Warner Brothers finally had enough of Charlie Sheen — the one-time rising actor, highest paid star on television, supplier of best-selling tabloid stories about his alleged drug and sex lives who was suspended from his smash show “Two and a Half Men” and who has been on a multi-platform gab and dissfest ever since.
“After careful consideration, Warner Bros. Television has terminated Charlie Sheen’s services on ‘Two and a Half Men’ effective immediately,” Warner Bros. said in an e-mail statement.
CBS, the network that airs “Two and a Half Men,” declined to comment.
Sheen responded to the news of his job loss in a statement to TMZ.com:
“This is very good news,” he said. “They continue to be in breach, like so many whales. It is a big day of gladness at the Sober Valley Lodge because now I can take all of the bazillions, never have to look at [expletive] again and I never have to put on those silly shirts for as long as this warlock exists in the terrestrial dimension.” Some of the insults in Sheen’s statement were presumably meant for Chuck Lorre, “Two and a Half Men’s” creator.
What, no: “Winning. DUH!”?
As I see it, Sheen has two major problems now:
1. He is more of a personality than an actor. No matter what role he plays, the Charlie Sheen saga will get in the way of audiences suspending disbelief no matter how good his performance is. He has unalterably changed his image now.
2. He will likely be exceedingly hard to insure.
Since 2003, Sheen had starred in the sitcom as Charlie Harper, a playboy who mimicked Sheen’s real-life persona. Last year, he reportedly inked a deal to make $2 million per episode.
There is one more year left on Warners’ contract with CBS for the series and, according to reports, no decision has yet been made on what to do. (Why not try signing on a stable actor like Mel Gibson?)
EW’s Inside TV provides a slew of details on why he was fired. Here’s part of the report:
How did Charlie Sheen lose the highest-paid acting job in TV?
There wasn’t just one reason, according to a letter sent by Two and a Half Men studio Warner Bros. to Sheen’s attorney Marty Singer. It was everything that the media has obsessively covered about Sheen during the past four months — from the trashed Plaza hotel room to dodging rehab to his media rants.
The studio maintains Sheen defaulted on his contract due to several factors: Being unable to perform his duties on Men; admitting to cocaine use; making derogatory public comments about the show; and refusing to continue on the series without “radical changes” being made.
The extraordinary dismissal letter details the studio’s side of the story for the first time, informing Sheen’s attorney: “Your client has been engaged in dangerously self-destructive conduct and appears to be very ill. For months before the suspension of production, Mr. Sheen’s erratic behavior escalated while his condition deteriorated. His declining condition undermined the production in numerous and significant ways. Warner Bros. would not, could not, and should not attempt to continue ‘business as usual’ while Mr. Sheen destroys himself as the world watches.”
The studio says Sheen’s behavior took a dramatic turn for the worse in January and February, when, contrary to the actor’s claims, his partying began to impact his performance on the show. The studio says Sheen was late to rehearsals, had difficulty remembering his lines and hitting his marks. Exec producer Chuck Lorre’s vanity cards, which publicly annoyed the actor, “reflect Mr. Lorre’s growing concern and frustration with Mr. Sheen’s inability or unwillingness to acknowledge his serious problems and to seek help.”
After CBS and Warner Bros. suspended production on the series so Sheen could attend rehab, the companies were frustrated that the actor insisted on staying home instead of entering a facility.
“Warner executives requested several times that Mr. Sheen’s representatives send a letter from Mr. Sheen’s doctor explaining his diagnosis, course of treatment and prognosis, and certifying that Mr. Sheen could return to work on February 28,” said the letter. “No such letter was provided. Subsequently, Warner Bros. learned that Mr. Sheen had apparently fired his sobriety coach. Moreover, Mr. Sheen recently declared he had self-healed his addictions by saying that he “blinked and cured [his] brain.” Accordingly, it is not surprising that no professional apparently was willing to attest that Mr. Sheen had self-treated, self-healed and self-cured his brain ofhis addiction problems.”
Go to the link for the rest.
Also read this column that ran last week on Sheen.
The New York Times’ recently did this report that notes how many of those around Sheen know he is in peril, but he is apparently surrounded by a group of enablers — since he is a big cash machine to them.
The new cash coming in will likely cease, or at least be a lot less. It’s highly unlikely he will ever go back to anywhere near the earning capacity as a serious actor, even if he goes into rehab.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.