Actors/Actresses Who Were Once Big/Almost Big But Now Have Seemingly Vanished

The first one that comes to mind is Elizabeth Shue, She was in several hugely popular movies from the 80's and 90's but has pretty much disappeared except for a few brief tv gigs.

Linda Fiorentino is a prime example of this. To all the kids out there hoping to make it in Hollywood: yes, assholism can kill your career in an instant.

Everyone in Hollywood seems to have a story of her being a cunt R2, she must have been a true monster to work with.

To be fair that could also be Shue's problem as well, she comes off as really mean in some interviews she's given.

R1. Good one. And her brother. How about the girl from Twin Peaks? Fuck. What is her name? Went out w Jack Nicholson in her dwindling days.

Yeah, The rumor there is that she was already "fragile" and that being in a relationship with Nicholson pretty much destroyed her emotionally and psychologically.

I recall reading that Shue had been attending Harvard with in a year or two of Leaving Los Vegas. It sounded like she took time off to attend school right around the time her career peaked. I thought it was an extremely odd choice. I also recall reading that she was first choice for the lead in the Good Wife but turned it down. Then she wound up doing CSI at the end of the run.

Ron Eldard. He had a couple of his own shows (Men Behaving Badly, Blind Justice) as well as being on ER and being in really good movies (House Of Sand And Fog, Sleepers).

Don't no what happened to him. Some people say it's drugs, others say it's because he says no to everything. Whatever it is, I don't think I've seen him in anything for a couple of years. And I don't think his long hair is helping either .

It's a shame because I really loved him on Roadie.

Shue gave an interview years ago where she made fun of Ralph Macchio and pretty much called him a loser, she came off like a real bitch.

I saw Alicia Silverstone at the farmer's market this morning.

Silverstone's problem was growing up.

Ken Wahl.

[quote]How about the girl from Twin Peaks? Fuck. What is her name? Went out w Jack Nicholson in her dwindling days.

Google "plastic surgery Lara Flynn Boyle."

Wasn't Shue on CSI? I'd say she has more of a career than someone like, say, Mira Sorvino.

Helen Hunt is another good example: a successful sitcom (yes, it was mediocre but seemed strangely popular and acclaimed awardswise), an Academy Award, a few leading roles in bigger Hollywood movies and, then, nothing... I don't recall last time I saw her in *anything*.

Fell in love with Ken Wahl in The Wanderers. He said he fell down the stairs at some celebrities house and broke his neck. Don't know how true that is, maybe he was drunk or high.

It's a shame. I doubt he's lost any of his looks. I would definitely watch him in anything if he decided to make a comeback.

[quote]Helen Hunt is another good example: a successful sitcom (yes, it was mediocre but seemed strangely popular and acclaimed awardswise), an Academy Award, a few leading roles in bigger Hollywood movies and, then, nothing... I don't recall last time I saw her in *anything*.

She's behind camera now. Not very successfully, but it's what she wants. I hear she's content surfing and hanging out in Brentwood Country Mart (and pleasant to deal with - yea, it's true).

Yeah, She was on CSI Vegas with Ted Danson but before that she hadn't done much.

Catharine Zeta-Jones.

Me!

I was the next big "IT" girl! Harvey said so!

I felt so sorry for her, she had the potential to be a genuinely good actress and then she got branded as Harvey's sex toy and it ruined her.

Carnie Phillips

Helen Hunt was nominated for an Oscar in 2013.

Shue replaced Marg Helgeburger in the last three seasons of CSI. There are worse fates, but it's not a very prestiges to be on an old show limping along. She might have had an Emmy and a cosmetics contract if she said yes to the Good Wife.

Moll was very good in Board Walk Empire. She's having a very respectable career except that she didn't become that big thing.

Craig Wasson.

Almost big.

"The Boys in Company C"

"Four Friends"

"Ghost Story"

"Body Double"

Shia

Lots of people from old TV who were everywhere then their place in pop culture disappeared when tastes changed and they are not well-remembered today

Gisele MacKenzie Bob Cummings Shawn Cassidy

Michael Beck. Escape From Alcatraz and The Warriors made him the next big thing and then Xanadu took it all away!

I think its fab that Shue returned to Harvard to finish her B.A. She was only a semester short when she dropped out. And returned 10 years later and it took her 2-3 years - she must have been part time as an adult. Her husband directed An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim). The whole family seems to be very progressive "limousine liberals".

Alot of the 80s Brat Packish actors:

Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Meg Tilly, Molly Ringwald, Ralph Macchio...I think Rob Lowe & Demi Moore had the most long term success.

