Its a cliche that fame is so often fleeting. But the rise to fame can be equally rapid. This thought was inspired by hearing mention of Eva Longoria on the radio this morning. Only a couple of years ago Longoria was pretty much a nobody. She'd appeared on the Young and the Restless for a couple of years, and was on the shortlived Dragnet revival. Otherwise it looked like her career had a good chance of ending up in straight to video hell. If you'd asked people about her maybe you'd run across a soap fan or two who'd recognise the name. But Longoria got lucky and ended up on Desperate Housewives, which proved to be one of that handful of shows that appears each TV season and takes off. Suddenly she went from being just another attractive actress in a profession full of them, to being someone everyone is supposed to pay attention to, fodder for the tabloids, gossip columns, and entertainment programs like Entertainment Tonite.

Hopefully Longoria will remember that the shelflife of the hot actress tends to be rather a short one and make as much money as possible out of her current fame. All she has to do is look at the careers of some of her costars, which have had their ups and downs. Better yet look at the careers of some of her costars own former costars, like Marcia Cross's former fellow Melrose Place cast member Josie Bissett. Bissett was on what was for a while one of the hottest shows on TV, yet her post Melrose career hasn't exactly made headlines. The same can be said for much of the rest of the cast.