Tom Sizemore

A charismatic and intense character player who achieved a degree of fame and infamy, actor Tom Sizemore reached Hollywood fame in the 1990s thanks to a number of dynamic performances that promised a long, fruitful career, only to find his personal and professional life derailed by a long struggle with addiction. After making his film and television debuts in the late 1980s, Sizemore came into prominence during the following decade with memorable performances in "True Romance" (1993), "Wyatt Earp" (1994) and "Natural Born Killers" (1994). He had a life changing experience following his gritty turn in "Heat" (1995), when star Robert De Niro staged an intervention and propelled the actor down the road of sobriety for a time. During this period, he enjoyed a particularly fertile part of his career with strong turns as John Gotti in the miniseries "Witness to the Mob" (NBC, 1998) and as a loyal soldier in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" (1998). However, Sizemore's life and career plummeted off the cliff after a series of legal entanglements involving domestic abuse and possession of illegal drugs that kept the actor on probation for a better part of the decade. Adding insult to injury, he endured the humility of a sex tape being leaked onto the internet, while complaining that he failed to see a penny for his work. By the time he joined the cast of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" (VH1, 2008-12), Sizemore's life was a mess, leaving many to ponder what might have been, had he been able to corral his personal demons.