What Happened To Showgirls Star Elizabeth Berkley?

‘Showgirls’ was supposed to turn Elizabeth Berkley into an A-list star. After all, ‘Basic Instinct’ – written and directed by the same team of Joe Eszterhas and Paul Verhoeven – had done just that to the relatively-unknown Sharon Stone three years earlier.

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But despite nabbing the role after actresses including Pamela Anderson and Angelina Jolie turned it down, the spectacular failure of the 1995 movie, a bomb so toxic it permanently tarnished the careers of many involved, meant that Berkley found herself practically unemployable. 20 years on after the film came out, we looked at what happened next for it’s young star.

Brought up dancing in Michigan, Berkley, 43, shot to fame as pretty, lanky nerd Jessie Spano in ‘Saved by the Bell’. After that show was cancelled, she was looking for her big cinematic break. Unfortunately, ‘Showgirls’ was it. It flopped at the box office and was universally panned by the critics, though look closer and you see that amongst the negativity there are actually several praiseworthy comments directed at the actress herself.

“I truly believe that everything we walk through and go through is a lesson,” she told Variety in 2013 of the experience. “Was it difficult and did it hurt? Yes. I became more discerning about my choices and wanted to feel safe again. I had to open those doors back up myself.”

The rehabilitation started slowly by surely, not helped by getting embroiled in a long-running and ultimately dismissed lawsuit filed by her ex-boyfriend Roger Wilson against Leonardo DiCaprio and members of his entourage whom he accused of harassing Berkley and then beating him up when he confronted them to defend her. Berkley even spoke up about her allegedly poor treatment in a blistering 1998 New York magazine exposé on DiCaprio, a move that may well have further damaged her Hollywood stock despite being one of the damaged parties.

Thankfully, she had some high-profile cheerleaders, notably then-head of Paramount Pictures Sherry Lansing, which led to a supporting role opposite Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn in 1996’s ‘The First Wives Club’. A cameo alongside Al Pacino in 1999’s ‘Any Given Sunday’ followed, as well as Woody Allen’s ‘The Curse of the Jade Scorpion’ in 2001.

But it was actually her stage work during the Noughties which proved once and for all that the horror of ‘Showgirls’ was a one-off – as much about the terrible script and direction as her OTT performance, which she wrote on Twitter was “pupeteered (sic) to mimic exact direction that was ultimately extreme and cartoon-ish.”

She starred off-Broadway in the hit ‘Hurlyburly’, as well as in London’s West End in Lenny, a play about comedian Lenny Bruce, opposite Eddie Izzard. The Evening Standard said she endowed the character with “lovely erotic languor”.
Meanwhile, she hosted the reality competition series ‘Step It Up and Dance’ which only lasted one season and in 2003 married artist Greg Lauren.

When Lauren joked that she should be an agony aunt after seeing how many girls asked her for advice, Berkley took it to heart. ‘Ask Elizabeth’ started out as a New York-based self-esteem workshop for girls, which the actress did in schools. She’s now talked to more than 50,000 young women and turned her advice into a New York Times bestselling book.

“It’s not about me,” she explained to Out magazine. “I don’t stand at a podium telling girls how to run their lives. It’s about opening up, giving them the platform and then I facilitate. I guide them like a big sister, and that’s the beauty of it.”

Having given birth to son Sky Cole in July 2012, Berkley came sixth on the 2013 cycle of ‘Dancing With The Stars’ and participated in a comedic ‘Saved by the Bell’ reunion on ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’ alongside her former castmates.

She’s even made peace with ‘Showgirls’, a film that has gone on to become a cult classic in the vein of ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’. “I think it was embraced and found its way for all its grandeur,” she admitted to Variety.

“There’s a sense of humour underneath some of the darkness.”

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Photos: Rex_Shutterstock/Variety/ITV/Moviestore/BFA.com/UA/Everett