Stuck

Why we can't (or won't) move on from bad jobs, bad relationships, and bad habits, and how we can all move ahead.

Anneli Rufus is the author of many books, including Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto and Stuck: Why We Can't (or Won't) Move On. See full bio

January 2, 2009, Creativity

Success, a Lethal Snare

Can typecasting kill?

At the end of 2008, as at the end of every year, the media was rife with lists of celebrities who died during those last twelve months. From young folks full of promise such as Heath Ledger to longtime legends such as Paul Newman, Arthur C. Clarke and Eartha Kitt, these lists remind us that celebrities -- in that they die -- are people, too. Most of them make a lot more money than most of us ever will, but in many cases -- as Ledger's death at age 28 suggests -- their lives can be devastatingly stressful. Are we unwittingly harming our favorite stars by loving them too much?

While researching my book Stuck: Why We Can't (or Won't) Move on, I talked about this with rock-and-roll historian Richie Unterberger, the author of many books including The Unreleased Beatles and Turn! Turn! Turn!

"When you listen to Jimi Hendrix's records, you don't think of a guy who's getting stuck," Unterberger said. Certainly not! The persona that surrounded Hendrix in his brief lifetime and even now, so long after his death at age 27 in 1970, was all about innovation. He was the one who picked guitar-strings with his teeth, the one who performed an electrified "Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock. Yet Hendrix was "under continuous pressure" from his fans and managers never to change, Unterberger asserted. Hendrix always performed his own classics at concerts "because he was afraid not to, because he felt that his fans couldn't accept stuff from him that might be new and unfamiliar, that the wouldn't be able to accept any new statement that he might make. This contributed a lot to the confusion of the last year or two of his life. And even though he was getting so bored with ‘Foxy Lady,' he did not have the will to not play it."

The prospect of losing some portion of the adulation to which one has become accustomed - along with the "instant perks" accompanying this adulation, as Unterberger put it - is often daunting enough to quell all attempts at experimentation: "Hendrix couldn't see his way to having short-term pain for long-term gain. He kept dragging this obelisk" which was his own illustrious past.

For actors, the phrase "defining role" is telling and ironic. Sometimes a defining role becomes a damning role, miring the performer at a certain point in his or her creative development, at a certain moment in popular culture. George Reeves played Superman on TV in the early ‘50s. After two seasons, at age 40, he wanted to move on. But the American public so identified Reeves with this one role that he could barely get any others. Fans spotting him on the street addressed him as "Superman." He did a guest spot on I Love Lucy, in a 1956 episode titled "Lucy Meets Superman." Three years later, he committed suicide.

A.A. Milne is best-known as the author of Winnie-the-Pooh. This is true today as it was for the last thirty years of his life - to Milne's eternal consternation. In fact he was a versatile writer: a journalist, novelist, memoirist, poet and playwright before publishing that classic children's book in 1926. He would likely have made many more bold career shifts subsequently if only his fans had let him. But they didn't, expecting him instead to tarry in toyland forever. Milne died feeling stalled and embittered.