History Main / WhiteDwarfStarlet

* {{Metallica}}'s song "The Memory Remains" is about an unnamed actress past her prime.
** Especially poignant since they managed to have 1960s starlet Marianne Faithfull sing backing vocals on the song and appear in the video. Talk about hitting close to home...

* ''Series/DesperateHousewives'' has former runway model Gabrielle Solis (who somehow managed to be a runway model at five-foot-nothing) returning to New York in one episode to schmooze with former co-workers (including RealLife [=supermodel=]Paulina Porizkova), only to find out they all hated her. Another episode features her trying to prove she's still model material, only to find that she's considered too old by the crew because she's in her 30s.

* [[Series/AbsolutelyFabulous Patsy Stone]].

* ''TheTwilightZone'' episode "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" was about a White Dwarf Starlet, Barbara Jean Trenton, who becomes so obsessed with her old movies she literally gets pulled into one.
** And, a rare SpearCounterpart episode "The Trouble With Templeton" has an actor who misses his late wife and his time as a Broadway actor in 1927. He escapes to the past, only to find his wife and close friends callous and indifferent to him. He runs out of the speakeasy and returns to the present. But, when he reads a playbill he snatched from his wife in 1927, it says "What to Do When Booth Comes Back."

* Nina Van Horn from ''Series/JustShootMe''.
** Wendie Malick does this very well, just look at Victoria Chase on ''Series/HotInCleveland.''

* Faded rock star Rex Manning in ''EmpireRecords''. This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by a teenage boy who gets an autograph from Manning because "my mom has all your albumbs" despite never personally having heard a single one of Manning's songs.
** Subverted in the Director's Cut version of the film. In an alternate take of the "You're just a has-been" scene, he trades his cocky attitude and quote from TheWho's "My Generation", for a heartfelt and bitter "you might be right" acknowledgement.

* ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' finds BettyBoop working as a nightclub cigarette girl, having been put out of business by cartoons going to color.[[note]]There actually is one color Betty cartoon, ''Poor Cinderella'' (1934). And Betty's a SignificantGreeneyedRedhead in it![[/note]] She's fairly philosophical about it, though.
** Counts for a bit of a TearJerker, especially Eddie's sad, "Sure, Betty" after she assures him she's "Still got it."
*** You can thank this movie for helping to [[CareerResurrection revive Betty Boop's career]], if not as an animated film star then as a merchandising icon.

* The TropeCodifier would probably be Norma Desmond from the film ''Film/SunsetBoulevard'', a silent film star who never made the transition into talking pictures. Despite her advancing age and secluded existence, she still believes she's big enough to star in one more picture, with [=Cecil B. DeMille=] to direct her.
** Also includes a double helping of RealitySubtext, as Desmond was played by Gloria Swanson, who had been one of silent film's biggest stars but who never made the transition to "talkies". In a GeniusBonus, Desmond watches one of her old films, which is the Gloria Swanson movie ''Queen Kelly''. This was directed by Erich Von Stroheim, a once-prominent director whose career behind the camera ended with the silent film era (though he maintained an acting career), and who plays Desmond's butler (who, it turns out, [[spoiler:was also her first director...and her first husband]]). (Because ''Queen Kelly'' went grossly over budget, and was never completed, it effectively ended both Gloria Swanson's and Erich von Stroheim's careers in the silent movie business.)
*** Interestingly, Swanson had to be made up as older than she looked to play a character who was younger than she was!

* The original Silk Spectre from ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'', by the time 1985 has rolled around.
** She's lost her beauty and her following, but is happy in retirement, with no wish to take up adventuring again, only to reminisce about her glory days and live vicariously through her daughter (whom she raised and trained to be Silk Spectre II) a bit.

But she still maintains dreams of greatness, or that she'll be rediscovered and back in the spotlight. Often totally delusional, quoting random lines and talking about fellow stars that passed her by. She probably lives in a run-down mansion [[ShrineToSelf full of memorabilia of her lost golden years]], wears moth eaten {{Outdated Outfit}}s from her great hits, and still expects everyone to recognize her.

* ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonsAdventures'' episode "Sepulveda Boulevard" is a parody of ''Sunset Boulevard'' with Elmira playing the Norma role, a former cartoon star whose career tanked because audiences no longer wanted cute (in her own mind, anyway).

* Piella Bakewell from ''Franchise/WallaceAndGromit: WesternAnimation/AMatterOfLoafAndDeath''. Wallace recognizes her as the spokeswoman for Bake-O-Lite Bread, but she was fired as the "Bake-O-Lite Girl" when she became too heavy to fly the balloon they used in advertising. She's more broken-up about this than she lets on, as Wallace and Gromit learn when she [[spoiler:turns out to be the "cereal killer" who's been offing bakers all across town]].

