Acting-wise, Lindsay Lohan hit a triple at age 12 with The Parent Trap (’98), and then slammed two homers with her performances in Mean Girls (’04) and especially A Prairie Home Companion (’06). She’s made other films, of course, and has recorded some music and certainly made headlines, but let’s be honest — nowadays she’s primarily known as a stalled Rehab Queen (although she’s only 35) and a person who was happening a little less than a decade ago but no longer.

I’m not saying Lohan is a permanent trainwreck whose personal weaknesses and lack of discipline have overwhelmed her career, mind, but that’s the image that has sunk in…be honest, Trey Taylor! Does Lohan need to “be” her image for the rest of her life? Of course not. She could begin to turn things around today, if she wanted to give it a shot.

The bottom line is that since ’05 or thereabouts Lohan has been more or less vying for the title of the 21st Century’s Tallulah Bankhead, which is actually a half-flattering description as Bankhead had a great decades-long theatre career (The Little Foxes, The Skin of Our Teeth, Clash By Night) and gave an award-worthy performance in one great film (Alfred Hitchcock‘s Lifeboat). When it came to nervy, challenging interviewers (the David Lettermans of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s) Bankhead would typically agree with every tawdry tabloid anecdote and own her reputation — she gave as good as she got.

But since the recent release of Hulu’s Framing Britney Spears (“I am deeply sorry“), Twitter has been revisiting other instances of brash insensitivity in terms of stars being raked over the coals for their perceived personal problems or for indelicate behavior in general.

February 14, 2021by Jeffrey WellsNo Comments