kind of threw it all away.

4:47If he's not your number one, I am already fascinated. You're going to be so annoyed who my number one is. Oh, no, really? Well, I don't want you to be because she's amazing and a complete monster. But, yeah, so Robert Downey Jr., he has this kind of complete, he falls apart with drugs. And anyway, he comes back and he has to be drug tested every day. Anyway, as we know, it goes on to become the greatest ever run of massive hits in Hollywood history. So he's my number two. Number one, going back into Hollywood's past, is Joan Crawford. Now, let me tell you the story of Joan Crawford. Joan Crawford was a star at MGM.

5:25MGM was the prestige studio. It was beautiful. Everyone, it was the most glamorous. When she was at her peak, there were like three megastars. And it was her, Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. She's huge. But then... Which is now the lineup of The Rest is Football. Yeah. Is that right? Exactly. Exactly. God, I wonder which one she'd be. not Gary she becomes absolutely huge but then she she then starts her film Stop Making Money and she's she is the person described as box office poison so she becomes that thing she finally sort of basically is allowed to leave because they don't even want her anymore because stars back then were contracted then it was really important you couldn't do anything else you had to work for a studio and that was it and she's not getting any good parts she goes to Warner Brothers and which are a much more scrappy studio not in the top tier but she through absolute force of will she is an incredible force of nature like I said complete monster but she stars in Mildred Pierce and she gets the best actress Oscar so that is amazing but then it all falls away again and over the whole of the you know most of the 50s she can't get arrested and then she comes back in 1962 she's done a double comeback yeah that's why I'm putting her in with whatever happened to Baby Jane with her and Betty Davis and from then on she passes into the, and she becomes a sort of iconic scream queen because she goes into sort of horror and thriller and things like that.

6:48And also, women got written off in such an extreme way in that era, more even than now, by a long way. And through sheer force of will and, you know, force of nature can be a euphemism and certainly was in Joan Crawford's case, she pushes her way all the way back. So I think for me, she is the ultimate comeback machine in movies. Right, but I've got to say one more thing because this thing, a genre, the Western. The Western was the biggest thing ever in American movies, as we know for how long. And then the great thing they always say about Heaven's Gate, Michael Cimino's legendary flop, is that it kind of murdered three things.

7:23It murdered the idea of the new Hollywood, all these directors being given kind of infinite powers. It murdered a studio, United Artists, which actually is collapsed by it. And it murdered the Western genre. Like, no one's going to make a Western after that. not entirely true because you do get certain ones and you get things like I don't know Unforgiven or Young Guns or like The Hateful Eight and things come back but you never really think this genre is kind of had its day and yet what are all Taylor Sheridan shows if not westerns there and it's a really big sense of itself part of its sense of itself that bit of America the kind of western ideas so you've got Yellowstone which is obviously explicitly basically a western but even shows like you know Landman it's a kind of frontier land shows it's a place where normal rules don't reapply even like Tiles the King where it's set in a city it's really very much a new sheriff's in town and it so I think that that idea that idea that like westerns were dead westerns have never been big they are the biggest shows on tv the western sensibility yeah but Far Taylor Sheridan I think that that that I would say that they're all I mean I think Landman is a western uh so i would say that genre that really seemed dead is not dead at all okay okay shall we move on to comeback singles oh which i think is interesting album stuff i think it's boring but like a comeback single that that rescues an act from kind of from despair because that's what can happen with music you just release an absolute banger and everyone goes everything else is forgiven and forgotten that's it's the great thing about music is you can just do in three minutes You can absolutely transform your career.

8:57I'll do a top three as well. My top two I've absolutely got in order. My third one is slightly trickier. I've gone with UK ones really because I find that much more interesting. And the three I've gone for, I remember early 90s, Blur had turned up and had done There's No Other Way and had sort of like a baggy dance top ten hit. And suddenly there were all these guitar bands and Blur were absolutely in the dumper. they'd had two or three singles that went to kind of number 34 or something like that and they looked like they were going to be the also-rans of the Britpop movement there's all these other bands starting up at the same time and you think oh those chances from Chelmsford who did that sort of indie dance tune they're disappearing then I went to see them at the Town and Country Club don't go looking for it, it's not there in Kentish Town and they played Girls and Boys and you were like whoa What is the gap between that and There's No Other Way?

