From a parking spot brawl and homophobic slurs to battles with anger management, drink and drugs: How movie set shooting tragedy is latest dramatic episode to hit Alec Baldwin’s turbulent career
- Alec Baldwin, 63, fired a prop gun on set on Thursday killing a cinematographer
- He sprang to fame as a 1990s Hollywood leading man and later as a media mogul
- Baldwin is no stranger to controversy and has been in several rows and lawsuits
- In 2007, he left a voicemail calling his daughter, 11, a ‘rude, thoughtless little pig’
- He has been sued for assault in 1995 and 2018 in separate paparazzi incidents
Alec Baldwin sprang to fame as a 1990s Hollywood leading man and later mounted a mid-career comeback as a charismatic media mogul on television comedy ’30 Rock’, with his most recent foray a new Western titled ‘Rust’.
But behind the glamour the actor’s 41-year career has been marked by brawls with paparazzi and homophobic slurs as well as battles with anger management, drink and drugs.
In a tragic new drama yesterday, the veteran actor accidentally killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured writer-director Joel Souza with a prop gun on set in New Mexico.
Here we look at some of the star’s struggles and controversies from the past:
Parking spot brawl
In 2018, Baldwin was arrested and charged with assault after punching a man in the face during a New York parking dispute.
Alec Baldwin appeared in New York Supreme Court in November 2018 in Manhattan to face charges of assault after a road rage incident earlier this month
Police were told a driver pulled into a Manhattan parking space that one of Baldwin’s relatives was holding for him, and the two men started quarreling and pushing each other.
Victim Wojciech Cieszkowski told police that Baldwin punched or slapped him over the parking spot. The 49-year-old man was taken to a hospital complaining of jaw pain and redness around his neck.
Baldwin later tweeted that the episode was ‘egregiously misstated’ but he pleaded guilty to a harassment charge and agreed to attend an anger management program.
The actor has since brought defamation charges against Cieszkowski, which a judge ruled could go forward to trial in March 2021.
In 2018, Baldwin (pictured leaving NYPD’s 10th Precinct) was arrested and charged with assault after punching a man in the face during a New York parking dispute
Battle with drink and drugs
In 2017, Baldwin admitted to struggling with drink and drugs and revealed he overdosed while in his twenties.
Speaking on Good Morning America, he said: ‘I know that at that time, what I describe — overdosing on drugs — which I’ve kept very private for years and years. But, I’m glad I got it when I did because not many people get sober when they’re young.’
He revealed that he got sober just as he was about to turn 27, on February 23, 1985.
‘And those two years that I lived in that white hot period as a daily drug abuser, as a daily drinker, to my misery, boy that was a tough time,’ he said.
‘There was really really, a lot of pain in there… a lot of pain.’
The Hollywood star also revealed he would recover from his drug-and-alcohol binges by playing video games, particularly Galaga, at an arcade warehouse, and that Julian, the arcade’s owner – helped him turn his life around.
During this period in 2017 Baldwin won a third Emmy for his popular and biting ‘SNL’ impersonations of Trump. His uncanny impersonation mocked the former president’s verbal tics and loose hand gestures and exaggerated his boastful style.
In 2017, Baldwin (pictured in 1980, aged 22) admitted to struggling with drink and drugs, overdosing in his 20s before turning sober in 1985 after receiving help from the owner of an arcade where he used to game as he came off the drug-fuelled high
Speaking on Good Morning America, he said: ‘I know that at that time, what I describe — overdosing on drugs — which I’ve kept very private for years and years. But, I’m glad I got it when I did because not many people get sober when they’re young’
Altercations with photographers
In 2016, Baldwin unleashed a foul-mouthed tirade on a photographer trying to take pictures of him and his wife in a public place.
‘You’re a piece of trash,’ the star yelled, along with several expletives, according to reports at the time. ‘Stay away from my wife.’
Baldwin has repeatedly been involved in altercations with photographers and in August 2013 was pictured manhandling Paul Adao over the hood of a parked car in New York.
Police did not press charges in the case after it was revealed Adao was known to Baldwin and had repeatedly tried to engage with the actor and his wife despite being rebuffed.
Years earlier in 1995, Baldwin was sued over an altercation with freelance photographer Alan Zanger who was stationed across the street from the actor’s home as he and wife Kim Basinger returned from hospital.
Baldwin reportedly approached Zangar and asked him not to film his newborn daughter Ireland who was then only three-days old.
The two began to argue and Zangar later claimed the actor had punched him in the nose though Baldwin was eventually acquitted over the alleged attack.
