OldBoy

i was thinking, eventhough he is more a tv personality...Neil Patrick Harris has had a nice resurgence since the first Harold and Kumar.

Ash Ketchum

I think Nielsen and many of the other mentions here would better belong in a thread called "Best Career Reinvention" or "Best Career Resurgence."

The OP's idea, if I'm reading it correctly, is a resurrection of a career thought dead because of jail, drug abuse, scandal, etc. If Lindsay Lohan ever engineers a Downey-like comeback, she'd win the title hands-down.

Going back some decades, I think of Paul Kelly, an excellent character actor from the late '30s to the '50s, who did jail time early in the '30s for shooting to death his girlfriend's husband. When Kelly got out of jail, he married the girlfriend and got his Hollywood career back. (Apparently the shot husband had been extremely abusive or something.)

Tom Neal (DETOUR) shot his 3rd wife to death--accidentally, he said--and served time but never got his career back.

Producer Walter Wanger suspected his Hollywood star wife Joan Bennett of having an affair with her agent, Jennings Lang, and shot him in the groin. Wanger went to jail and when he came out, he produced the hard-hitting prison drama, RIOT ON CELL BLOCK 11 (1954) and followed up with INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956). Not a bad resurrection, huh?
Jennings Lang went on to a successful career at Universal Pictures, producing or exec-producing all sorts of films, including early Clint Eastwood productions (PLAY MISTY FOR ME, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, etc.) and the AIRPORT sequels ('75, '77, '79).

OldBoy

i meant resurgence or reinvention or resurrection.

mwbmis

I think Travolta's the best answer. He was one of the biggest stars in the world (something Downey never really accomplished the first time) then made a bunch of bad professional decisions and sunk his career. His acting career became a punchline (at his worst, Downey was more cautionary tale than punchline). Then he came back and became one of the biggest stars in the world again before a bunch bad professional decisions sunk his career again! Downey is obviously a much bigger star now.

OldBoy

Jeff Bridges has had a nice resurgence.

TomOpus

Jesus, biggest pic doesn't mean biggest resurrection. Couldn't find any smaller for Jeff Bridges?

Ostello

John Travolta - Pulp Fiction

DJariya

Sly Stallone.

After he did D-Tox and Avenging Angelo that went straight to video, I thought his career was dead.

I think Rocky Balboa definitely helped resurrect his career, especially for an actor in his late 50's at the time.

24 helped resurrect Kiefer Sutherland's career 10 years ago, but outside of playing Jack Bauer, he hasn't had a major box office hit in the theatres. His last 2 big budget movies (Mirrors and The Sentinel) barely made $80M each including foreign box office.

PopcornTreeCt

How has Stallone's career been resurrected? The Expendables wasn't exactly burning up the box office.

DJariya

Uhhh, The Expendables made $274M worldwide not counting DVD and BD sales. That isn't chump change.

Deftones

It wasn't a $300 million dollar hit, but it definitely made a ton of money all over the world.

I at the Paula Abdul suggestion.

Nick Danger

What about screenwriter Dalton Trumbo? He was blacklisted for years after the McCarthy hearings, but in the 1960s he started getting screen credits again. The difference in his case is that he was so talented, he could sell scripts in the 1950s on the down low.

Abob Teff

Sean Penn ... the man is considered one of our great modern-day actors (politics aside) and yet he was Spicoli and gone.

PopcornTreeCt

Yeah, but it still didn't make Stallone a brighter star or anything. I mean he's always been Stallone.

Michael Corvin

Although there are some great answers in the thread, I'm leaning towards this. No one else mentioned was as famous as Travolta the first time out in their careers, making his fall and resurrection the most significant.

I think the only person that could match his rise and fall at this point would be Nic Cage, but he needs to disappear for a bit before he can have a resurgence.

d2cheer

I would not say his career has sunk again. He just does not work as often anymore. He has had a couple of hits in the last few years. Hairspray, Wild Hogs come to mind...

But agree with most of your post. Travolta is by far the best answer.

Sean O'Hara

Bill Murray. After What About Bob he started going in the direction of Akroyd, Chase and Short, but then Anderson, Coppola and Jarmusch started giving him great parts.

Nick Danger

You mean the comedian who starred in The Razor's Edge and Groundhog Day?

Mabuse

One note about Travolta, people were already trumpeting his "amazing comeback" when he had a colossal hit with Look Who's Talking in 1989. He failed to follow that up with anything good, and when he finally stared in Pulp Fiction people were ready to trumpet his comeback again. He's had many comebacks...he's great at comebacks...what he sucks at is maintaining. For every Pulp Fiction there is one General's Daughter or Battlefield Earth.

Mabuse

Yeah, Bill Murray's carreer hasn't had a resurection, it's had a second act.

Iron_Giant

John Travolta - But I thought it started in "Look who is talking". Movie made a ton of cash, then had sequels. After that he had Pulp Fiction, then other rolls followed.

Buttmunker

Ben Affleck

Aside from Good Will Hunting in 1997, I would categorize Affleck in the 1990s as director Kevin Smith's casting standby (Mallrats, Chasing Amy, & Dogma, but not limited to that, as he had good roles in Dazed & Confused and Armegeddon (the latter no doubt thanks to his Oscar-victory a year prior).

Then, for some reason, things went bad for Ben. His films weren't very good (Reindeer Games, Pearl Harbor, and The Sum of All Fears, to name a few), despite the big promise and paycheck. Of course, his dating Jennifer Lopez didn't help (Bennifer, anybody?)...and it just seemed like Ben Affleck became a big joke in Hollywood. His lead roles in Gigli and Jersey Girl didn't help matters.

Several Raspberry Awards later, a glimmer of hope occurred when he received good reviews for his turn as "George Reeves" in 2006's Hollywoodland...........and then he directed Gone Baby Gone in 2007, and suddenly Ben Affleck wasn't a big joke anymore.

Suddenly, Ben Affleck was having a career resurrection! And, I feel, he's been maintaining himself very well ever since.

Rypro 525

^Kevin didn't direct Gigli (and Jersey Girl isn't THAT bad)

DJariya

Even though he's semi-retired now, I would say that Chuck Norris had a pretty good career resurrection back in the 90's going into 2000's.

In the 80's, he was pretty much known as a low budget action star in the Cannon Films library. Once Cannon went under, his career hit a thud and he did mostly cheapie DTV action flicks. Then, he joined Walker Texas Ranger on CBS, which had a solid 8 year run and was for a long time the highest rated program on Saturday nights. Walker is still played in syndication to this date.

Mabuse

True. Young guys on the internet wouldn't know it, but Walker Texas Ranger was huge. Old people loved that shit.