The young actor in Dead Poets Society. Forgot his name.

Esai Morales

Michael Pare'

Michael Weiss (?)...The Pretender TV show

Richard Grieco

Brian Bloom

Michael Biehn

Was supposed to be Tom Cruise 2.0, after his success in The Terminator & Aliens.

Didnt happen.

[quote]The young actor in Dead Poets Society. Forgot his name.

Except for Robin Williams and Norman Lloyd, everyone was "the young actor in Dead Poets Society."

whoziwhatsy

Keanu Reeves seems to be working but going nowhere.

R31 Sean Patrick Leonard?

Kristi Alley

whats her name you know

Madonna

R36 yes, Sally struthers

Debra Winger was nominated for three Academy Awards, but nearly dropped out of sight (her own choice). And her ex-husband, Timothy Hutton, too.

R16 - Helen Hunt directed episode 7 of DL fave Feud.

Jennifer Tilly. According to IMDB, she's been keeping busy but I actually haven't seen her in anything myself since the awful Seed of Chucky way back in 2004. One of my former agent's other clients had signed Tilly up for an indie movie but she dropped out at the last minute to play poker instead.

Theresa Russell is another one who I haven't seen in ages. I looked her up and the last thing I saw her in was Wild Things in 1998 which I hoped at the time would have been a nice comeback for her (she played slutty Denise Richards' slutty mother). Alas, it was not to be.

Rebecca DeMornay. Huge hit with Risky Business (and lots of attention for dating Tom Cruise), then basically disappears. Then pulls off a near miracle by headlining another huge hit a decade later, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, and disappears again.

Yeah, R36, the one who was in that movie with that guy, that guy who was in that other movie with that other girl, you know the one with all the hair, that movie where the guy and the girl fall in love but don't like each other at first.

You know, that girl. And that guy. In that movie

Her.

You know...

Bridget Fonda was everywhere in the '90s: The Godfather Part III, Scandal, Single White Female, Singles, Point of No Return, Jackie Brown. Now, wikipedia lists her as "retired."

R41 Shes the perfect choice for this thread. Bravo!

R42, Someone's mom found DL open on their computer and jumped in.

Matt Dillon. He seems to stick to those straight-to-video indie movies.

Sean Young showed so much promise (Blade Runner, No Way Out, Dune, Wall Street) but it seems like her tragic affair with noted asshole James Woods during 'The Boost' brought out awareness of her mental health issues.

R41 - I was a big fan of De Mornay's after The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (the first thing I remember seeing her in before tracking down her back catalogue) and the reason her career didn't take off is that, as she said during an interview in Movieline magazine, she was happy to be a "mini-star". I don't think she ever really felt obliged to do what it takes to be a huge star like her Risky Business co-star Tom Cruise. Plus she didn't want to be typecast and so turned down quite a few roles (including Joan Cusack's role in Addams Family Values) because she didn't want to repeat herself which is a shame as she's great at playing psychos.

When she signed on for multiple episodes of The Practice, it was in her contract to continue with the spin-off Boston Legal which she never ended up doing and it's never been explained why. According to an interview she did while shooting The Practice she seemed to enjoy the experience and I would have thought her bitchy character would have created plenty of drama on the spin-off. Instead, they inserted Monica Potter who had nothing to do because David E. Kelly never bothered to create a character for her. They just replaced one blonde with another before Potter finally got fed up enough to quit.

Kelly McGillis

Whitney Houston RIP

R43 - Bridget Fonda seriously injured her back after she flipped her car in Malibu shortly before she was supposed to guest star on The Practice. She never acted again and ended up marrying and having a kid or two with Danny Elfman. She's definitely one I'd love to see make a comeback in a good TV series.

Hummm, can't post.

R52 you just posted

Chase Crawford

If they are so big and almost big hard to vanish right?

The problem with Theresa Russell is she can't act R40. When she was younger it didn't matter, but she couldn't grow into a character actress because there was no talent there.

Do I really need to say it?

Teresa Russell had a bit of a run going but then she did that movie Whore that was at the time considered very controversial and that seemed to stall her career.

Phoebe Cates

Phoepe Cates quit acting by choice.

Mimi Rogers

A lot of people are mentioning women, and the thing you all don't realize is, there is a lot of discrimination against older women in Hollywood. So of course sexist producers are not going to cast them in headlining roles. It's just the curse of show business.

Trini Alvarado

R56 - That doesn't stop many continuing to topline films. Theresa Russell is great at camp and could have been a hoot on something like Desperate Housewives.

