Jussie Smollett Is A Puzzle

Here's the biggest thing that's grabbed me about Jussie Smollett. He's 39 years old. In the accounts he's given of himself in the last two days of trial, he seems to spend his time driving around, getting stoned, and working out. You might expect this of a college sophomore, but shouldn't you have more of a life by the time you're 39?

Second issue, derived also from his age. According to Wikipedia, he was a child star whose career ended about 1995, when he was 13. But

In 2012, Smollett returned to acting with the leading role in Patrik-Ian Polk's LGBT-themed comedy-drama The Skinny. Also that year, he released an EP titled The Poisoned Hearts Club. He later guest-starred in The Mindy Project (2012) and Revenge (2014).

In 2014, Smollett was cast as Jamal Lyon—a gay musician struggling to gain the approval of his father Lucious—opposite Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard in the Fox drama series Empire. His role was hailed as "groundbreaking" for its positive depiction of a black gay man on television. Smollett reprised his role in subsequent seasons, and directed an episode of the fourth season in 2017. Smollett's character was removed from the final two episodes of season five because of the assault controversy.

In other words, as far as I can tell, his career took a near 20-year hiatus between 1995, when he was 13, and 2012, when he was 30. But throughout his career in the 2010s, he was simply playing himself, a young, gay, African-American entertainer -- but in each of those roles, he was playing someone at least a decade younger than his actual age. In contrast, look at Grace Kelly's career. According to Wikipedia, "Kelly retired from acting at age 26 to marry Rainier, and began her duties as Princess of Monaco."

I recall from a biography that by age 25 or so, she recognized that the time she had to spend with makeup prior to her Hollywood scenes was extending to hours, and she know the clock was ticking, so she changed careers at what she felt was the most appropriate time.

Or look at Frank Sinatra. According to Wikipedia, akthough he reached stardom as a crooner in the early 1940s,

by the early 1950s, his professional career had stalled and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known residency performers as part of the Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of the film From Here to Eternity. . .

If you watch film of his Las Vegas performances from the 1950s, it's plain that he'd destroyed his voice from smoking, but, born in 1915, he was pushing 40 by then anyhow and, like Grace Kelly, realized he needed a career change. The same applies to Marilyn Monroe, who despite her best efforts was unable to remake her professional profile into something like Katharine Hepburn and burned herself out by 36.

The best indication we have is that Smollett felt his prospects at Fox on the Empire show were fading given his advancing age, and in early 2019, he engineered a hate mail hoax to draw attention to himself.

The two brothers involved in the Jussie Smollett attack told police that Smollett was behind creating a racist letter that was sent to the actor on the set of his show, “Empire,” according to two sources with first-hand knowledge of the investigation.

And when that letter did not get a “bigger reaction,” Smollett orchestrated the attack a week later with the two men–Ola and Abel Osundairo, sources said.

. . . Smollett received a letter containing a white powder Jan. 22. The letter was mailed to Chicago’s Cinespace Studios, where the show “Empire” is filmed. The letter prompted a HAZMAT response. CPD says the “white substance” was later determined to be aspirin.

My takeaway is that Smollett as an adult performer had a fairly brief career playing a gay African-American singer-actor that had a built-in short life given his age when he started it. Exactly how he was able to get back into Hollywood after a 20-year gap, and how he was suddenly able to secure so many nominations and awards once he did so, is an intriguing question.

But as with Chris Cuomo, his basic problem was that he'd reached his sell-by date no matter what, was no longer of use, and couldn't reconcile himself to the reality. We're in interesting times.