* Randy Marsh in SouthPark. He used to sing in a boy band, but instead of stardom he eventually went to college. He still sometimes memorizes his youth in music and he can play guitar really well.

** Bitterly acknowledged by Manning in the Director's Cut version of the film. In an alternate version of the "You're just a has-been" scene, he trades his cocky attitude and quote from TheWho's "My Generation", for a more heartfelt and depressing "you might be right" acknowledgement.

** And played dead serious for drama in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' as the Grey Ghost, ''{{Batman}}'''s hero. The actor who played the Ghost in the ShowWithinAShow Bruce Wayne watched as a kid winds up broke in a run-down one-room apartment hoarding memorabilia from his one starring role, until events make him a real hero, and get him back in the spotlight to boot. (It's worth noting that the real Adam West lives in a mansion and gets plenty of work.)

* Faith from ''Hope And Faith''.
* Nina Van Horn from ''JustShootMe''.
** Wendie Malick does this very well, just look at Victoria Chase on ''HotInCleveland.''

* WillSmith from ''TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'' was once roped into a date with a thoroughly unpleasant version of this character, who was portrayed as a diva who was rude to everyone and refused to accept that her career was over.
* Parodied in ''[[ThirdRockFromTheSun 3rd Rock from the Sun]]'' when Sally began to act like one when her "15 minutes of fame" ran out.

* ''AllMyChildren'''s Erica Kane may count as either a White Dwarf Starlet or as a {{gender flip}}ped Hugh Hefner (i.e., an increasingly desperate and creepy has-been who insists on acting like she's still just as relevant {and vital} as she was decades ago).

* In ''SlingsAndArrows'', Shakespearian diva Ellen Fanshaw begs her director not to cast her as the Nurse in Romeo & Juliet, because she can't stand to think of herself as being that old. She also spends a lot of time seducing inappropriately younger men. The trope is both played straight and subverted, because while the show makes fun of its aging starlet, Ellen never loses her dignity as an actress, taking on such weighty parts as Queen Gertrude and Lady Macbeth.

* MST3K uses the same pun as the trope title in TheGiantSpiderInvasion. An astronomy lecturer makes mention of "white dwarf stars" and "collapsed stars," each of which is followed up by the bots with, "like Linda Hunt."
* Seedra from OneThousandWaysToDie's episode "Inject-icide". She's an elderly former beauty queen who injected her face with corn oil as a cheap substitute for Botox (as she couldn't afford the actual treatments). Some of that got into her bloodstream, and then it started leaking out of her face...
* Raquel in ''TheLAComplex'' had some fame 10 years or so ago, but now she's pushing 30 and still auditioning to [[DawsonCasting play teenagers]]. She makes a point of not wanting the "mom roles".
* Daisy Adaire from DeadLikeMe.
* On an episode of LawAndOrderSVU, [[Series/TheCarolBurnettShow Carol Burnett]] played a former ballerina whose rich husband is accused of murdering his mistress and her lover. When Benson comes to question her, she's sitting in her den watching old films of herself dancing while drinking herself into a stupor. She points at the screen and tells Benson,"You see that girl? She used to be me."

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* Daisy Adaire from DeadLikeMe.

* ''{{Alegria}}'' has a touching variant in the Cafe Opera, a watering hole that specifically caters to old, forgotten performers, providing them comfort and support from their peers in their twilight years (some even engage in romances with each other). The owner himself is a dancer and now alcoholic known as [[Main/PunnyName Old Taps]]. (Ironically, his actor, Brian Dewhurst, is a circus performer who had already worked with Cirque on and offstage. A year or two after the film was shot, he joined Cirque's ''Mystere'' as a clown, and is still with the show today...)
* Sam (PeterSellers) in ''The Optimists'' is a variant. He apparently was almost famous in English vaudeville at one point and certainly has the ramshackle house, old costumes and clippings, and drinking problem. But in his old age he still performs as a busker (street performer) and seems content to get by that way, with no delusions of grandeur.

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*** You can thank this movie for helping to [[CareerRessurection revive Betty Boop's career]], if not as an animated film star then as a merchandising icon.

* The entire band in ''ThisIsSpinalTap''. Not that they aren't popular anymore, not by any means, it's just that "their appeal has grown more selective."

* Another male example: Buddy Young Jr. in ''Mr Saturday Night''.