Tom Sizemore was a big(ish) name but booze,drugs and a bizarre foray into porn pretty much ruined him.

[quote]Phoepe Cates quit acting by choice.

But "whose" choice? The audiences who quit going to her movies?

Daniel Day Lewis

Stepfanie Kramer

Melanie Griffith

R62, some of us do realize it. That's why I called Rebecca DeMornay's having a second huge movie a decade after her first a miracle.

Didn't the guy she costarred with in that cop show pretty much ruin her career R68?

Gerard Butler

Only a few yrs back, he was basically in the Movie of the Month Club.

Cant recall last time I heard about him in anything, even a shitty rom com

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was everywhere and then poof...she disappeared

Olsen Twins

Same with Mary Stuart Masterson R73.

The curse of English royal triple name.

Fred Dryer, I seem to recall him harassing her on set or something and being just a huge dick overall.

Fred Dryer R71

Sharlto Copley (token south African. Murdock in A-Team. District 9. Really hot wife).

Ioan Grufford (Mr Fantastic in the 2005 Fantastic Four. Hollywood is unfair how Chris Evans became an A-lister but Ioan dwindled).

Miles Teller (who cares).

Yeah, that asshole.

Meg Tilly

Meg Tilly is making a comeback R80.

Olivia de Havilland. WHET her?

Damn, I didn't know that about Fred Dryer. I used to love "Hunter" and had a big crush on him.

Helen Hunt had a role in that recent limited series Shots Fired on FOX.

Rob Estes of Silk Stalkings

If you check their IMBd a lot of them are working actors. There is nothing wrong with that. I would think a lot of people would rather be a working actor than a huge star.

Emilio Estevez survived being on the periphery of the Brat Pack, went to Young Guns, Another Stakeout, Mighty Ducks (and their sequels) and then pretty much stops being in the public eye.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Still working, but much smaller projects.

Pia Zadora

Ashley Judd

Ally Sheedy

Eric Stoltz

Steve Guttenberg

Bo Derek

Susan Anton!

Chris Tucker

Hopefully, Amy Schumer. Very soon, if not already.

Steve Guttenberg and Eric Stoltz are a good example of a working actors R91. Check their IMDb page.

Dinah Manoff. She had a bunch of small but important roles in the early 80s (Grease, Ordinary People) and it seemed like she should have taken off, but she continued in small roles in films and on TV and stage. I always thought she had a lot of presence and could have carried bigger pictures.

Speaking of Ordinary People... Elizabeth McGovern. So pretty! They tried making her leading woman material in She's Having a Baby, but it didn't really work.

R89 Pia Zadora did OK through her marriage to Menachem Riklis.

She sold the property she got in the divorce for like $20 million. And Im sure she got nice alimony & child support.

Not bad for a broken down Jersey who-uhhh

R97, have you heard of a little phenomenon called Downton Abbey?

Why didn't Mira Sorvino have a bigger career?

R87 he directs now.

R99, yeah, and? Downton Abbey hasn't made Elizabeth McGovern "big." I doubt many people not a fan of the show even knows she is on it.

Jami Gertz is my heroine. Makes herself a good career young, chucks it to go work for Lanvin in France. Marries well and her husband is worth what 30 billion, 40 billion and she has her own billions. Also came back and did the rather funny The Neighbours.

....

And Jami Gertz was Boots St. Clair on "The Fact of Life." If anyone deserved DL icon status....

Loren Dean. He was pretty busy for awhile, then, nothing. He does seem to pop up every few years or so...

R102, but you can't say she's vanished.

R102 you might say she vanished and reappeared. There was a big long gap in her career.

From 2003 to 2006 R108. Look at how busy she is now.

The thread title is Big/Almost Big to Seemingly Vanished. And we've included lots of actors who are steadily working but just aren't the big household names they once were or were positioned to be.

That's why I think McGovern fits. Same reason I included Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Aidan Quinn

Who was that bitch with the flat ass who did Showgirls?

That's the nature of the business R110. Very rarely do actors/actresses stay on top.

That good looking guy in that sci-fi blockbuster. What's his name.

Jon Heder.

Michael Cera.

Russell Brand

Never Campbell

Neve Campbell was on Mad Men and House of Cards.

Paul Williams was constantly on TV in the 70s and seemed to disappear. Maybe he withdrew to enjoy his songwriting royalties?

Freddie Prinze Jr.

Thora Birch.

Laura from the Steve Urkell show

[quote]Paul Williams was constantly on TV in the 70s and seemed to disappear. Maybe he withdrew to enjoy his songwriting royalties?

