Even if you don’t know his name, Judge Reinhold has graced your television screen. After exploding onto the screen in the 80s alongside comedy legends like Bill Murray, John Candy, and Eddie Murphy, the actor is as much a staple of the decade as the NES. With movies like Gremlins, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and, of course, Beverly Hills Cop under his belt, it seemed like the sky was the limit for Reinhold when the 90s rolled in.
But after his mega-successful breakout, Reinhold nearly faded into obscurity. Relegated to direct-to-video releases and voice acting roles, the actor’s career prospects slowly dwindled until he was lucky to do one project a year. Reinhold’s fall from grace is mirrored across countless forgotten celebrities, but this is one Gen X icon we’re glad to see make a Twenties comeback.
Reinhold’s rise to success
Edward “Judge” Reinhold was born in 1957. His iconic moniker came from his lawyer father, who clocked his infant son’s severe expression as the same look the judges he practiced law before. Judge started his acting career at 23, and almost immediately landed his first popular role in Stripes. By the time he appeared as Detective Billy Rosewood in Beverly Hills Cop alongside Eddie Murphy, he was well on the road to fame.
Hollywood executives were determined to make him a star right from the start. Reinhold’s career seemed unstoppable, and for just under two decades, it was. In 3 years, he worked on some of the most successful comedy films of the decade. “I had 50-year-old actors coming up to me and saying, “Do you realize how lucky you are to have one hit like this in your career?’ And I said, Yeah, sure.’” But in retrospect, Reinhold knows he had no idea how lucky he was.
“I was spoiled and I was arrogant,” he told the LA Times in 1992. “I was very demanding, had an overblown image of who I was and got a reputation for being difficult. And rightfully so.”
It didn’t take long for the success to go to his head, and even less time for his bad reputation to end his career as quickly as it started.
What happened to Judge Reinhold’s career?
The early 90s marked a slew of bad movies for Reinhold. Starting with Vice Versa, the father/son version of Freaky Friday, Reinhold tried to transition from a sidekick to the main event. Though his chemistry with Fred Savage was lauded by critics, the movie was panned all around. As Reinhold saw it at the time, “That was really the end of my highfalutin’ Hollywood career.”
Over Her Dead Body and Zandalee soon followed, but both were theatrical flops despite their stellar casts. As the decade continued, Reinhold’s reputation soured. He had garnered a reputation for being a diva. He made demands for “star treatment,” and would fly into a rage on sets, yelling at directors, crew members, and costars. It got so bad that one director refused to rehearse with him.
When Beverly Hills Cop 3 was released a decade after the first film, it was panned by critics and fans alike. Reinhold was very vocal about his dislike for the film. Before the film was released, he was concerned about the audience’s ability to suspend belief, and the goofy, kid-friendly tone of the movie.
It also marked one of the first times he argued for a royalty cut rather than a single payout. He told Entertainment Weekly in 1994 that the studio hated him for the request. “In their minds, I don’t sell the tickets… I know who sells the tickets, Eddie sells the tickets. But it’s my movie too… It’s like (the studio) forgot.”
While making a flop has certainly sunk plenty of actors, Reinhold’s fall from grace was centered around his reputation for being difficult rather than his struggle to choose profitable projects. Though he appeared in The Santa Clause alongside Tim Allen, studios were avoiding him for roles. Reinhold felt his life crumbling around him as offers dried up.
“I don’t know one actor that became an actor for healthy reasons. I think I started out because I was desperate for approval and acceptance and praise.” He told the L.A. Times. “When I had this fall from grace, I was faced with that myself. It was an extremely painful thing for me – to recognize and take responsibility for the damage I’d done.”
He left L.A. and moved to Santa Fe, NM to clear his head. He started working on the best small or independent projects he could, but he never managed to reclaim the spotlight. By the time The Santa Clause 3: Escape Clause was released in 2006, Reinhold was working in a single film a year. That same year marked the end of his yearly projects. Work started coming bi-yearly, and then films dwindled to one project every few years.
Despite his rather lackluster silver screen appearances throughout the Aughts, Reinhold’s popularity was hardly a thing of the past. His guest appearances on Seinfeld and Arrested Development hold some of the series’ highest scores, and he played himself in Clerks: The Animated Series.
Though Reinhold has pinpointed Beverly Hills Cop III as his downfall, it hasn’t stopped the actor from holding Detective Rosewood in a special place in his heart. A Netflix original film Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is in its final stages of production. The full original cast is set to return, including John Taggart (John Ashton), fulfilling the promise to return Reinhart made more than 3 decades ago.