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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"Her name is Lola, she was a showgirl
''But that was thirty years ago, when they used to have a show
''Now it's a [[Deader Than Disco|disco]], but not for Lola
''Still in the dress she used to wear, faded feathers in her hair"''
|'''[[Barry Manilow]]''', "Copacabana (At the Copa)"}}
She was [[Glory Days|once one of the biggest stars in pop music, film, or theatre]]. But now, her time in the spotlight is over. She's over the hill. A joke. A "Where Are They Now?" trivia question. A '''White Dwarf Starlet'''.
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lives in a run-down mansion [[Shrine to Self|full of memorabilia of her lost golden years]], wears moth eaten [[Outdated Outfit
This character is nearly [[Always Female]] and, as such, sets a [[Double Standard]]
Compare with [[Former Child Star]]. See also [[I Was Quite a Looker]]. Has absolutely nothing to do with the magazine published by Games Workshop; the name is a reference to stars — the kind in the sky — that have ceased to burn and are now glowing only with residual heat from their younger days. (Of course, the magazine used to be the world's premier gaming magazine and is now just an overpriced catalogue for Games Workshop miniatures, so maybe there's a connection after all...)
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In a major twist, the [[Man Behind the Man|true villain]] in Satoshi Kon's ''[[
* Subverted in another Satoshi Kon film, ''[[
* In the anime anthology ''[[Memories]]'', the first short, ''Magnetic Rose'' ([[Creator Thumbprint|also directed by Satoshi Kon]],) has key to its story a once-great opera singer [Eva] who isolated herself in a satellite in the wake of a scandal. It is filled with reminders of her success and uses holograms to simulate a lavish mansion. Her consciousness still haunts the decaying satellite long after her death.
* [[Hates the Job, Loves
* It's [[All There in the Manual]]. Ever wonder why {{spoiler|B.T., the manipulative [[Distaff Counterpart]] to Bear}} behaves so peevishly in ''[[.hack|.hack//SIGN]]''? According a hidden message in the OVAs, {{spoiler|she's actually a model who was recently told she's too old to keep in the business.}} Undoubtedly, [[Show Within a Show|The Game Within The Show]], ''The World'', is a vent for her.
* In one of the ''[[
* Averted in ''[[Glass Mask]]'', where Tsukikage was horribly disfigured in a stage accident but she remains extremely popular and famous, and she hasn't even lost her acting skills. Now she's more into teaching and finding a "heiress", and the biggest candidates are Ayumi and Maya.
* {{spoiler|Shiho's mother Sayuri Nagasawa}}, in ''[[Private Actress]]''. {{spoiler|While she ''was'' genuinely talented, being scarred ruined her career. }} At the same time, {{spoiler|Sayuri}}'s old rival Ruriko Daichi deeply fears to become this.
** Beautifully lampshaded by Shiho:
{{quote|
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* The original Silk Spectre from ''[[Watchmen (
** 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.
* Anthem in ''The Order'', a washed up actor and friend in long standing of [[Iron Man]]'s. How bad is he? Not only had he sunk into depression and become a severe alcoholic, he was resistant to the idea of a comeback because he felt he didn't deserve it. Luckily, he got better before the series began.
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*** Interestingly, Swanson had to be made up as older than she looked to play a character who was younger than she was!
* Dame Evey from ''Driving Lessons''.
* "Baby" Jane Hudson, the title character of the 1962 film ''[[What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?]]?'' was a child star of vaudeville in the 1910s. Decades later, she still dresses and acts the way she did when she was famous, and refuses to realize that everyone has long forgotten about her.
* ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'' finds [[Betty Boop]] working as a nightclub cigarette girl, having been put out of business by cartoons going to color.<ref>There actually is one color Betty cartoon, ''Poor Cinderella'' (1934). And Betty's a [[Green Eyed Red Head]] in it!</ref> She's fairly philosophical about it, though.
** Counts for a bit of a [[Tear Jerker]], especially Eddie's sad, "Sure, Betty" after she assures him she's "Still got it."
*** You can thank this movie for helping to revive Betty Boop's career, if not as an animated film star then as a merchandising icon.
* Susan Alexander in ''[[
* [[Meryl Streep]] as Madeline Ashton in ''[[Death Becomes Her]]''. Interestingly, Streep has averted this trope in real life.
* ''[[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 [[Punny Name|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...)
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* Mildly subverted male example: Alex Fletcher in ''[[Music and Lyrics]]'' certainly fits the 'forgotten has-been' aspect of the trope, but doesn't display much serious desire to get back to the way things were; his main motivation is not to get back onto the top but to keep his profile up high enough so that he can keep doing the low-rent theme park gigs that sustain him (and possibly even land a lucrative contract at Disney Land).
