Sheen fired, studio fears life in danger

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Charlie Sheen

ACTOR CHARLIE Sheen was fired on Monday from his top-rated US comedy Two and A Half Men beca-use of his “dangerously self-destructive conduct,” difficulty at work and inflammatory comments to producers, TV executives said.
“After careful consideration, Warner Bros. Television has terminated Charlie Sheen’s services on Two and a Half Men effective immediately,” programme makers Warner Bros. Television said in a statement. Sheen, 45, is the highest-paid actor on US television and Two and A Half Men is the most popular comedy for network CBS which broadcasts the series.
But the remainder of the current season was cancelled 10 days ago after Sheen called producer and co-creator Chuck Lorre a “clown” and a “stupid, stupid little man.”
The actor followed up with a week of rambling, sometimes manic, TV and radio interviews boasting that he is “winning” and has “tiger blood”, while insisting he is drug-free and sober after a period of rehabilitation in January.
Sheen, who had a contract through May 2012, shrugged off Monday’s firing with a mixture of nonchalance and jibes. “It is a big day of gladness at the Sober Valley Lodge because now I can take all of the bazillions and I never have to put on those silly shirts for as long as this warlock exists in the terrestrial dimension,” Sheen said in a statement. His lawyers said they planned to sue Warner Bros. Television. A spokesman for Warner Bros. Television said no decision had been made about the future of Two and A Half Men.
The comedy, in which Sheen plays a womanising bachelor, is a huge generator of advertising revenue for CBS and makes millions in syndication rights for Warner Bros. Television.
Warner Bros. and CBS could decide to bring it back for another season, without Sheen.
In an 11-page letter, attorneys for Warner Bros. said Sheen was being fired because in recent months he had been forgetting lines, turning up late or missing rehearsals and made “comments poisoning key working relationships.”
TV executives believed Sheen’s drug and alcohol abuse was also “endangering his life”.