idol

Someone who is no longer respected or admired. He was so popular and loved when he was a young actor, but now that he is approaching middle age, he's a fallen idol. Nobody even talks about him anymore.

old-fashioned A film, theater, or television star, especially a male actor, who is adored by their fans to the point of worship or adulation. Usually said of someone who is particularly good looking. Though he rose to fame in the 1940s as a matinée idol, his mediocre acting skills saw him stuck in the same sorts of roles for a number of years, until he eventually faded from the public eye.

A handsome male movie actor whose screen presence excites female audiences. Although we now associate “matinee” with the legitimate theater, the word also applied to afternoon movie shows. Perhaps because housewives and young women constituted the largest audience segment at such screenings, any actor whose appearance evoked sighs and other expressions of female approval became known as a matinee idol, regardless of his acting ability. That is not to say that a matinee idol was necessarily a bad actor, but his looks were the defining characteristic.