* Another male example: Buddy Young Jr. in ''Mr Saturday Night''.
* Vitriolic producer Les Grossman uses these exact words to describe Tugg Speedman if ''[[
{{quote|
* [[Bela Lugosi]] in ''[[Ed Wood (
* Velma Von Tussle in ''[[Hairspray]]'', especially in the later versions. Her song "The Legend of Miss Baltimore Crabs" details her beauty queen past.
* Elise Elliot is on her way to becoming this in ''[[The First Wives Club]]''. She is still recognised by her fans, but her career is fading. She is struggling to get a role and when she finally thinks she will be cast as the star of a new film it turns out the young and hip regisseur wants her as the ugly and grotesque Mother. She has undergone major plastic surgery and is an alcoholic. She drunkenly complains about how [[Sean Connery]] is 400 years old and still a star, but women are cast as the mother when they are older than 20. In her apartment she has an entire room filled with her memorabilia, including prizes she won, gifts etc. Fortunately at the end of the film she gets better.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* Male example: Igor Metzger from ''[[
== [[Live
* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' 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.
* Faith from ''Hope And Faith''.
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** Wendie Malick does this very well, just look at Victoria Chase on ''[[Hot in Cleveland]].''
* Not [[Always Female]]: Rembrandt from ''[[Sliders]]'' was certain his singing the National Anthem at the baseball game he'd been on his way to attending would have restored him to stardom if not for that pesky portal accident.
* [[Will Smith]] from ''[[The Fresh Prince of Bel
* Parodied in ''[[
* Jenna Maroney of ''[[30 Rock
* In the ''[[Angel]]'' episode "Eternity", an actress in her late twenties shows signs of slipping into
* ''[[All My Children]]'''s Erica Kane may count as either a White Dwarf Starlet or as a [[Gender Flip|gender flipped]] 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).
* The ''[[
* The main character of Colombian [[Soap Opera]] ''La Diva'' is an actress that, after having a big success in her home country, got a diva-ish attitude and decided to try her luck in Hollywood, leaving her reluctant family behind. After 10 years with no success she decides to came back, only to find that, while still beautiful and talented, she is no longer relevant, and her sons are still deeply hurt from the abandonment.
* [[Absolutely Fabulous
* In ''[[Slings and Arrows]]'', 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.
* Petula from ''[[
* The Norma Desmond character from ''[[Sunset Boulevard]]'' was frequently parodied on ''[[The Carol Burnett Show]]''.
* ''[[Desperate Housewives]]'' 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 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.
* ''[[Castle]]'' has Martha Rogers (played by Susan Sullivan) as a past-her-prime actress who still gets work (although not the kind of roles she ''used'' to get) and is remarkably well adjusted to her later years for a fading starlet, but still wanting to retain some of her former glamour. The show has included Martha watching a clip from [[The Hulk]] movie (which Susan starred in) and several of her glamour shots from her ''[[Dynasty]]'' days.
** There is also Castle's first ex-wife Meridith, who is an early-onset case, and not so well adjusted to it.
* [[
* Seedra from [[
* Raquel in ''[[The
== [[Music]] ==
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* Nina Simone's ''Stars''
* Dog Fashion Disco wrote a rather creepy song, "Plastic Surgeons", that is a plastic surgeon's serenade to his white dwarf starlet clients.
{{quote|
''It seems the mirror is your worst enemy''
''For I am Christ to the shallow and aging''
''A plastic surgeon to the stars of old'' }}
** Prefab Sprouts "The King of Rock And Roll" is about a one-hit wonder who becomes one of these. It was their only hit.
*** ...In the US.
* Faith Hill's "When The Lights Go Down", dedicates a verse to this phenomenon.
{{quote|
without a sound, when the lights go down. }}
* "Mr. Richland's Favorite Song" by Harry Nilsson, about a (male) teen idol who goes from the heights of fame to being "a fallen star who works in a bar where yesterday is king."
* "New Age" by the [[Velvet Underground]] is about a love affair between a "fat, blonde actress" and one of her fans.
* "Della Brown" by Queensryche tells the story of a middle-aged homeless woman who was once a great beauty that had the world at her feet and her pick of men. Once her beauty faded, she was cast aside and had to live on the street because she had no other means of supporting herself other than with her looks. The song ends with her waiting for a man to come along and make her happy again.
