5 Celebs Whose Screwups Gave Them the Shortest Careers Ever
Brazilian man Walter Orthmann may well hold the record for the longest time spent at a single job. He started working at a textile company in 1938, and he still worked there when he died in 2024, 86 years later. As far as we can tell, he retained his job so long by keeping his head down and doing nothing interesting, even as the world changed around him.
Other people, however, aren’t quite so skilled at staying put and staying mum, and their résumé pays the price.
Harlan Ellison: One Day
When you start a new job, you should bring up the subject of pornography as soon as possible, so you can gauge how cool this workplace really is. For example, if you work in real estate, you might want to break the ice by suggesting that the house whose photos you’re examining would be a great place to shoot porn. Best-case scenario, you receive credit for an excellent idea. Worst-case, you quickly cut ties with a job where no one was any fun.
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At least, that was the advice apparently believed by Harlan Ellison. In 1950, Ellison got a job with Walt Disney Studios. On his first day, he suggested a porn movie starring the classic Disney characters. That was the first and last day of Harlan Ellison’s time with Walt Disney Studios.
Walt Disney
That’s ironic because, behind-the-scenes, the Disney offices were perfectly happy with cartoons of naked people. But trying the same thing with official Disney characters? That shows disrespect toward the trademark, which is the one unforgiveable sin.
Werner Von Janowski: 12 Hours
Germany sent Werner von Janowski to Canada with a mission. He was going to arrive on the continent by U-boat and assume the role of a normal Canadian man, just passing from one town to the next. He would go to Montreal, where he’d hunt down Canada’s fascist underground. Now, he’d use his expertise as a Nazi spy to bring down the nation from within.
He showed up at a hotel on November 9, 1942. He paid with currency that no longer existed in Canada, having been taken out of circulation 30 years earlier. He said he’d arrived by bus, though no buses ran that early in the day. He lit a cigarette with Belgian matches, which seemed odd, since Belgium was under Nazi occupation and had not traded with Canada for years. Also, he smelled bad. He smelled like a man who had just crawled out of a submarine.
He left town on a train, by which point locals had contacted the authorities. Separate from that, an officer on the train asked him for his I.D., and he immediately folded. “I am caught,” he said. “I am a German officer.”
His time as a spy had lasted 12 hours. He now volunteered to be a double agent for Canada, but not sincerely, and when that fell apart, Canada quickly chucked him in a prison camp.
Mal Meninga: One Speech
Mal Meninga’s rugby career has lasted many years. He played Australian rugby from 1979 right till 1994, and he’s coached for the two decades since then.
But that’s his career in sports. Meninga also attempted a career in politics, which was not quite as successful.
His plan was to become a legislator in the Australian Capital Territory in 2001. He apparently spent weeks preparing for his campaign. Then he officially announced he was running, and a reporter tossed him an easy question, asking him why he was entering the race.
“And the thing about that is,” he said, “I guess, I was a public figure and I was put on the podium where I was just a person out there... I'm buggered, I'm sorry. I have to resign.” And so, he abandoned politics, showing a level of self-awareness that other politicians can only dream of.
JamesOn Curry: 4 Seconds
If Meninga’s sports career were cut short as suddenly as his political career, you might imagine that would have come in the form some horrific career-ending injury. But some of the shortest stints in the big leagues end for reasons that aren’t dramatic at all.
JamesOn Curry was a player for the Los Angeles Clippers. “JamesOn” is the real name he was born with, a combination of the names James and Leon. The Clippers signed him on January 22, 2010, and they put him in a game two days later. A couple days after that, they got another player they liked better, so they released Curry from his contract.
He’d played just one game for the NBA. And during that game, he played for just 3.9 seconds. During those 3.9 seconds, he never managed to touch the ball.
Still, he’s not bitter, looking back at his short time with the NBA. The $454,080 that the Clippers paid him probably makes him the best-paid player in history, if you describe everyone’s salary in dollars per second.
Wilfred Stamp: An Instant
From one point-of-view, becoming a British peer is hard, because it’s impossible for most people. You have to be born into a noble family. On the other hand, if you are born into a noble family, ascending into the role is easy. All you need to do is outlive the person who had the title before you. Holding onto the title for a while is also easy, as you just need to stay alive. Wilfred Carlyle Stamp failed both these requirements.
He was the son of Josiah Stamp, who was the Baron Stamp, so William was in line to inherit both the title of baron and his father’s vast fortune. But the two men happened to be staying together one day in 1941 when bombers during the Blitz destroyed the house, killing them both.
If we go by the laws of nature, the two of them died at the exact same time. But if we go by the laws of British peerage, Josiah Stamp died first. That meant the barony did pass to Wilfred, before passing next to Wilfred’s heir. Legally, Wilfred held the title of Baron Stamp, for an infinitesimal length of time.
It is very important that we track exactly how hereditary titles pass from one person to the next. Otherwise, all these nobles would be forced to get real jobs, and that would be chaos.
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