What Happened? Celebrities (Martin Lawrence) Who Should Have Had Bigger Careers

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http://madamenoire.com/285747/what-h...ger-careers/8/

He killed it in the 90s. From Martin to Bad Boys and everything in between, Martin Lawrence found fame and fortune in comedy, but we have to admit that when the Big Momma’s House years rolled in, Lawrence definitely was knocked down the Hollywood totem pole. Instead of sleek, interesting humor, Lawrence found himself doing characters that just didn’t have the same spirit as the roles he had previously created on television and in his other films. Can he get back on top? Drop Big Momma and then maybe you’ll have a shot.

- See more at: http://madamenoire.com/285747/what-h....gfNi10qW.dpuf

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http://lebeauleblog.com/2013/11/23/w...rtin-lawrence/

In the mid-90′s, Martin Lawrence had a hit TV show and a burgeoning movie career. He went on to establish himself as a Hollywood A-lister in big screen action movies and comedies. But by the end of the decade, Lawrence was surrounded by scandal. Since then, his movie career has slowed down considerably. His last box office hit was in 2007. What the hell happened?

[isiahthomas]

I think Martin Lawrence had a good acting career and nobody stays on top forever. He did very well for a black comedian because it's not easy for black comedians to have a long acting career. I heard him and Will Smith are gonna do another Bad Boys sequel and i don't know when it's coming out. I liked the first 2 Bad Boys. So hopefully this new one will be good. Martin is on a new tv show with Kelsey Grammer. I think it comes on FX network. The show looks corny and i think Martin plays a lawyer.

[cleverfun3000]

As one of Martin Lawrence's Biggest Fans, I have to say that he isn't even a third as funny or entertaining as he once was. I have seen every Martin episode at least twice and I can tell you he had that magic "IT" factor when the cameras rolled. He was a natural. But now, he's just someone's fat. dumpy looking father who is no longer a lady's man or a hustler's hustler. I never liked his movies, except for the one he did with the amazing Danny Devito and I wouldn't even consider watching his new cornball series with another has-been - Kelsey Grammer - (and I was HUGE fan of "Frasier").

[isiahthomas]

How could you say you never liked his movies? Are you ********? LOL. The movie you said you like that he did with Danny DeVito is one of his worst movies. His best movies are Boomerang, A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, House Party 1 and 2, Life, Bad Boys 1 and 2, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.

[isiahthomas]

I forgot he was in Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing which is a good movie.

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http://www.twcc.com/articles/2015/01...nce-gone-wrong

There was a time when Martin Lawrence stood alone amongst the generation of African-American stand-up comedians that followed in the footsteps of Eddie Murphy. He parlayed his hit sitcom, Martin, into a thriving film career around the turn of the century. That was a while ago, though, and Lawrence's more recent work hasn't enjoyed the same success. He attempted a return to TV last year, teaming with Kelsey Grammar on the FX show Partners, which lasted only 10 episodes. With the funnyman turning 50 this spring, we remember the days when Lawrence was "so crazy."

Roscoe Jenkins Returns Home

Lawrence plays Dr. R.J. Stevens, a successful talk show host, who returns home to his small Southern hometown for his parents' 50th wedding anniversary. The only issue is that his real name is Roscoe Jenkins Jr. and he's avoided his childhood home since his painfully awkward youth. As is the way in such movies, as Roscoe returns home to flaunt his success, it turns out that everyone still views him as the same kid that they knew when he was growing up. Malcolm D. Lee's film tries to straddle the line between slapstick and warm family humor and only partially succeeds. Putting Lawrence in the ring with James Earl Jones as his disapproving father is an unfair match-up. Better is when Lawrence gets to share the screen with fellow stand-ups Mike Epps and Cedric the Entertainer as his cousins.

Blue Streak

Going back to his early days as Kid 'n Play's tag-along pal Bilal in the House Party movies, Lawrence has long looked more comfortable bouncing off others. In the hit comedy, Lawrence stars as a jewel thief who was double-crossed by his partner and ends up in prison. When he gets out, he ends up posing as a detective to try to retrieve the jewel that he hid in a building that had been under construction during his heist -- a new police headquarters. Partnered with a naive detective played by Luke Wilson, he tries to play the ruse long enough to collect his booty. Lawrence gets to unleash the energy that made his sitcom a hit and his stand-up act such a draw while also having fun with Wilson and Dave Chappelle. The story is thin but, let's face it, the plot was besides the point. The idea was clearly just to wind-up Lawrence and let him go.

Bad Boys 2

The biggest success of Lawrence's film career has come in the Bad Boys buddy comedies playing Will Smith's partner for producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay. The sequel to the 1995 original, Bad Boys 2 grossed more than $273 million worldwide. The plot has something to do with high-potency ecstasy hitting the streets in Miami thanks to the Russian mob, and Gabrielle Union serving as a foil/damsel-in-distress for Lawrence and Smith. Like most Bay films, though, any sort of story is just meant to get the audience from one explosion (followed by a wisecrack) to the next. In August, Lawrence told Conan O'Brien that plans are in place for Bad Boys 3, hopefully with Smith and Bay back as well. It's been 12 years since the last movie, but as Hollywood has proven over and over again, wisecracks and explosions never get old.

Black Knight

Lawrence's foray into family entertainment (hey, if Ice Cube can do it, then why not?), director Gil Junger's movie is a half-hearted take on Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Lawrence plays a worker at a theme park called "Medieval World" who falls into a moat and finds himself back in merry, old England during the days of knights and jousts. The locals assume that he's a French Moor in a New York Jets jersey -- why wouldn't they? -- and soon Lawrence is leading them in an uprising against a ruthless king. The comedian's character saves the day and brings the lessons that he learns back to his present day life. Lawrence is accessible enough that he should be fine doing lighter fare, but just because something is aimed at families, it doesn't mean it has to be dumbed down -- something that the team behind Black Knight didn't seem to realize.

