Fake Shemps and Rogue Princesses, How the Film and Television Industries Replace Original Actors

In 2017 at the Kickstarter unconference PWL Camp, writer Rex Sorgatz gave an interesting talk entitled “Fake Shemps and Rogue Princesses” or the use of substitutions used in the film and television industries.

Sorgatz first explained how the term “Fake Shemp” came into play:

The first fake Shemp. 1951 Shemp…died of a surprise heart attack and he had to be replaced on a Three Stooges movie. It was not until 1981 when Sam Raimi came along and a bunch of people quit the making of ‘Evil Dead’ and he decided to fill the cast with his friends and he called them Fake Shemps in honor of the Three Stooges.

Sorgatz then spoke about Eric Stolz being replaced by Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future, the switching of Dicks (Sergeant for York) in Bewitched and other similar situations. Sorgatz also spoke about a term he coined “Rogue Princess” for those actors whose visage was either made younger or recreated altogether through CGI. These actors include Carrie Fisher in Rogue One, Peter Cushing also in Rogue One, Sean Young in Blade Runner 2049, Robert Downey Jr. in Captain America: Civil War and Kurt Russell in Guardians of the Galaxy. According to Sorgatz, this is just the beginning.

so I’m going to end on a prediction which is that someday someone will create a movie in which a character who is long dead is revived through CGI and wins an Oscar and that Rogue Princess will probably not bea Fake Shemp.

via David Gallagher