•Rise: The then-37-year-old character actor, who once stood in police lineups for lunch money, became an unexpected star—and an even less likely derriere model—after NYPD Blue premiered in September 1993. "I was on the air four times," he recalls, "and I was offered $1 million to do a movie."
•Fall: Caruso says he exhausted himself by working for both the small and big screens: "The season I did NYPD Blue and Kiss of Death I worked 56 weeks in a row without a day off." Unable to negotiate a longer hiatus, he antagonized his producers by bolting from the show four episodes into its second season. When Kiss and then the high-budget Jade flopped, Caruso's star fizzled.
•Aftermath: Married for two years to former flight attendant Margaret Buckley, Caruso played the title role in 1997's short-lived CBS series Michael Hayes. "There have been times when it's been hard for me to find work," he says. "I'm still a young man and I have a lot to give. If I don't get any more chances on a major level, there's not much I can do about it."
Oops!
Bob Packwood
•Rise: The powerful five-term Oregon Republican was known as one of the Senate's leading advocates for women's rights.
•Fall: In 1992, 10 women accused Packwood of sexually harassing them over a 20-year period. Three years later, after the Senate Ethics Committee voted for his expulsion, he resigned. "Being out of office—that was like a plunge into an ice bath," says his former aide Bob Witeck.
•Aftermath: Packwood, 66, who blamed his inappropriate behavior on alcoholic blackouts, quit drinking and rebounded as a well-paid lobbyist. Last fall he married his former chief of staff Elaine Franklin, 58. Washington, says Witeck, is "a city of short memories."
Joycelyn Elders
•Rise: In late 1993, President Clinton anointed the outspoken juvenile-diabetes expert as Surgeon General.
•Fall: Fifteen months into her term, Elders was asked at a conference if masturbation could help stem the spread of AIDS. In response, she said that "it's a part of something that perhaps should be taught." Anticipating an uproar, Clinton demanded her resignation.
•Aftermath: Retooling herself as the Dr. Ruth of the public-health set, Elders, now 65, hit the lecture circuit. She is now writing a book about masturbation. "I have no regrets about what I said," Elders proclaims. "I feel I was absolutely right."
David Lee Roth
•Rise: Diamond Dave's 11-year stint as flamboyant lead singer with Eddie and Alex Van Halen's band produced six hit albums—and a lot of squabbling. "David thought Eddie was a stick-in-the-mud, and Eddie thought David was a showboat," recounts Brad Tolinski, editor of Guitar World and coeditor of a book on Van Halen.
•Fall: With the inevitable split in '85, Eddie got custody of the career: Sales of Roth's albums plummeted by the early '90s. "He surrounded himself with people who didn't have a knack for writing pop music," Tolinski explains.
•Aftermath: Roth, 44, had a Vegas lounge act in the mid-'90s. "I'm not on the Alist of anything," he wrote in his 1997 autobiography, Crazy from the Heat. As he told The Denver Post, "Here today, gone later today."
Farrah Fawcett
•Rise: She was the It girl of 1976-1977, when TV sets in 18.4 million homes were tuned in each week to Charlie's Angels. Her poster set a sales record, and her hairdo started a trend.
•Fall: Fawcett quit Angels after just one season to pursue films and please then-spouse Lee Majors, who wanted her home for dinner. The producers sued, and Fawcett's career faltered, though she was nominated for an Emmy for 1984's The Burning Bed.
•Aftermath: In 1984, Fawcett, now 52, told PEOPLE that she would rather be appreciated for her talent than her looks, "but I don't know if it will ever be like that for me." Lately, it's her personal dramas, such as her split from Ryan O'Neal (father of son Redmond, 14) and court battle with former beau James Orr, that have attracted the most attention.
Shelley Long
•Rise: After five years on Cheers "she was as hot as a pistol," says former NBC chief Fred Silverman.
•Fall: Flush with her big-screen success in 1987's Outrageous Fortune, Long, now 49, devoted herself to movies, but-most were critical and box office duds. "The timing appeared right; it just didn't work out," Silverman says. Cheers, meanwhile, moved from No. 3 to No. 1 in the ratings.
•Aftermath: Long continues to be short on luck; despite her Brady Bunch film hits, her last sitcom, the WB's Kelly Kelly, lasted just three months.
Sarah Ferguson
•Rise: The high-spirited redhead looked like such jolly good fun next to the stuffy Windsors when she wed Prince Andrew on July 23, 1986.
•Fall: After bearing two daughters, the Duchess of York, stuck home alone while her husband was at sea, separated from Andrew in March 1992. Hopes for a reconciliation were dashed when a paparazzo caught the topless Fergie in a Riviera pool playing footsie with American financial adviser John Bryan. "She became a joke," says British superflack Max Clifford.
•Aftermath: Now 39 and divorced, a more restrained Fergie has kept busy as Weight Watchers spokeswoman and host of British TV talk show Sarah...Surviving Life. Now she has an aura "of dignity," claims Clifford.
Ouch!
Susan Molinari
•Rise: On the charts with a bullet after she delivered the keynote address at the 1996 Republican National Convention, the Staten Island congresswoman fulfilled a dream a year later when she became a TV newswoman on CBS News Saturday Morning.
•Fall: The perky pol fell flat with reviewers and viewers. CBS dropped her from the show after nine months. "The fit wasn't right," says Molinari. "It was a lot more cooking segments and what-they're-wearing-to-the-Emmys than I had initially anticipated. People like to listen to that stuff, but I don't think it served my strengths."
•Aftermath: Molinari, 40, married to former Buffalo Rep. Bill Paxon, 44, and a happy mother and new homeowner in Alexandria, Va., has a political talk show in the works. "I was raised to believe that if you don't go out there and take chances, you are not going to be a success," she says philosophically.
Mike Tyson
•Rise: After three years in prison for rape, he got back into shape for a June '97 rematch against Evander Holyfield for the heavyweight title.
•Fall: Tyson, now 32, KO'd his comeback by biting off a piece of his opponent's ear. His Nevada boxing license was revoked.
•Aftermath: When psychiatrists gave the go-ahead, Nevada let him return to the ring. In January he knocked out François Botha but bombed on pay-per-view. Still, "the fact that he has a personality that's aggressive and angry is part of the reason the public is galvanized by every move he makes," says Nigel Collins, editor of The Ring magazine. Adds Rock Newman, who managed the career of ex-champ Riddick Bowe: "His anger and lack of discipline have cost him a year out of his boxing life, and that had an impact of probably $30 million."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
