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Of course, few stars possess Madonna's bottomless talent for reinvention or Allen's curmudgeonly allure. For most, the tired reality show circuit offers the clearest path to renewal. Phil Edgar-Jones, creative director of Endemol, the production company behind Celebrity Big Brother, says he casts foreigners in his shows because they "have a more innocent approach" and "fewer expectations." That's key, because if stateside reality programming seems down-market, the options in Britain are positively apocalyptic. An insider at Granada TV, which produces the grotesque I'm a Celebrity!, says, chuckling, "These American stars have no idea what they are letting themselves in for."

In the past few years, Madonna's onetime paramour, former basketball pro Dennis Rodman has turned up on programs with themes ranging from Lord of the Flies redux to soft-core porn. "He wanted something to do, and he quite fancied coming over to Britain," says Edgar-Jones, who inked a deal with Rodman to appear on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006. Rodman played the part of the shameless Casanova on that series, boasting that he'd bedded 2,000 women. But it turned out he had a bit of dignity left—too much for the show's producers, alas, who banned him from the end-of-season reunion party for refusing to dish about his housemates. Then, on the now defunct Celebrity Love Island, the lothario caused an uproar in the South Pacific encampment by telling housemates of his plans to shag Playboy model Colleen Shannon.

Recently, Vanilla Ice, Antonio Fargas (Starsky & Hutch's Huggy Bear), Jackson Five refugee Jermaine, and former Baywatch-er Traci Bingham have all resurfaced on British reality TV. Being American, moderately famous, and desperate is qualification enough. Edgar-Jones says the American contestants often try to use British TV as a launching pad for their pet projects. (Jermaine, for instance, is said to be seeking funding for a stage show about the Jackson Five.) Sadly, there are no guarantees that eating cockroaches in the jungle will actually bring back their mojo. But even if their future plans never come to fruition, participants can at least count on a six-figure payday—typically between $100,000 and $500,000 for a season.

Lured by the promise of easy money, Liza Minnelli's oddball ex, David Gest—who, until deciding to make London his base, was renowned mainly for plastic surgery addiction and his claim that he'd been beaten by his bride—turned up on I'm a Celebrity! in 2006. Before he'd even arrived on set, Tony Blair's sister-in-law, Lauren Booth, joked she'd need a ball of string in the jungle just to "hold David Gest's face together." But Gest weathered such humiliations and pulled off a coup that may just have Liza booking her own passage on the Queen Mary. After completing his reality-show stint, he was signed by ITV to host a chat program called This Is David Gest, in which he dressed up as his ex-wife, his eyes smeared with vivid green war paint. Soon after, he penned a memoir entitled Simply the Gest and was dubbed "the hottest star on TV" by the Daily Mirror. As a judge on the British version of Grease: You're the One That I Want, he eviscerated would-be Sandys and Dannys with zingers like, "I've got bowel movements more exciting than your performance." Sadly for fans of the Gest renaissance, the 54-year-old's meteoric rise hit a rough patch when he began having chest pains and was forced to cancel the UK tour of a musical about his life, which he wrote and was set to star in.

Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Matt Damon have all appeared in London stage productions, prompting dozens of lesser talents to follow in their wake. Indeed, some recent casting choices have been odd, to say the least. "Presumably, we still think they're stars when people in America think they're has-beens," admits Peter Thompson, a London-based publicist who has worked with American stars in the West End since he repped Ginger Rogers four decades ago. Among the headliners are big-in-the-'80s types in need of gainful employment. Molly Ringwald appeared in the stage version of When Harry Met Sally and earned a tentative thumbs-up from critics, who said that though lacking "Meg Ryan's perkiness," she came "into her own in the tearier moments." Rob Lowe told reporters he was "appropriately nervous" before he appeared in A Few Good Men in 2005, but in the end, his turn as lawyer Daniel Kaffee was said to be "pleasing." In 2006, Ashlee Simpson, in career limbo after she was humiliated for lip-synching on Saturday Night Live, received the ideal image rehab in the UK. On the opening night of her stint as Roxie Hart in Chicago, critics raved that her performance had been "dazzling and near flawless." Robert Smith of The Cure even dropped by backstage one night; the pair are now said to be collaborating on an album. Perhaps pining for boyfriend Pete Wentz, Simpson soon drifted back to America, where her imperfect pitch no longer seemed to matter and her paparazzi following only loomed larger.