9:55I mean, not long. But it seems like forever because they had so disappeared. Yeah, but they had, as all bands do at the start of their career, you know, look at Radiohead with Anyone Can Play Guitar. You're thinking, what do we need to do? How do we have a hit? How do we become successful? They do that very quickly. And then a smart band like Radiohead or Blur goes, no, actually, who are we? What is it that we do? So they go away. They wrote the suite of songs that became Park Life. girls and boys comes out gets to number five a year later is blur versus oasis and blur are one of the two biggest bands in the country but anyone who goes back and remembers that time blur were absolutely they've been written off yeah and they came back because well firstly they had that song girls and boys which absolutely were introducing the people and then the park life album blew everybody away but so i was thought of thinking about them for um number three then i was also thinking about Duran Duran who really had absolutely disappeared from the scene you know Duran Duran fans still love them but they were seen as a you know a band from the 80s and they were seen as pretty boys and all that type of stuff they then decide you know what forget studios forget expensive producers we are going to go and sit in someone's living room and record some songs and they came back with I think it's the greatest comeback single of all time Ordinary World yeah And even to this day, weirdly, with all their hits, it always tops the poles of Duran Duran fans' favourite songs.

11:17Because it's about being in the wilderness and having to just make your peace with not being a man anymore. And it's also just brilliant. Yeah, it's a brilliant song. And talking to people who are seen as boy bands, my other contender for the number three spot was Patience by Take That. Because again, you know, Robbie had gone, you know, the career, surely their career is over. They come back with Patience, they follow up with Shine. so you're like that's the way to come back and they're still with us now because of that because they went away they wrote a load of amazing songs so back they come so take any one of those as your number three number two this is six months after I'm going to talk about Cher I really wanted you because you said you were going to talk about British people and I was like what?

12:02how are we not going to get to Cher? of course I'm going to talk about Cher six months after she has a number 23 hit in the UK charts with a cover version of I Got You Babe, which is Cher with Beavis and Butthead. Oh, my God. Rob Dickens at her record label is looking around for songs for her 22nd studio album. And there's a song that's been kicking around for a while called Believe. And lots of people like the chorus. They offered it to St Etienne. And St Etienne said, no. Everyone who's offered it said, I like the chorus. I don't really like the verses. That's fine. I didn't know they offered it to St Etienne.

12:36I can slightly imagine her doing it. Yeah, you can imagine. In her own very distinctive way. They do a good version. I think it would probably be quite hard to do a bad version of Believe, the final version. So Rob Dickens then sends it out to some other songwriters and they write completely new verses. And it goes to Cher and Cher hears it. Cher, like everyone says, oh, I love the chorus. That's pretty good. She said, you know, I like the first verse, but the second verse, this woman is still whining. So Cher goes, let me rewrite the second verse. Here she writes it as a much more positive thing.

13:06Doesn't get a writer's credit, by the way. Even to this day, she said, oh, it's the biggest regret of my career. I should have just said. So she rewrites that. They go into a studio and do it. Again, it's, you know, Cher's Cher. But she hasn't sort of had a huge hit for a very, very long time. She has actually, though, had one previous comeback. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because there was a long period away between the whole Sonny and Cher business and her being up on the USS Missouri in a song singing If I Could Turn Back Time. Exactly. Listen, she's had many comebacks, Cher. But I'm talking about just a...

13:38She always will. She always will. She's probably having one as we speak. So she goes into the studio. They record this song. The producers do that vocal effect, which is, they said it was a vocoder, but it wasn't. It was actually auto-tune. But they didn't want to admit that auto-tune existed at that point. So they were still saying, oh, no, that's a vocoder. But auto-tune actually has a share effect button now. So she goes in, she records that song. It is one of the 20 top-selling singles of all time. Absolutely relaunches Cher everywhere. She doesn't have to do a follow-up to her cover versions with Beavis and Butthead.

