Womb to Tomb – fame laughs at your plans for her.

It’s hard for anyone in Hollywood to know or predict the whimsical winds of public fascination. Each year, hundreds of starry-eyed actors, writers, singers, skanks and Second Assistant Prop Masters flock to the streets of Studio City, Hollywood, Glendale, Century City and Burbank, all in the hopes of splashing down into the hearts and collective adoration of us, the desperate-for-entertainment masses.

But fame is a moody nanny goat, an amorphous and impetuous concubine who will twist and break your expectations in decidedly unexpected ways.

On this day, October 26th, Jon Heder was born. Now it may seem cruel and unreasonable to classify Heder as a “one-hit wonder”, especially because his youth and the exuberant energy he lent to his breakout role as Napoleon Dynamite still suggest that great things are to be expected from him in the future, especially if he wears a wig. But for now, he still has not been struck by the lightning of box office gold for a second time.

• Still, Heder recently appeared in School for Scoundrels alongside increasingly bastard-typecast Billy Bob Thornton.
• Thornton probably figured he’d be adding to his Oscar collection when he appeared as Davy Crockett in The Alamo with a comeback-hungry Dennis Quaid.
• When Quaid starred in the terrific Innerspace, he of course costarred with and would eventually marry and subsequently un-marry Meg Ryan.
• Ryan made one of her more unconvincing dramatic turns in Courage Under Fire where she shared the screen with a likewise legitimacy-challenged Lou Diamond Phillips.

And Phillips had all but squandered whatever goodwill he might have gained from Young Guns when he appeared in Disorganized Crime alongside country music songwriter/actor Hoyt Axton. Axton found the most fame for his music – and should be remembered if for nothing else for writing Joy to the World for Three Dog Night – and died of a heart attack at the age of 61 on this day, October 26th.