2. Eddie Murphy - Best Defence
That putrid odour of decay when you type "Eddie Murphy" into IMDB is the rotting corpse of his once glittering career. He came to prominence as the first black comedian to crack the mainstream in the '80s and he became a household name due to box office smashes such as 48 Hours (1982) and Trading Places (1983), a long line of can't-be-bothered family-friendly films (The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Daddy Day Care, The Haunted Mansion), and perhaps most disastrously The Adventures of Pluto Nash (a $100 million film that grossed an anemic $7 million) - tarnished Murphys legacy: at the end of 2012 Forbes named him the most overpaid actor in Hollywood. Sliding back to the eighties and everybody wanted a piece of Eddie. Following his films in 1982 and 1983 he was the movie world's hottest property. Best Defense (1984) was a movie starring Dudley Moore which had tested poorly with audiences. The studio's remedy? Let's get us some of that Eddie Murphy juice! They created a character for Eddie Murphy and grafted him onto the movie like a fresh, pink ear on the back of a perplexed mouse. They shot his scenes separately from the main cast and billed him as the "Strategic Guest Star". The film was a flop, but Murphy was royally compensated for his efforts. Discussing his appearance in the movie, he said, "What? How dare you give me a script like this! Oh,
that much money? Let's go!" He also suggested that it took four men to carry the cheque which represented his payment. Now, that
is impressive.