Alec Baldwin’s 41-year career has been marked by brawls with paparazzi (pictured, in 2013) and homophobic slurs as well as battles with anger management, drink and drugs
In August 2013, Baldwin was involved in an altercation with photographer Paul Adao (pictured)
Photos of the scene showed the angry actor first warning off the male photographer then manhandling him over the hood of a parked car in New York
The star has also faced professional consequences of his hot temper. In late 2013, NBC scrapped his late-night chat show after he subjected a photographer to a homophobic slur outside his apartment on the day that a Canadian actress convicted of stalking him was jailed.
It was not the first time Baldwin was accused of homophobia. In 1997, he allegedly called a horse carriage driver a ‘f*****’ for supporting carriage rides outside Central Park.
In 2011, he was accused of calling a Starbucks barista and ‘uptight queen’. And in 2012, he called the New York Daily News editor an ‘English queen.’
Relationship with his daughter
Baldwin has also had a historically difficult relationship with his daughter Ireland, who he had with then-wife Kim Basinger in 1995 before the pair divorced in 2000.
In 2007, he left a notorious message for his then 11-year-old daughter, calling her a ‘rude, thoughtless little pig.’
During the call, recorded on the girl’s answering machine, Baldwin ranted: ‘You are a rude, thoughtless little pig. You don’t have the brains or the decency as a human being.
‘I don’t give a damn that you’re 12 years old, or 11 years old, or that you’re a child, or that your mother is a thoughtless pain in the ass who doesn’t care about what you do as far as I’m concerned.
‘Once again I have made an ass of myself trying to get to a phone. You have humiliated me for the last time with this phone.’
He then threatened to fly to LA ‘for the day, just to straighten you out on this issue’.
Baldwin, calling on April 11, 2007, at 10.30am New York time (7.30am in California), told Ireland he drops everything when it is time for his scheduled phone calls and expects her to do the same.
In 2007, he left a notorious message for his then 11-year-old daughter Ireland (pictured together in 2005) with first wife Basinger, calling her a ‘rude, thoughtless little pig’
In 2000, Basinger and Baldwin (pictured together in 1999) separated and the actor’s career took a negative turn as he shifted toward smaller, supporting roles
Turbulent career
Born in 1958, the oldest and most famous of four actor brothers, Baldwin cut his teeth on 1980s television shows such as ‘Knot’s Landing’, before breaking through with lead roles in movies ‘Beetlejuice’ and ‘The Hunt for Red October.’
Baldwin played the lover of Basinger in 1991’s ‘The Marrying Man,’ striking up a chemistry that would lead to their real-life wedding in 1993, and a Steve McQueen remake ‘The Getaway’ the following year.
Around the same time he earned a Tony nomination for his Broadway performance as Stanley Kowalski in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire,’ later resuming the role on screen.
Other 1990s roles included ‘Prelude to a Kiss’ opposite Meg Ryan, and a powerful cameo as a nasty real estate boss in ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ opposite Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon.
Baldwin, pictured in 1990 in Miami Blues, said: ‘Those two years that I lived in that white hot period as a daily drug abuser, as a daily drinker, to my misery, boy that was a tough time’
Born in 1958, the oldest and most famous of four actor brothers, Baldwin appeared in the 2000 film ‘Thomas and the Magic Railroad’ as Mr Conductor
Baldwin and then-wife Basinger separated in 2000, as the actor’s career took a negative turn as he shifted toward smaller, supporting roles in films like ‘Pearl Harbor’ and ‘The Royal Tenenbaums.’
During this period Baldwin also made his first – and so far only – directing appearance in ‘Shortcut to Happiness,’ an adaptation of 1930s short story ‘The Devil and Daniel Webster.’ It flopped and never received a wide theatrical release.
But Baldwin’s career was rejuvenated by seven-season run in multiple-Emmy winning NBC comedy ’30 Rock,’ in which he frequently stole the show as the suave, mega-rich and eccentric boss of Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon.
Starting in 2006, the wildly popular show satirised the corporate-run entertainment industry, earned Baldwin personal Emmys and Golden Globes, and rejuvenated his film career.
He went on to appear in films such as ‘It’s Complicated’ with Meryl Streep, Woody Allen’s ‘Blue Jasmine’ and two ‘Mission: Impossible’ movies.
He currently lives in New York with wife Hilaria and their six children.
He went on to appear in films such as ‘It’s Complicated’ with Meryl Streep, (pictured) Woody Allen’s ‘Blue Jasmine’ and two ‘Mission: Impossible’ movies
Baldwin’s career was rejuvenated by seven-season run in multiple-Emmy winning NBC comedy ’30 Rock,’ in which he frequently stole the show as the suave, mega-rich and eccentric boss of Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon
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