14:17Sold 11 million records, believe, by Cher. And all for a song that St. Etienne turned down and that they had to completely rewrite the whole thing. But that's why, you know, that's the thing about music. Again, just that little piece of bottled lightning. Number one. I was going to say, what's number one then? Number one is a guy who was about to be dropped by his record label. A guy whom there was a huge amount of hype over and a huge amount of, okay, this is going to be our next huge worldwide star. His record company put a huge amount of money behind him. Started off with a cover version of a George Michael song, Freedom.

15:01That's Robbie Williams we're talking about. He then releases three tracks off his first album. So he released Oh Before I Die, Lazy Days and South of the Border. None of these are huge hits. And South of the Border, that's number 14, which back in those days might as well be number 108. The record company is thinking, oh my God, have we backed the wrong horse here? When take that split up? Or should we have backed Gary? And everyone's thinking this is the end for Robbie. there's absolutely you know and also people are not sad about it because you know he does his Robbie's arrogance works when he's successful yeah when he was unsuccessful it looks like arrogance when when he's successful it's incredibly embarrassing yeah exactly there's there's nothing worse than unsuccessful charisma yeah uh and which is where he was going into charisma deficit at that point so the record company thinking oh my god what do we do here this was good this was our big big swing we were thinking this is a guy who if everything goes right if absolutely everything goes right this guy could sell 50 million records they want him to be it's so explicit the choice of that george michael song which is just like hey he used to be in a boy band right and then like like wham and then he becomes the most credible recording remember like george michael and so fourth singles off albums are generally not the best singles you know if you're Michael Jackson you can get away with it but if this is a failing album and you're releasing your fourth single it's not great they release a single it only gets to number four but it's Angels it never made any sense to me that because I just still don't understand why you can't see that that's a massive trap I'm sorry I would have not released the others beforehand but my view yeah and I do not have insider knowledge of it is Robbie probably chose he probably had the power to choose which songs that he wanted to release and he probably felt that was a bit mor a little bit he wanted to go no I'm cool probably freedom he's thinking he's aware that's a George Michael track and he's thinking come on you know I want I want to be my own artist so he's releasing songs that he thinks are cool so he's doing old before I die lazy days and south of the border south of the border is a good song so he's probably thinking I don't really want to release that big ballad and if they release that big ballad.

17:11And they're like, now you work for us. Yeah, never went to number one, but immediately the album goes to number one. It had been out for 27 weeks at that point and had not troubled the top of the charts. Suddenly it does trouble the top of the charts and they do not sell 50 million records for this guy. They sell over 80 million records off the back of Angels being a hit. And if it hadn't been a hit, absolutely he would have been dropped. So I think that is the biggest ever comeback single. Okay. Agree, disagree? Or do you prefer share? No, I think... Because Cher would have made it. I think Cher definitely would have come back at some point with something.

17:45Oh, she's a survivor, Richard. Yeah, exactly. That's why I thought Robbie just edged it. No, I think you're right. I think you're right. I defer. Shall we do some efforts, then we'll get on to TV, books. I've got a little coder on comedy as well. Oh, yes, please. Okay, very good.

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19:05Welcome back, everybody. Marina, television. Biggest ever comeback. Biggest ever comebacks. Okay, I thought a lot about this. And this person I'm sort of going to just use as an example of what happened with quite a few people, but she was particular. So at number three, I would say Paula Abdul in American Idol. Wow. I was not expecting you to say the words Paula Abdul. No, but there's something about. She obviously had a, it's weird because she obviously had a big music career. But she had completely fallen away. And the way Simon Cowell selected the judges for those shows, the way he saw something about her, and let's be honest, it was that she was slightly nuts.

19:44She was, but to sort of pull her back out of nowhere and give her that job. And no one really knew what these judging shows were at all. And she, it became, obviously it became so completely massive. It was the number one show by far in America. And Paula Abdul, who had just been on the scrapheap really, was suddenly bringing her particular brand of cray-cray. And because also you're taking her from one genre and putting her another and saying, anyone can do these things now. And it was a time where you're just thinking, oh, TV's totally different now and reality TV and all the things we know about what makes a sort of good presenter and all of those things were slightly going out of the window and we were seeing a different thing.

