Gordon Shumway - True Hollywood Stories

Many of you would have asked over the years - whatever happened to Gordon Shumway?

The little man from Melmac arrived on our great planet and graced our screens in the early 80's as part of the hit show ALF. The show ran for 4 years and Gordon was the main man for all 102 of those shows.

What hasn't been discussed over the last 15 years is what actually happened after the show was axed by those cruel people at NBC. The biggest problem for Gordon was getting past the fact that he was no longer a star in the eyes of millions as the on-set turmoil started to be spoken of along with his diva-like demands.

He struggled with his cat addiction, as a result suffering severe hairballs in 5 of his 8 stomachs requiring surgery and was soon bankrupt as a result of gambling, hookers and the previously mentioned medical expenses of the US.

He made a brief resurrection of his role as ALF in 1996 for a tele-movie which was panned by critics and led to the same pitfalls as before. In a latch ditch effort to revive his career, he then tried to lead a late-night with Alf talk show in 2004 which lasted a measly 7 episodes before being axed as well.

For the next few years, rumours of alcohol taking the place of his previous cat addiction were all over the internet. A garbageman was once quoted as removing 160 empty Bacardi bottles in one week, there were the leaked pictures of him dousing a sweet potato and then the pixalated no handed mangina on you tube that we all knew was him.

All appeared lost for Mr Shumway until I was checking out http://www.superfooty.com.au/ the other day and stumbled across a first at four football update with Jon Ralph and what appeared to be a grown up Gordon Shumway.

Sure, there has definately been some hair removal techniques and a couple of doses of cosmetic surgery involved since he last graced our screens 5 years ago but the telltale nose is there and I for one am grateful that he has managed to pull himself together.

At the end of the day, Alf was a show that bought laughs to many faces and should be celebrated. As a result, it's competition time! See the next blog for details on how we can all bring Alf back to the world and show him th respect he deserves!