Twenty-four-year-old Johnny Depp thought his starring role on the 1987 television series 21 Jump Street wouldn’t last a full season. After a few weeks of playing a young-looking cop who infiltrates high schools to catch drug dealers, the Kentucky-born actor began to feel that the spying he carried out in each episode was immoral. Worse still, Jump Street was a huge success and Depp’s busy schedule prevented him from accepting movie offers. The resentful teen idol tried to provoke his bosses into firing him. His opening antics included setting his underwear on fire, constantly changing dialogue, and suggesting wild plots, such as having his character cover his entire naked body in peanut butter. The show’s creators realized that its lead was the main reason viewers tuned in and forced him to fulfill his contract. Johnny did a professional job and appreciated Jump Street for making it a household name, but he compared his power leaving the show in 1990 to the release of imprisoned South African leader Nelson Mandela.

After years of playing society’s dingbat dudes, Natalie Schafer (1900-1991) was perfectly cast to play the spoiled but good-natured Lovey Howell in the 1963 Gilligan’s Island pilot. For the veteran actress, it was all about getting a quick paycheck, plus a free vacation to Hawaii. The script about seven castaways, without a single luxury, was so stupid; there was no way the network would pick it up. With this kind of material floating around Hollywood, I couldn’t wait to get back to New York. The Red Bank, NJ native did a professional job and then quickly forgot about being abandoned. A few weeks later, Schafer was vacationing in Puerto Vallarta with some friends when he received a phone call. “What! Oh my gosh, no!” His classmates, assuming it was bad news about their sick mother, rushed to comfort her. To her surprise, Natalie’s tears were caused by CBS’s decision to make Gilligan a weekly series, in which the actress was now contractually bound to participate. At the time, Schafer was overwhelmed by having the new, high-paying job that would make her famous.

James Garner became a popular television star thanks to Warner Bros. Western Maverick (1957-1962). But for the Oklahoma-born actor and Korean War veteran, the show used to be purgatory. The studio denied her permission to earn extra money on weekends by making personal appearances and rejected her requests for raises. He eventually exited the show through a breach in the contract and bitterly declared, “If you’re proud of your work, you don’t get on television.” When he returned to television after 11 years of movies in The Rockford Files (1974-1980), he quickly became unhappy with working conditions and staged a successful strike in his dressing room to get what he wanted.

Sometimes an apparent great opportunity can turn into a nightmare. Stage actress Vivian Vance was delighted to land the role of Ethel in I Love Lucy (1951-1957). Vance, who was a pretty woman, even complied with Lucille Ball’s demand that she be twenty pounds overweight. Every summer I got an annoying phone call from Ball, “Viv, we start shooting in a couple of weeks, start eating.” But touching a second scruffy banana weighed on him. One day, sitting in her makeup chair, she complained for all to hear, “Can you believe I got married to that old jerk William Frawley? I should play my dad. Every morning when I get my script, I say Please, God, don’t let me have kiss scenes with the old coot. ” During her spiel, the old coot was standing right behind her, which started a long and famous dispute. Later, when Desi Arnaz proposed creating a spinoff show called The Mertzes, which could have made them both rich, Frawley jumped at it, but Vance scrapped the idea saying, “Six years is enough to be married to the old coot.”

Not everyone is unhappy on television. Comedic actor Don Adams faced a difficult financial decision when he played the goofy Maxwell Smart on the 1965 television series Get Smart. The producers offered him two options: he could take home a healthy salary each week or receive very little money in exchange for a third of the ownership of the show. The ex-marine gulped and bet long term. Get Smart was on the air for five years and was constantly shown on reruns. Viewers frequently repeated Adams’ made-up phrases like “Would you believe?” And “You missed me so much.” The now-wealthy star, who claimed she hated acting, was able to spend the last years of her life playing cards at the Playboy Mansion and traveling the world with her seven children. When asked how he ended up with such a large brood, the thrice-married Don shrugged: “No big deal. It only took seven minutes.”