Big Momma In the House

Serving as a less nuanced precursor to Tyler Perry's Madea character in a movie helmed by Scooby-Doo director Raja Gosnell, Big Momma's House, by all rights, shouldn't work. Martin donned a bodysuit reminiscent of Murphy in The Nutty Professor to play an FBI agent who poses as a grandma to help protect a witness. During his TV show, Lawrence toyed with playing multiple characters by donning make-up to change his appearance and in Big Momma, Lawrence was clearly having fun reviving that part of his act. The supporting performances by Paul Giamatti, Terrence Howard and Nia Long manage to make the final product better than its source material (having a couple of Oscar-nominated actors along for the ride will do that). Lawrence might not have looked like a passable elderly woman, but audiences looking for realism really weren't the target market for the movie.

[king of comedy]

He had it all. He should to supporting roles. Maybe try drama.

[isiahthomas]

I saw him on Youtube recently and he said there's gonna be a Bad Boys 3. I was glad to hear that but this should be the last one because Martin and Will are too old to be chasing bad guys. Martin had a good career and he doesn't need to do anymore acting. He should retire and enjoy the rest of his life. He should have enough money.

[SitcomsOffline]

All things considered, Martin Lawrence actually had a pretty successful career.

This may seem politically incorrect, but when the average white people knows who you're talking about when you say "Martin Lawrence," then obviously he didn't do too badly.

[Jack Gomez]

Martin had a really good run there with tv and movies. I think what happened to him happens to most comics. The public gets tired of them and moves on. It's kind of rare for them to still be as popular as when they were in their youth. Chris Tucker is another one and it seems like Adam Sandler is starting to fall off with the public.

[EccentricGenius]

Other than Martin Lawrence ("Big Momma House" and "Bad Boys" franchises), Tisha Campbell-Martin ("My Wife And Kids"), and Tichina Arnold ("Everybody Hates Chris"), Thomas Mikal Ford (Tommy Strawn) and Carl Anthony Payne II (Cole Brown) never parlayed their respective successes on "Martin" into anything lucrative. I know Ford had a role on "New York Undercover" during its fourth--and final--season (1998) as Malik Yoba's commanding officer, but I haven't seen much else from him since then. As we all know, Payne had a recurring role on the '80s hit "The Cosby Show" as Theo's buddy Cockroach (seasons two through four) prior to his five-season run as Cole on "Martin," but other than his role as music impresario and executive Antonio "L.A." Reid in the successful VH1 original film "CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story," he's fallen off the radar as well.

[Hawkee]

Did Martin Lawrence have an illness a long time ago? Because when I saw him on the show Partners he appeared to have a hoarse voice and he looks different now. My dad and I saw Martin Lawrence for the first time and we thought he was really funny. It's surprising that Martin was the sitcom that made Martin Lawrence a household name that would make him a huge movie star and actor acting in movies such as Bad Boys the Big Momma's House series and Barbershop and more sitcoms as well
Bestie

[EccentricGenius]

Originally Posted by LaBestia

Did Martin Lawrence have an illness a long time ago? Because when I saw him on the show Partners he appeared to have a hoarse voice and he looks different now. My dad and I saw Martin Lawrence for the first time and we thought he was really funny. It's surprising that Martin was the sitcom that made Martin Lawrence a household name that would make him a huge movie star and actor acting in movies such as Bad Boys the Big Momma's House series and Barbershop and more sitcoms as well
Bestie

Martin Lawrence was going through some personal and professional problems throughout the second half of the '90s, LaBestia...he began acting irrationally and erratically in public, apparently due to his newfound fame.

In addition to feuding with his "Martin" co-star Tisha Campbell (Campbell accused Lawrence of sexual harassment, as well as physical and verbal abuse; Campbell declined to participate in subsequent episodes as a result of her beef with Lawrence, although she returned to tape the hour-long series finale after the dispute was settled--under the condition that Campbell didn't share any scenes, or even interact, with Lawrence) during the show's fifth (and final) season, Lawrence was arrested (and hospitalized for observation) in 1996 for brandishing a loaded handgun in the middle of an intersection, on Ventura Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles, claiming someone was attempting to murder him (Lawrence was screaming "They're trying to kill me!" at the top of his lungs when police arrived on the scene). The year before that, in the summer of '95, on the set of his film "A Thin Line Between Love And Hate" (his directorial debut), Lawrence apparently lashed out in a violent rage and was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for observation. In March of '97, Lawrence was again arrested by police after punching a man in a Hollywood nightclub.

Two years later, in August 1999, while preparing for his upcoming film "Big Momma's House," Lawrence collapsed (and nearly died) from heat exhaustion (his body temperature had skyrocketed to 107°F) while jogging in one hundred-degree weather wearing multiple layers of clothing as well as a "plastic suit." Lawrence subsequently slipped into a coma, which lasted for three days, with his breathing assisted by a ventilator. Thankfully, Lawrence emerged from his coma and eventually recovered from his near-death experience.

Despite his personal inner demons, Lawrence has definitely mellowed over the last decade or so, thanks to the highly successful "Bad Boys" and "Big Momma's House" film franchises, as well as appearing in family-friendly films such as "Open Season," "Rebound," "Wild Hogs," and "College Road Trip." And I'd like to make a clarification on your post, LaBestia--Lawrence didn't star in "Barbershop" (or its sequels).

Happy Easter, LaBestia!

[Hawkee]

Thank you very much for your reply EccentricGenius. My mother was just wondering what had happened to Martin Lawrence and your info was very helpful to me,
Have a Happy Easter,
Bestie