Adam Taylor/LifetimeIt's the morning after Lindsay Lohan's Lifetime debut as Elizabeth Taylor in Liz & Dick, and viewers weren't exactly impressed.
And all that buzz and controversy unfortunately did not pay off in the ratings as much as Lifetime probably would have liked. A so-so 3.5 million viewers subjected themselves to the premiere of Liz & Dick, but this isn't the first time viewers were suckered by the promise of a salacious made-for-TV celebrity tell-all. From over-the-top productions to wrong-just-wrong casting, here are five other bad biopics that came before Lohan's Lifetime flick:
Casualties of Love: The "Long Island Lolita" Story: Alyssa Milano shed her "good girl" image after years on Who's the Boss? to play Amy Fisher in the CBS made-for-TV movie. Casulatlies of Love was one of three—count ‘em three—Amy Fisher TV movies being made at that time, but this one was a standout because of Milano's truly psychotic portrayal of Joey Buttafuoco's mistress.
The Audrey Hepburn Story: ABC blessed us with this biopic on the late, great Audrey Hepburn, starring our favorite '90s star, Jennifer Love Hewitt. While the Can't Hardly Wait actress deserves an A for effort, her delivery was all kinds of wrong. Unlike Hepburn who carried herself with a ballerina's grace, J.Love's performance was often fidgety and cutesy. And don't even get us started on that accent!
Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter: CBS called this 1991 movie a ''a dramatic love story'' revolving around I Love Lucy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, but the final product wasn't dramatic, lovely or even interesting. Maurice Benard portrayed Arnaz as an intolerable womanizer with a cartoonish accent, and Titanic's Frances Fisher managed to make Ball a bore, though she did her best with the material.
The Kennedys: Slammed for its inaccuracies before the movie was even cast, the miniseries starring Katie Holmes and Greg Kinnear pinballed around different networks, all of which passed on airing it until it found a home on ReelzChannel. Holmes also received flack for her portrayal of Jackie O, while Kinnear received an Emmy nomination for his take on President John F. Kennedy. Barry Pepper, who portrayed Robert F. Kennedy fared a bit better, taking home an Emmy for his performance in the miniseries.
Blonde: There have been countless attempts to truly capture the essence of the Marilyn Monroe, and this 2001 CBS made-for-television film starring Australian actress Poppy Montgomery was a lackluster try, with some going as far as calling it "trashy." But it did have quite the supporting cast: Patrick Dempsey, Jensen Ackles, Patricia Richardson and Kirstie Alley, to name a few.