Actors Whose Careers Were Ruined By Great TV Shows

Though Dr. Frasier Crane is one of the most beloved television characters of all time, since Frasier went off the air in 2004, Kelsey Grammer's career has basically been in the gutter. It was no small feat when Frasier, who first appeared on Cheers, became such a beloved character that he got his own spinoff series. Frasier succeeded largely because of the performance of Grammer and his supporting cast. So what exactly happened? Maybe the downfall was due to Grammer's scandalous personal life—the actor has struggled with substance abuse and has even weathered a sex tape scandal. Ending his marriage to his third wife, Camille, a cast member of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills over the telephone and getting stewardess Kayte Walsh pregnant before his divorce to Camille was finalized probably didn't help, either.

Friends fans delighted in the return of David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian in the critically acclaimed FX series The People vs. O.J. Simpson. Since his ten years as Ross Geller on Friends, Schwimmer's career had basically slowed to a halt. It's a typical case of a great television role ruining an actor's chances for success in other arenas. Schwimmer himself even acknowledges the damage Friends did to his career. In August 2016, he told The Hollywood Reporter his newfound fame made him want to crawl under a rock, not pursue more work. "The effect of celebrity ... made me want to hide under a baseball cap and not be seen. I realized that after a while I was no longer watching people; I was trying to hide. I was trying to figure out: How do I be an actor in this new world, in this new situation? How do I do my job? That was tricky." And as if that weren't bad enough, Schwimmer's enormous celebrity nearly destroyed his personal life, too."It was pretty jarring and it messed with my relationship to other people in a way that took years, I think, for me to adjust to and become comfortable with."

Actor Peter Falk was a beloved actor on both the small and big screens—fans cite his appearance playing himself in Wim Wenders' The Wings of Desire and his part as the lovable Grandpa in The Princess Bride as two of his most beloved movie roles. But Falk is best remembered as everyone's favorite TV detective, Columbo. The critically acclaimed series ran from 1968 to 2003 and dominated Falk's entire career. That run solidified him as Columbo for not one but two generations of viewers. Hey, career death by Columbo doesn't seem so bad.

Though Shakespearean-trained actor Patrick Stewart has gone on to many more major roles in his long and prolific career after playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the rest of the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast was not so lucky, despite the series long run (1984-97) and immense popularity. Jonathan Frakes (Commander William T. Riker), LeVar Burton (Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge), and Brent Spiner (Data) have all failed to embark on major careers post TNG, which speaks more to the iconic characters they played than their talents as actors. The Star Trek fanbase is a die-hard, dedicated enterprise. Let's hope the celebrity has been enough to sustain these three over the years.

Comedienne Roseanne Barr will undoubtedly go down in history for the creation of the character Roseanne and the beloved sitcom that ran for nine seasons. While working on the show, Barr won both an Emmy and Golden Globe for Best Actress. But since the final episode aired in 1997, Roseanne has weathered the strange world of always being "Roseanne." Though she had a talk show that lasted two years, Barr has since pursued other interests, including politics. In 2012, she announced her candidacy for president, running as a Green Party candidate. She was defeated by Jill Stein.