* "Duchess" by [[Genesis (
== [[Theater]] ==
* The Stephen Sondheim musical ''Follies'' is full of elderly showgirls. Though most of the songs are period pastiches, "I'm Still Here," an anthem to ex-stardom, practically sums up this trope. Some poignant lyrics include:
{{quote|
Sloe-eyed vamp,
Then someone's mother,
Then you're camp.
Then you career from career
To career.
I'm almost through my memoirs.
And I'm here." }}
* Grizabella the Glamour Cat from ''[[Cats]]''.
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* Gloria van Gouton from ''[[
* Flurrie from ''[[Paper Mario:
** Although she {{spoiler|returns to the stage in the epilogue}}.
* A rare male example- Gary Golden from ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]].'' Having lost both his career and his good looks when the local Nosferatu Embraced him, much of his spare time is spent dressed up in a tuxedo, conducting "wrap parties" with the corpses of long-dead actors, and occasionally trying to remind visitors that he was once a Hollywood star. Aside from that, though, he's pretty happy with his position.
** Quite perversely, Gary has created a
** Another male actor: Ash, an actor who was being groomed by Isaac, one of the local Toreador, as a hot leading man. Then Isaac found Ash overdosed one night and Embraced
* Evelyn Morrison, B-movie actress turned motel owner, from ''[[Sam and Max]] Hit the Road''.
* [[Meaningful Name|Gloria Swansong]] from [[Sierra]]'s ''[[Laura Bow|The Colonel's Bequest]]''.
* Naoko Mihama from the first ''[[Siren (
* Jack Hammer in the third case of ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]''. It turns out that {{spoiler|He accidentally killed his co-star and Dee Vasquez covered it up, forcing him to take on villains' roles for low pay}}.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* An episode of ''[[Batman:
** Another episode starred a former model intent on killing the people who had led to her downfall, wearing full-body covering and a featureless mask to hide what she's become since her fame ran out. [[The Reveal]] shows that she looks to be in her 30s and is still beautiful, but she "can only see the flaws". Wanna know the kicker, though? Her voice actress was former model Sela Ward, which sort of makes the episode [[Truth in Television]], although Ward obviously didn't go stark raving nuts in [[Real Life]].
* [[Betty Boop]]'s ''[[Drawn Together]]'' analog, Toot Braunstein, is the burnt-out husk left after the collapse of a white dwarf starlet. She's a Planetary Nebula Starlet (not as hot but larger).
* Slappy Squirrel from ''[[
* A number of [[Adam West]] parodies, [[Adam Westing|most of them voiced by West himself]], tend to fall under this trope. Most notable is "Timothy North," who used to star as "The Fearless Ferret", a ''[[Kim Possible]]'' universe analog of Batman that ran during the same era, and in his old age has come to think he ''is'' the hero. He spent a considerable amount of his fortune having his home redesigned into a replica of the Ferretcave and his alter ego's mansion so accurate that everything actually worked. An actor who played a skunk-themed one-shot villain fell into the same delusion. When they finally work out and/or accept the truth, at a Fearless Ferret convention, they cheerfully greet each other:
{{quote|
'''North:''' Oh, living in a delusion, confusing fantasy with reality. You?
'''Whitestripe:''' Same, same. }}
** And played dead serious for drama in ''[[
*** It's not "a mansion", it's "Stately West Manor".
*** It also helps that the actor has the last copies of the old show {{spoiler|allowing the show to go to video, giving him some income from the royalties}}.
*** It should be added that, in a bit of a [[Inverted Trope|inversion]], the character he voiced in ''[[
* A Norma Desmond-like character was featured on the ''[[
** And, at least going by a critic's reaction to her old films being shown, she apparently wasn't a very good actress in her heyday.
* ''[[
* Big Food from [[Chowder]] is a perfect example of this trope, even using the line "I am a big star, it's the roles that got small!" with her name and fridge replacing "a big star" and "roles" respectively.
* In the [[Futurama]] episode "That's Lobstertainment!", Dr. Zoidberg's uncle [[Harold Lloyd|Harold Zoid]] is a silent film star who now lives in obscurity in a retirement home. While not as delusional as Norma Desmond, Harold still believes he's one film away from getting back into the business, and tries to use his nephew's money to make that film. At other times, he seems resigned to his fate as a has-been.
{{quote|
'''Joan Rivers' Head:''' Oh, and here's washed-up actor, what's-his-name, Harold Zoid. Are you presenting one of those tacky honorary awards, or just getting one?
'''Harold Zoid:''' I'm a seat-filler, Joan's head. My only marketable skill is to occupy space. }}
* Piella Bakewell from ''[[Wallace and Gromit]]: A Matter of Loaf and Death''. 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.}}
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