Let's get metaphysical: Actors acting actors

The latest star to get the transfer is Richard Pryor, the outrageously talented 1970s standup who appeared on screen in films such as Stir Crazy, Lady Sings the Blues and Superman III. Initial reports suggested Eddie Murphy would be playing him, but last week Scary Movie star Marlon Wayans was anointed as the new frontrunner for the role Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Wayans will be hoping for a better critical response than James Brolin received for playing Clark Gable in 1976's chummy Gable and Lombard, which detailed the suave Gone With the Wind star's romance with fellow 1930s Hollywood megalith Carole Lombard. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it a "mushy, old-fashioned extravaganza", adding: "We don't even remotely learn from this movie what made them great stars and personalities." Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

It didn't get any better for Faye Dunaway in the 1981 Joan Crawford biopic Mommie Dearest. The film was a fair box office success, but the critics were not kind. Studio Paramount quickly realised that the movie was attracting a following as a camp classic, rather than the masterpiece it had initially been hyped up as, and even changed their marketing, declaring on posters: "Meet the biggest MOTHER of them all!" In 1990 the film was handed a Razzie for worst picture of the decade Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Robert Downey Jr received acclaim, and an Oscar nomination, for his pitch-perfect performance as the great silent movie era comic Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough's sprawling 1992 film. Yet the movie itself was criticised in some quarters for being overly reverential and failing to really get under the skin of the Little Tramp Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

By contrast, Rob Cohen's 1993 biopic of the legendary martial artist Bruce Lee was a fair critical hit, also performing reasonably at the box office. Hawaiian actor Jason Scott Lee played the star of Hong Kong kung fu classic Enter the Dragon Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

1996's Norma Jean & Marilyn was an HBO made-for-TV movie about Marilyn Monroe with a pretty kooky premise. Mira Sorvino played the troubled 1950s icon as the fabulous star whose image was projected to the world, while Ashley Judd played her down-to-earth real-life "alter-ego" Norma Jean (Monroe's real name) Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

1998's The Rat Pack was another HBO offering which starred Ray Liotta, Joe Mantegna and Don Cheadle as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. Cheadle won a Golden Globe for his performance Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

In 2000's The Audrey Hepburn Story, another TV-only effort, Jennifer Love Hewitt played the sparrow-like star of Breakfast at Tiffany's and My Fair Lady Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

A young James Franco won the Golden Globe Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film and was nominated for Screen Actor's Guild award for 2001's James Dean, a TV movie which started out life as a big screen project. At one point, Leonardo DiCaprio was reportedly on board to play the brooding 1950s star of Rebel Without A Cause, with Michael Mann set to direct Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Stephen Hopkins' 2004 film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers ran into trouble before anyone had even seen it. Michael Sellers, the son of the former Goon and star of the Pink Panther movies, attacked the director for buying the rights to a Roger Lewis biography which he said wrongly depicted his father as clinically insane. Both the film and its star, Geoffrey Rush, won praise from the critics, however Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

It's still a twinkle in Hollywood's eye, but the chances are that we'll be seeing a biopic of 60s and 70s star Steve McQueen on the big screen soon, as two rival projects are said to be in the works. Who should play the original King of Cool? Well our money's on Daniel Craig, who looks more like him with every passing year Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive