Cool as Ice (1991) and Rappers in the 1990s Trying to Be Actors

The late 1980s and early 1990s were a big time for music and movies.  To get more specific, the popularity of rap music was rapidly rising.  Run DMC, LL Cool J, NWA, Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy had each found success by the turn of the decade.  They were changing the musical landscape as the pop music of the 1980s subsided and rock music was stuck in a hair metal rut.  It would only be a matter of time before some of the rap stars would try and breakthrough into different areas of fame.

One of the most common ways for a rapper to break through somewhere else was to turn to acting.  They found their fame in rap and wanted to turn that into a career on the big screen.  Ice Cube was one of the first.  After finding success with NWA through their 1988 album Straight Outta Compton, he took on one of the starring roles in 1991’s Boys N the Hood.  He has since gone on to be one of the biggest rap stars turned actors.

1991 saw another rapper turn to acting.  Robert Van Winkle was a big star at the beginning of the 1990s.  He had released the first hip hop single to make it to the top of the Billboard Hot 100.  You might know him better as Vanilla Ice, and that single was Ice Ice Baby.  When word got out about Ice Cube getting a movie role, it was only a matter of time before a studio decided to toss another kind of Ice into a movie.  Vanilla Ice got the lead role in a movie called Cool as Ice, which was meant to skyrocket him to big screen stardom.  It didn’t.  But it became an important piece of movie history.

Cool as Ice was about Johnny (Vanilla Ice), a biker riding through a town with his friends.  When one of the friends’ bikes broke down, Johnny stayed in town and connected with Kathy (Kristin Minter).  Her father, Gordon (Michael Gross), wasn’t fond of Johnny.  He thought Johnny was working with two crooked cops who had found him and were trying to get money out of him.  It was up to Johnny to keep Kathy’s family safe and prove his worth, all while waiting for his friend’s bike to be repaired.

On a budget of $6 million, Cool as Ice only made $1.2 million at the box office.  The people who had made Ice Ice Baby such a popular song weren’t going to see Vanilla Ice star in a movie.  His other film release that year was a bit role and a song in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze.  That couldn’t save his sinking film stardom, though.  Cool as Ice had chilled any box office heat he had.  He’d make a mini comeback through Adam Sandler by being featured in That’s My Boy, Sandy Wexler, and The Ridiculous 6, but that was the extent of his big screen power.

Ice Cube fared much better that year.  Boyz n the Hood was a well-received and much respected movie about the life of black youth in Los Angeles.  Ice Cube’s performance earned some critical acclaim and pushed him into more film fare.  The film made $57.5 million in North America alone on a $6 million budget.  It was much more successful than Cool as Ice and pushed each of the three new stars into fame.  Cuba Gooding Jr. and Morris Chestnut each went onto success, but the kid who came straight out of Compton fared the best.  Ice Cube is still turning out successful movies with a fourth installment of the Friday franchise and a third installment of the Ride Along franchise in the works.

1991 saw not only two, but three Ice rappers hit the big screen.  New Jack City, a movie I admittedly haven’t seen, came out to some success.  It featured Ice-T in his first major role since the Breakin’ films.  It was the first one to really showcase his acting skills and pushed him into doing some other work including Trespass, with Ice Cube, and a long-running role on Law and Order: SVU.  Ice-T had released three solo albums prior to New Jack City.  His debut album was the second hip-hop album to be hit with the explicit content sticker.  There was no doubt about how influential he was on music in those important years of rap and hip-hop.

Other rap artists also made the transition into film at different times.  LL Cool J went from being an important 1980s/1990s rapper to having roles in Deep Blue Sea, Halloween H20, and NCIS: Los Angeles.  Will Smith broke into acting in the 1990s with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and a series of successful movies including Bad Boys, Independence Day, and Men in Black.  Queen Latifah, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Common, and DMX all had acting careers as well as music careers.  Many rappers have broken through into the acting world.

One final rapper that should be mentioned for their influence on the 1980s and 1990s rap scene is Tupac Shakur.  His death in 1996 ended his career prematurely.  He rose to fame in 1991 as a part of Digital Underground and got his big screen debut later that year as part of the band’s small role in Nothing but Trouble.  Then he went on to some well-regarded work in Juice in 1992 and his acting career looked like it would blow up.  He had a few other roles before he was shot and killed in 1996.  His music and acting has remained respected throughout the two decades since his untimely death.  He never got to have the great, long career that everyone expected.

1991 was mostly about the rappers named after frozen water.  Ice-T, Ice Cube, and Vanilla Ice had major movie releases that would, hopefully, change the trajectory of their careers.  Ice-T and Ice Cube managed to make a career out of their acting performances.  Vanilla Ice, however, didn’t find the same success in movies or television.  He ended up doubling down on his music career, which imploded in the mid-90s under the weight of a major drug addiction.  His career never recovered.  But we still have Cool as Ice.  We still have a couple of Adam Sandler movie performances.  And we still have Ice Ice Baby and Go Ninja Go.  He left his mark on the entertainment industry.

Rappers have been branching out into acting careers since the 1990s.  The three Ices are only a few of the rappers to dip their toes in the film industry.  They made their name in the music world and wanted more.  They wanted to be even bigger.  People knew their voices.  Through their acting, people would come to recognize their faces.  They were multifaceted talents and the world would know.

The world will also know these notes:

• Nothing But Trouble (week 267) got a mention in this post.
• Vanilla Ice has made two other Sunday “Bad” Movies appearances in Sandy Wexler (week 231) and The Ridiculous 6 (week 344).
• Jack McGee returned in Cool as Ice after being in New Year’s Eve (week 57) and Showgirls (week 170).
• Candy Clark reappeared in the Sunday “Bad” Movies after appearing as far back as possible in Starcrash (week 1).
• Kevin Hicks was in Iron Eagle IV (week 90) before ending up in the Sunday “Bad” Movies with Cool as Ice.
• Finally, Sandy Lassick was in Squanderers (week 245) and Cool as Ice.
• Have you seen Cool as Ice?  What do you think about rappers who became actors?  I know I missed a few of them.  What do you think about Vanilla Ice’s career?  Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.
• Twitter and the comments are places where you can tell me which movies I should be checking out for future Sunday “Bad” Movies posts.  Tell me what movies you know that I don’t that I should see for the blog.
• Follow the Sunday “Bad” Movies Instagram account.  I’m going to be starting some stuff up on there soon, after about two weeks of dormancy.
• Now let’s talk about next week.  We’ve got a big week coming up.  That’s two weeks away.  Before that, there’s next week.  Week 349.  And with it, another movie.  That movie is one that I’ve seen a few times.  I just can’t stay away from it.  Balls of Fury is the topic next week.  I’ll see you then.