As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously noted, there are no second acts in American lives. England, however, is a whole 'nother story

This article is from the May issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here.

In a remote pocket of steamy Australian jungle last fall, Janice Dickinson was peering at a collection of wriggling bugs--silkworms, grubs, and cockroaches--moving before her on a makeshift conveyor belt. As TV presenter Declan Donnelly, Britain's answer to Ryan Seacrest, looked on intently, a grimacing Dickinson passed up the jungle fare. Soon after, an even more revolting second course rolled out before her. On viewing its contents, the self-anointed "world's first supermodel" let out an ear-piercing shriek: "My name may be Dickinson," she said, "but I'm not going to eat a croc dick!"
The unseemly meal had been cooked up for Dickinson by producers of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! a popular British reality-TV show that has aired on ITV since 2002. "This is the sickest game in history," Dickinson huffed, sounding genuinely horrified at the turn the show, best described as a fusion of Survivor and Fear Factor, had taken. In the end, her refusal to choke down the reptilian member made for reality TV gold. America may have been burned out on the crazy-lady shtick of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, but oddly, her depleted stateside fame seemed only to enhance her appeal for Brits. Instead of hammering down the coffin lid on her career, the hype surrounding Dickinson's tropical cameo revitalized it, prompting America's Oxygen Network to pick up Janice & Abbey, a series in which Dickinson mentors a struggling British model hoping for a break in America.
At the moment, the UK is crawling with American B-listers--stumbling out of London's tony Groucho Club, padding ticket sales on the West End, angling for one last splash of limelight. Over the past few years, they've descended upon London like a biblical plague. But talk about an out-of-whack exchange rate: The Brits lend us Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Ricky Gervais. We return the favor by exporting the likes of Vanilla Ice, Dennis Rodman, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Liza Minnelli's battered ex, David Gest. In England, they bask in the transformative powers of expat-hood, enjoying the attentions of a surprisingly tolerant, and occasionally admiring, public.

It's no surprise that a country prepared to forgive even the wildest indiscretions of Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse would hold a special appeal for those who've fallen from lesser heights. "It's like a warm bath for American stars," says Jonathan Gems, a British director and screenwriter who has collaborated with Tim Burton. Like so many trends, this modern cross-Atlantic migration of shopworn stars seems to have begun with Madonna, who in the late '90s--her pop megastar moment on the wane--moved full-time to Merry Olde England. Affectionately dubbed "Her Madgesty" by the London tabloids, the star purchased a rambling 1,200-acre estate known as Ashcombe, once home to posh society photographer Cecil Beaton. She took up horseback riding, honed a clipped transatlantic accent, and wore tweed for a spread in Vogue. Though a few local eyebrows were raised when she allowed Condé Nast set dressers to dye her sheep cotton-candy pink and baby blue, the umbrage quickly faded. She was, after all, an American.

Woody Allen, once such an icon in New York that he seemed a part of the Manhattan landscape itself, also found his feet again in the UK. While many Americans were seriously creeped out by his marriage to erstwhile stepdaughter Soon-Yi,in London the two could stroll hand in hand through Knightsbridge unmolested. And though a string of off films had tarnished the director's legacy back home, Woody's luck changed with the release of Match Point, a British thriller with a hint of class frisson, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers and the pneumatic Scarlett Johansson. Suddenly, thanks to the Brits, Woody was relevant once again.

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.

Nineties heartthrob Christian Slater has also parlayed roles in the West End into renewed leading-man status—reaffirming his title as "the next Jack Nicholson." Slater recently wrapped a stage version of the roman à clef Swimming With Sharks and wowed locals with his lead role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Illustrating the deference with which England treats its resident Yankee has-beens, Matthew d'Ancona, editor of the Spectator, gushed: "You can detect a new steeliness about what he does: a determination, having diced with oblivion, to transcend the stardom of youth to become one of the great actors of his generation. I think he is well on the way."

Having successfully exploited his theatrical persona, Slater has gone on to become a London tabloid fixture, deftly playing the part of the "big Hollywood star." Before the opening of Cuckoo's Nest, he embarked on a spree of after-hours womanizing, prompting his wife, Ryan Haddon, to move out of the couple's rented home in West London. He then indulged his lap-dance addiction, dropping nearly $20,000 in a single month at Sophisticats strip club. "Christian was drinking heavily," while preparing for the role, a Cuckoo's Nest production source tells Radar. A regular at Groucho Club recalls the actor "walking around here in a crazed stupor. His first words to me were, 'Let's jump off the roof!'" In Los Angeles, such behavior would likely have landed Slater on TMZ's trainwreck watch, but in London, his antics were viewed as harmless. In the end, they won him the affection of one of the city's most eligible bachelorettes, Tamara Mellon, the socialite president of Jimmy Choo, whose personal fortune is estimated at £99 million. The pair now pop up on both sides of the Atlantic, making the scene at parties Slater couldn't have begged an invite to five years ago.

Whether a hop across the pond turns out to be career rehab or simply the last pathetic stop on the gravy train, the trend shows little prospect of letting up. As she crashed her way toward rock bottom in the summer of 2007, Britney Spears was rumored to be considering a move to the UK, where, she felt, she might someday be set free from the glare of tabloid scrutiny, unleashed to haunt British fast-food chains in peace. More recently, as she disintegrated further, she found refuge in the arms of a Birmingham-born paparazzo named Adnan Ghalib and began to mimic his middle-class English accent (though she actually sounded more like Eliza Doolittle before the makeover). Britney's longing for something new was palpable. And perhaps a one-way flight to Heathrow will be just the ticket to redemption she's been hoping for.

This article is from the May issue of Radar Magazine. For a risk-free issue, click here.