Paul Williams popped up in Baby Driver. I was surprised he was alive.

JRM has a big role in the upcoming 5th season of Vikings so that should raise his profile a little bit. Probably nothing like it was 10 years ago but if he can stay out of trouble, he'll continue to work. His movie career though, is stuck in VOD hell. It's been ages since I've seen one of his movies at the cinema.

JRM? We are on initial basis now?

Yeah I was just thinking of SWT and HMR but I guess HMR is doing ok, right?

Geez, only used JRM because Jonathan Rhys Meyers had been mentioned a couple of times in the last few posts.

R127 He was mentioned @R88. That's hardly "last few posts."

JRM was also mentioned in R110.

Meyers NEVER went away, we blabbed endlessly in recent years about his challenges. And he's ALWAYS working. Always.

Bronson Pinchot

He looked like utter shit, he looked embalmed in Dracula. It was such a shame. But somewhat fitting a role for where he was at that time.

Still not last few post R129.

I haven't seen Annabella Sciorra since The Sopranos and Law and Order Criminal Intent.

Dinah Manoff lives in Washington state and started her family when she was a little older. She's partially retired but still acts from time to time. I think she liked being on stage a lot better than doing films.

She retired in 2009 R135.

I had forgotten Dinah Manoff's 19 year old son was killed in a car accident this year.

I was wondering about Sally Field the other day and then she showed up on a tv commercial. How disappointing.

Fran Drescher

Two words... TAYLOR LAUTNER so hot... yet so fleeting

Matthew Fox and Scott Wolf

Matthew Fox is a great example of "once big/almost big" who has vanished. "Lost" was a big deal. To be one of the core cast, arguably the lead actor and not be able to propel that into anything more? He was even cut out of World War Z.

Kim Basinger OWNS this thread.

R103 Why would Jamie Gertz have her own billions? Did she strike oil ?

R130, JRM (yes that JRM) worked very little from 2011-2013ish, by his standards. If you look at the projects in IMDB, he only really starred in one movie during that period and it wasn't even released in the US. So for many of us, he really was off the radar for a bit. All we heard about was his troubles. That period was a really rough period for him (2010 JFK airport incident and 2011 overdose or suicide attempt). He claimed in an interview that he stepped away intentionally and even spent time in a monastery (god knows doing what...). I assume he was lost in a drug/drink haze during that time. Dracula was to be his mainstream comeback and he blew it and even had to be hospitalized as he was so off the rails.

He's working a lot now, though none of the projects see much daylight but it's a good sign he's at least busy. He has said recently that he's working to support his family. But with JRM, who knows if he keeps his head screwed on right.

R132, I was a huge JRM fan prior to 2010 and then went off him as he went about wrecking his career. Still, I watched Dracula when it aired, out of old time loyalty, I suppose. So yeah, I agree--he looked right for a vampire but not for JRM. He looked so unhealthy and ghastly in 2013.

Eric Stoltz directs a lot of TV shows too.

Where the hell is Sharon Stone? The last time I saw her was on the cover of AARP.

R148 - I recently started watching a movie she did last year called Mothers and Daughters (alongside Susan Sarandon) but it was awful and I turned it off. She was so good in Casino. It's a shame she never capitalized on it.

Cameron Diaz. Hasn't done anything since 2014.

Cameron Diaz is another who at least partially wrecked her own career by being a jerk.

Here is a recent article about Cameron R150 and why she hasn't been in anything lately.

I still can't get that image out of my head of her yelling on her phone as she makes her assistant shave her pits according to a crew member.

r141/r142, speaking of Matt Fox: didn't he get arrested a couple of years ago for being drunk and punching a bus driver? I remember some bizarre story like that...

R154 - Female bus driver if I remember correctly.

Some may remember Erik Von Detten, a beautiful blond-haired blue-eyed B-lister. He quit the business and he's now a financial adviser.

I just realized Alicia Silverstone and Elizabeth Shue are two different people.

Bridget Fonda was in a great little film in the late 90s with Russell Crowe and Jim Broadbent, I forget the name but it was magical realism in Mexico in the 50s. Georgeous clothes.

Sean Young

Brett Butler

Norma Shearer

She was mentioned R158. If you look at her IMDb she is working, a lot.

Shelley Long. If you believe the stories, she was "difficult."

They haven't "seemingly vanished." They are working actors that are in shows a lot of us probably don't watch. The people listed most actors would love their careers.

R111, Aidan Quinn is on that CBS show "Elementary."

