‘Beverly Hills Cop’ Star Judge Reinhold Sees Career Relaunched After ‘Murder Plot Against Executive’

Judge Reinhold was on the verge of becoming a big movie star in the 1980s, but everything changed in the blink of an eye.

After starring in the “Beverly Hills Cop” films alongside Eddie Murphy and making a memorable appearance in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” Reinhold got the chance to become a leading man in “Vice Versa “, but as he explained in a new Vanity Honest Profile, an “executive murder plot” killed the film and nearly cost him his career.

“Vice Versa” was a body-swap film starring Reinhold and Fred Savage playing his son. It was released in 1988, and although the actor had appeared in a number of successful films before this one, the film failed to perform at the box office.

According to Reinhold, this was due to several things going on behind the scenes.

He said David Puttnam, producer of “Chariots of Fire,” became CEO of Columbia Pictures in 1986 and “wanted to drive down the price of the lead actors, but make the profits real.”

Reinhold believed in his ideas, but “unfortunately he didn’t stick around long enough to prove that formula” due to what he called an “executive assassination plot” by high-ranking industry officials.

He said Puttnam “made public his disdain for high wages and what he wanted to do, and he pissed off a lot of people.” By the time we were ready to be released… He didn’t know it, but the guillotine was ready. People didn’t like him, so they wanted him out. »

The actor called Puttnam “a really, really cool guy” and said, “I swear to God, I trusted him. He said to me, “I want to use you as a role model.” Take a cut, and we’ll make it work, and if the movie is profitable, you’ll benefit. And that’s how it should be. So we’re going to lower the price from the start.

A few months before the release of “Vice Versa,” the Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron-directed film “Like Father, Like Son” was released – a film with a plot very similar to that of Reinhold. As he explained, this film went into production after “Vice Versa”, and when it was finally time to release his film, it had no chance of fighting at the box office.

“That’s why I talk about the film in a disappointing way,” Reinhold told Vanity Fair. “I am proud of the film. It was the first time I put my name above the title, and the studio just pulled it (from theaters) right before the Easter break, when it would have had a chance to perform. It was hard. They kind of buried it and we watched it all fall apart. We had worked very hard.

As he told the Los Angeles Times in 1992: “It was really the end of my prestigious Hollywood career. That’s when the phone stopped ringing.

A few years prior, in 1980, Reinhold’s first feature film was released – a film titled both “Running Scared” and “Desperate Men.” It was a low-budget play, but he said he beat out Dennis Quaid for the role.

The film was set in the Everglades, and at one point during filming, Reinhold recalled the director telling him, “Look, we don’t have enough money to really finish it, we just have a worn out budget.” Can we pay you when we return to Los Angeles?

He continued: “And I said, ‘Hey, I’m green, but I’m not stupid.’ There was a ’59 Cadillac that I drove in the movie. I said, ‘Give me that car, I’m yours.’

“They got off a little too easily,” he continued. “I have this car. My mother was a real estate agent in Boca Raton and I had to leave the car with her and go back to Los Angeles to audition for “Ordinary People” for Robert Redford.. While I was doing this my mother was in a car accident and it turns out the car was stolen. Someone had scratched the license plate number. I remember I was on the phone in Los Angeles and I had to explain it to them, and I told them where the production office was, but it was long gone.

A year later, he had a small role in “Stripes”, with Bill Murray, John Candy and Harold Ramis. That’s when he learned a trick he would also use when playing alongside Eddie Murphy: grabbing his legs to stop himself from laughing.

“I would put my hands in my pockets and squeeze my thigh really hard to the point where it would be bruised at the end of the day, just to keep from laughing,” he said. “I couldn’t waste a take with Bill. There are times when you can see even Candy almost losing her mind.

In 1982, he appeared in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” a role he landed because he shared a duplex with the film’s director, Amy Heckerling, and was dating her assistant. Another thing that worked in his favor was that Heckerling had wanted Nicolas Cage to play the role that ultimately went to Reinhold, but he was only 17 at the time.

“Since he was still 17, they should have put the production on child work schedules,” he said. “They couldn’t have had a full program. The budget didn’t allow Nic to be 17 years old. So they reluctantly let him go.”

He ultimately won the role after his girlfriend suggested he do it instead, and he later filmed a very memorable scene from “Fast Times” — a scene in which his character is caught masturbating by his crush, played by Phoebe Cates.

“If you take that scene out of context, it’s pretty scary,” Reinhold admitted. “But for me it was very funny when I read the script… it was maybe one of the stupidest and bravest things I’ve ever done. Obviously it was faked, but it was an extremely personal thing and it was just humiliating.

He said: “When I read the script I thought it was so funny. But when the time came that day…. I don’t know what it was like for Phoebe. I think we were both awkward. We both had to face it. The public doesn’t realize it and shouldn’t think about it either, but it’s not easy, this sort of thing. I just went with it. One thing that made it easy was that I was incredibly uncomfortable.

Two years after the release of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Beverly Hills Cop” was released in theaters, although when it debuted, it was a very different film. When Reinhold was cast, Sylvester Stallone had the lead role and the film was “pretty straight action.” He remembered visiting Stallone to approve his casting.

After Stallone left the project, Murphy, already a comedy legend, was cast in his place and the script was slowly rewritten to include more comedy. Reinhold told the outlet that during filming, they would stop to “tweak” scenes that weren’t working, and also improve to get the right feel.

“I learned on ‘Stripes’ what it really takes,” he said. “If you’re not ready to jump off the bridge, then find something else to do with your life. Eddie is really spontaneous. I had to put my hands back in my pockets.