20:23So I'd say that was big. Now, you'll probably find this ridiculous, but sharing number two. Yeah. Sharing number two? Sharing position. Yeah, I don't care. Well, then number three is number four. Well, okay, fine. So Paula Abdel is number four. Okay, Paula Abdel is number four. Oh, my God, you're doing a top four. Yeah. Okay, great. Sorry, is this the biggest ever list? Listen to me. It is. Is that what you say now? Is that what you say now? Larry Hagman as JR. Oh, great. In Dallas. And Joan Collins as Alexis Colby and Dinsley. Really good. Because those things. Okay, Larry Hagman had had like I Dream of Jeannie, which was that you know one of those kind of but it wasn't that it was not that big rating but he was quite well known like a big there was a sitcom in the States late 60s supernatural things a bit like Bewitched or any you know Married and Martian or anything like that but he has a pretty you know non-existent 1970s until he is cast as J.R.

21:22Ewing in something that no one's sure is going to work at all and it's just you know and it obviously becomes absolutely massive and he is the biggest thing in it and the whole plotline about who shot him. It's very hard to explain to people who weren't there just how big those soap operas were. And who shot JR was enormous. Who shot JR was the most enormous thing. If you thought who voted for Joe Marler was a big one, then who shot JR was... It doesn't even come close. Okay, the next one is Joan Collins because she started with the Ranked Film Organisation. She started as a sort of starlet. And then even the 60s, really, much of a desert.

21:58that the 70s, there's this kind of idea that there are these new genres kind of struggling to be born, the bonkbusters and things like that. So she's in The Stud and The Bitch, and they're huge. But then she goes absolutely stratospheric as Alexis Colby in Dynasty, and she becomes such a huge international star. It is actually bigger. The plot line of Who Shot JR is enormous, but she is the biggest star. And she really, I mean, that's a comeback, an extraordinary comeback when you think of her being like a starlet in the 50s. it really is absolutely enormous. Yeah, and it's interesting some of these comebacks where there is always that seed of what they are to become in these massive comebacks.

22:35You know, so Joan Collins had all of that stuff in her. She had not had that amazing lightning rod to bring it all out in front of a new public. And, you know, when suddenly the right person gets the right role or releases the right song at the right time, then everything just blossoms. You're so right. It's like magic in a bottle. There's just something about it. But now, as you can see, I've thought of my actual number one on the hoof. oh wow this is my actual number one has to be I'm sorry my actual number one has to be who had fiddled around and had done various television documentaries and was kind of a media star but then it all falls apart but then he comes back as the host of a US reality show that becomes the biggest reality show which is called The Apprentice and I'm sorry if you don't think that because of okay that is surely the biggest I realised while I was talking about Paula Abdul oh my god I know someone who's a bit bigger than Paula Abdul now.

23:28Not much. Right? So that has to be surely the biggest ever comeback. Because nobody knew or cared like, kind of like an 80s personality and a big thing in the 80s and then it all falls apart. And then to come back in the 2000s and be the biggest reality star of that era, I think actually bigger than Cal, although Cal was very, very big. I think he'd have to be number two of that. And then, you know, he's gone on to do some other stuff too. So I have to put Donald Trump as my biggest ever TV comeback. Wow. I think, realistically. And I only realised it when I was talking. That's why you're Britain's greatest journalist.

24:05I'm going to talk about books. There are three very different types of comebacks here. The first one I'm going to talk about is Donna Tartt. Donna Tartt writes a book every ten years. Oh my god. I've got to tell you. You'll be living your best life one day. No, because that's, I mean, what are you doing the rest of the time? I presume she does stuff. But it doesn't, I mean, that's like, essentially she's writing a paragraph a day. Wow. Wow. Anyway. Hey, listen, they're good. Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen. Nice paragraph. It's working, Donna. So Secret History comes out in 1992, one of the greatest novels of all time.

24:40I think very, very, very hard to follow that up. And a complete cultural vibe moment. Books opened in the 90s, like mega, mega, mega TV series open now. And then if they take off, everyone's talking about them. That's what 90s books was like. And that's a great book. Also, if you've got older teens as well, it's an absolutely great book for them to read. I know it's sort of a museum piece now, but it's so beautifully written. It's a museum piece like Middlemarch is a museum piece. So, you know, it's great. So 10 years later, she brings out The Little Friend, which is sort of a disappointment, I would say.

