Paparazzi images of Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman and Bridget Fonda are circulating online, fueling a strange desire to force reclusive actors back into the limelight
A few headlines have people clicking like, “OMG, you won’t believe how UNKNOWABLE this star looks today.” People fall for it every time. They fall for it when the star has succumbed to the natural aging process (Journey’s Steve Perry, seen with gray hair this week). They fall for it when the star wears prosthetics on set (Colin Farrell films as Penguin, the iconic character he played in a hugely successful film). They even fall for it when the star has simply opted for accessories (“Australian actress looks unrecognizable in quirky sunglasses on a stroll around London – can you identify the star?” above some photos of Cate Blanchett that match exactly what Cate Blanchett looks like). . It’s basically a cheap trick.
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But in recent weeks, those headlines have taken on a grittier tone. Photos of Gene Hackman, a 93-year-old man who retired from acting nearly two decades ago, surfaced online a month ago. Shortly after, someone snapped a picture of Jack Nicholson – an 80-year-old actor who retired 12 years ago, has not been seen in 18 months and is reportedly suffering from dementia – on the balcony of his home. And then, this week, the same thing happened to Bridget Fonda. She’s 59 years old, she hasn’t played in 20 years, and yet the sight of her visiting a landscaping shop made the whole world boil.
“PICTURE: Jackie Brown star Bridget Fonda, 59, looks unrecognizable as she’s seen on rare public outing,” the headline read, with the article itself breathlessly announcing that it’s nearly six years before the landscaping supply run nobody had taken a picture of her for months. And then, days later, Fonda was caught out in public again, visibly troubled by a Page Six reporter who stalked her through an airport parking lot and repeatedly asked why she wasn’t acting anymore.
It’s not exactly a new fad — a decade ago, three years before his death, the National Enquirer ran a famous story titled “DISGUSTED GENE WILDER IS BITTER RECLUSE” — but the rush to track down people who were once famous seems to be to have picked up some momentum lately. And as far as I can tell, it seems rooted in a mixture of confusion and entitlement.
Bridget Fonda in 2000. Photo: Graham Whitby-Boot/Sportsphoto/Allstar
Confusion because we all believe that fame is the highest honor we could ever receive. When you’re famous, you can do whatever you want, and you have unlimited resources to do it. Why just walk away from it? Instead of simply realizing it’s not for you and walking away with most of your dignity, why not cling to your fame with your fingernails like your life does indeed depend on it?
And claim because, well, how dare they retire? Don’t these people know that they belong to us? We spent money to see a movie they made sometime in the last century and now they are ours forever. We deserve to see pictures of how unrecognizable they are because it’s in the public interest to spy on people who haven’t caught our attention in nearly a quarter decade.
Some of the latest images have an element of the big game hunter. Because of course anyone can go outside and take a picture of, say, a Kardashian. But Gene Hackman? Gene Hackman, who deliberately turned his back on the business in 2004 and is doing everything possible to live as anonymous a life as possible? It’s like killing a rhino. The same goes for Bridget Fonda. Not only is she retired, but she actually looks distressed when someone recognizes her, making her an even more compelling proposition.
But really, first prize should go to whoever snuck into the confines of Jack Nicholson’s house and snapped a picture of him literally going about his daily business. Nicholson didn’t even do anything so brazenly attention-grabbing as quietly visit a landscaping supply store by himself. No, he was at home and old and sick. It’s like tracking down the world’s rarest animal, then blowing its head off and then posing with the corpse for a selfie.
All of these cases obviously constitute a grotesque invasion of privacy. On the other hand, we are the ones who click on them. Figuring out why that is can take forever. Why are we so keen on seeing our heroes look old and sick? Perhaps we use them to remind ourselves of our own mortality. We’re so used to seeing these forever characters on screen looking young, sexy and cool that it comes as a shock to see them fragile and old and ordinary. Perhaps we use them to remind ourselves that decay and death are always lurking around the corner for all of us. Or maybe we’re just curious. Who knows?
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