Richard (Dick) Brewer, Ricky (Wild Thing) Vaughn, Richard (Ditch) Brodie and Morgan (Fats) Gripp: These are just a few of the roles the 44-year-old actor Charlie Sheen - whose film career peaked and died in the 1980s - has played in such movies as the wistful Pauly Shore Is Dead and All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 .
And now, after an incident involving his wife on Christmas Day resulting in an arrest on domestic violence charges, Sheen is also known as "Furious, Petulant Mug Shot."
Why do Sheen's characters always have a nickname, or a sweet, Dickensian name (as with "Bud Fox" in Sheen's biggest hit, 1987's Wall Street )? Because the impish actor is so freaking adorable, obviously, with his boyish smile, dancing eyes and messy hair; his tendency to wear boy's shorts and bowling shirts; his alluring bad-boy reputation.
If Sheen's wife, Brooke Mueller, is telling the truth, if Sheen attacked her, I sympathize, though I wonder why any woman would marry and have children with this man. They know who he is: On her wretched reality show, Sheen's ex, Denise Richards, practically drooled as she recalled his gross misconduct and larger-than-life sexuality, so to speak.
When the Heidi Fleiss scandal broke in 1993, Sheen quite cheerfully testified to having spent approximately $50,000 in two years on the Hollywood madam's escorts (a figure that seems surprisingly low now, like Dr. Evil's $1-million).
He was likeable when he confessed, as so many other stars ran for cover: If we are to believe the hookers who wrote 1996's You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again , there are a lot of disturbing men and women in Hollywood, among them the hot-coffee enema type, and Sheen seems simply a man who likes expensive, wholesome sex.
He was less likeable when he decided, a few years ago, and after a great deal of analytical thinking that, to him, the World Trade Center attack appeared to be a "controlled demolition."
But when he went on CNN with glasses and a dossier, he was, well, adorable, as handsome men playing smart so often are (like Clark Kent, or Johnny Depp).
And he remained likeable, even when he "accidentally" shot his fiancée, Kelly Preston, in the arm in 1990; when he carried on long-term relationships with porn stars; and when he experimented with narcotics, even OD-ing after shooting cocaine in 1998, then violating his parole.
"Pray for him," his affable father, actor Martin Sheen, implored us at that point. Our prayers were successful: He bounced back, marrying the very beautiful Richards in 2002, the mother of his children Lola and Sam, and the woman he would eventually descry as a "sad, jobless pig."
Most important, the year after this marriage, he signed to star in Two and a Half Men , a sitcom about a guy named Charlie, a character not that far off from Sheen, his hectic brother Alan, played by Jon Cryer, his brother's sullen and flatulent child, and their enormous, wisecracking housekeeper, Berta.
Charlie and Alan's heartless mother, Alan's vindictive ex-wife and Charlie's new, outrageously endowed fiancée also contribute to the drama, as do Sheen's intimates in a number of cameo appearances: Steven Tyler, Sean Penn, Sheen's brother and father, and even Richards have all appeared at various times.
The show is still a hit, averaging more than 14 million viewers per episode in its seventh season . Yet, as Ken Hegan seethed in The Vancouver Sun this weekend, "Nobody I've met has admitted to seeing it" and, he adds, devastatingly, " Two and a Half Men is about as funny as a dead baby. [Translation: not very.]rdquo;
But the show is funny. I have loved it since it started, almost eight years ago, and nothing has changed, even if it is doomed - not by Sheen's drunken, disorderly and violent conduct, but by his TV character's impending marriage. Marriage is second only to the birth of children in being death to comedy.
Two and a Half Men is, secondarily, an object of pop-cultural fascination in its gay subtext. It is impossible, as with Frasier , or The Odd Couple , or Kate & Allie , not to read Charlie and Alan as gay. The writers often make reference to their own complicated code, and one entire episode involved the two passing as a couple. Cryer's rouge, lipstick and mom jeans, and his constant nagging, tea-sipping and domestic flamboyance make him a perfect mate and foil for the long-suffering, sexually hyperactive, bourbon-soused, cigar-smoking Charlie.
Most women hate this sitcom, but fail to register the strong female performances or this truly poignant charade. The show began at a time when gay men on TV had to be one thing or the other. There was the sexless, eponymous Will (effectively married to the also-eponymous Grace, a woman) and his Towering Inferno -level-of-flaming, one-dimensional friend Jack, for example.
Two and a Half Men is more like, again, Frasier , which winked its way through season after season of hardly cryptic gay self-referentiality (countless episodes had others confusing the two brothers as lovers; Niles's invisible wife was called "Maris," a sort of chilly anagram for The Mrs.).
On the other hand, the charade may perform another function, that is, to signify the single thing straight men covet most about gay men's lives: the absence of women - girlfriends, wives or ex-wives.
Here's to another glorious season of life imitating art imitating a fractious gay couple!