25:13I think it wouldn't have been a disappointment if she bought it out two years later. But when it's 10 years later and you're thinking, well, you've only done a paragraph a day for the last 10 years, so this is going to be spectacular. and it has slightly fallen off. So 10 years on from that, she brings out another novel and that's the point where people think, it's been 20 years now since The Secret History, you've got to write a good one. And she writes The Goldfinch, which I think is better than The Secret History. So I think it's a wonderful book. Some people disagree. I think it's an absolute masterpiece.

25:42So I think somebody who had started an absolute, you know, it's hard to start your literary career in a more spectacular way than The Secret History, 20 years later the pressure on her for that and that could have been the end of everything but no um the goldfish i think i'm going to put that number three greatest ever book comebacks uh number two i am going to talk about one of the loveliest men in all of literature mick heron so mick heron in 2003 writes a book called down cemetery road about a private investigator it doesn't really trouble the scorers he does a few more no one is buying these books and this is an incredibly familiar story for an awful lot of uh writers so people they're publishing more of them because people can read that he's great you know his publishers know that he's great so he thinks okay and he works at incomes data services he's submitting the employment law brief that is uh that is mixed day job all the way up to 2017 by the way i'll probably i'll find this contemporary writer but yeah so 2010 he's he's thinks okay i'm gonna do i'm gonna move in a slightly different direction i'm gonna write like a spy type thing but i wanted to be funny so he writes slow horses which of course now we know as this huge runaway hit and everyone absolutely adores it write slow horses nobody really reads it i mean you can read it now you'll see what a brilliant book it is and he writes the follow-up to slow horses which is called dead lions and his publisher constable reads it says sorry Mick not for us I'm afraid this is it's not it's not going to happen you know you've written these four books in the other series now we've got this you know we've seen slow horses we've given you a go with that it's just it's it's not for us so his agent takes it around to various other publishers and they all go well it's a sort of follow-up to something that another publisher released I don't know what we would really do with it and also it's what is it Is it a thriller?

27:41Is it funny? I mean, I don't really know what this is. The tone, Mick, with respect, is absolutely all over the place. You know, I can't see a world in which people are going to love this. So Mick returns back to his day job thinking, oh, my God. An American publisher, Soho Press, says, we love to sow horses. We will publish two more. So they said we will take Deadlines and they'll also take Real Tigers, which was the next one. And so he's still writing. There's still money coming in. but again there's not sales coming in 2015 john murray which is a different publisher because see that's the thing is all these books were brilliant yeah and anyone with a proper eye can see that they're brilliant and this is no shade on constable his publisher by the way is you can't keep throwing money at something if you're not selling it so they could know it's good but they think it was not a lot we can do john murray say look we must be able to reissue these and do something with them because they're so great again not really you know nothing was really happening 2017 waterstones pick slow horses as their thriller of the month now this is a book that was written seven years ago and that no one really wanted to buy the follow-up from but over the years you know enough people have liked it they pick up that book 2017 suddenly it becomes a hit does someone in someone just reads it and thinks this is great yeah everyone should know about this and because they have the power within the organization they just say please yeah and the same thing and the same thing by the way was happening in america like npr the public radio which is a big deal for books over there.

29:07One of their presenters had picked up So Horses as well. And I was like, everyone, you have got to buy this book and read this book. And there are lots of books, by the way, that don't have this. Just, you know, you need a little bit of fortune along the way as well. But the truth is Mick was always an amazing writer. So everyone who picked up these books would have the same response, which is, sorry, why is everybody not reading this book? So there are a couple more by that point. So you can already get on into it. Exactly. So Mick's got all his back catalogue and just continues writing, gives up his job, as I say, in 2017, which is the same year as the Waterstones, making the thriller of the month.

29:45And you go all the way back to 2003, that Down Cemetery Road. And that's now on Apple TV with Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson playing the main parts. So Mick Heron, who is just one of the nicest men you'll ever meet and one of the most talented men you'll ever meet. But how about that from a comeback, from his publisher saying, I'm sorry. That was more than on the ropes. That's really on the floor. No more of these books to being one of the best-selling authors in the UK and America. But my number one in book comebacks is a character. Oh, really? I thought you were going to say one day. Okay. Oh, well, you tell me what you thought afterwards.