Julianne Hough - will she ever star in a film again? (hope not) Even Ryan Seacrest dumped her when her rising star collapsed.

Gene Hackman

Mariel Hemingway

[quote]They are working actors that are in shows a lot of us probably don't watch.

Great career!

Most of them were 'star'

Working actors are not stars

I think Julianne Hough has probably given up on having a movie career. I wouldn't be surprised if she turns up again in a scripted TV show.

Did you ever think they don't give a shit R168? They are making money and probably are still millionaires. Listen to a working actor R168. They are probably the most content because they get to do what they love and have a private life.

Meg Tilly went off to live in the wilds of Canada with Colin Firth. They had a son, but she drove Colin insane with her isolation and back-to-the-land thing, so he left. And then he got a million acting jobs and an Italian wife and did the Abba movie. The End.

[quote]Gene Hackman

He chose to retire from acting and seems to live year round in New Mexico.

Gene Hackman is also 87 1/2 years old. Most people of that age aren't up to the rigors of a film set.

Deborah Winger

Julia Ormond

Jennifer O'NEIL

R162, Shelley Long was in rehab within the last decade. I think it was before she at least got the occasional "Modern Family" role. Her stint wa never made public, but I knew someone who was in rehab with her (and, really, who would make up a story about Shelley Long two decades after she left "Cheers"?).

People knew of Shelley's mental health issues and it was played out in public R175. BTW, there is a code of honor with people in rehab that don't disclose who was in rehab with them. Shame on your friend that learned nothing from rehab.

Annabella sciora

I met Sean Young at a party a couple of years ago along with her husband. She was very nice, had a great sense of humor and was very friendly. She still looks very good, but she always was a beautiful lady. She had just finished a run of the play "Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike", where she played the part Sigourney Weaver had done on Broadway. I wished her well, and she gave me a hug.

What year was that R178?

Robert Wuhl.

Ray Liotta.

Everyone knows addicts abide by that rehab code, for shame!

Ray Liotta is currently on that cop series with JLo.

Debra Winger is on that Netflix series "The Ranch", with Ashton Kutcher and Sam Elliott.

Yeah, What happened to Robert Wuhl? It's like after everyone finally realized what a piece of shit that terrible sports agent show of his was, he just vanished.

Where is Grant Show?

Hell, you can ask "WHET" to almost the entire cast of Murphy Brown except for Candice Bergen and the two from the cast that are dead.

I always thought Scott Wolf and Scott Disick were the same person.

[quote]A lot of people are mentioning women, and the thing you all don't realize is, there is a lot of discrimination against older women in Hollywood. So of course sexist producers are not going to cast them in headlining roles. It's just the curse of show business.

Exactly. We're living in a time when actresses in their mid-30s are being told that they are 'too old' to play the love interest of a man in his 50s. Some of the women being mentioned - like Elisabeth Shue and Bridget Fonda, for example - married well-off men, and after a while simply seemed to have drifted away from their careers. The bias against actresses who are no longer ingenues intersects with the 'married well' thing - if you're married to one of the Guggenheims, like Elisabeth Shue, and Hollywood is only offering you shitty roles and/or nothing at all, it's probably pretty easy to just let it go and enjoy the vacation homes.

Aidan Quinn, on the other hand, had a problem with the bottle that seems to have sidelined him for years. It's been a long time since he's had a leading role, but maybe he's happier this way.

He's working R186. Apparently not anything you are watching.

Bo Derek

Your ignorance R189 is duly noted. A quick look at his IMDb page dispels your comment. Where do you people get the idea that actors, throughout their career, should be leading? Anyone would love to have the career these people have had.

Stephanie Zimbalist

R189 Aidan Quinn has a daughter with severe autism, she is non-verbal. From what I've read, how picks and chooses his jobs very much with the needs of his family in mind.

Katharine Ross

Paula Prentiss

Genevieve Bujold ....

a lot of these of course got older (Bujold is now 75) but they keep working in lesser roles. Most good-looking actors/actresses if lucky get ten good years and then beome character actors, as the new crop arrive. People like Michael York, Terence Stamp etc.

R163 - We understand that. But the title of this thread is "seemingly vanished". Not "vanished". You know, actors or actresses who were ubiquitous for a time and then one day you realize "wow, I haven't seen him/her in anything in years. Are they dead?" I have an actor friend in his 60s who did a lot of big movies in the 1980s and early 1990s before dropping off into direct-to-DVD hell for the past 20+ years. Everyone still knows him. Men think he's cool, women still think he's hot. The problem with doing all those little movies is that he only works a day or two on each one and they almost never get released so, while he may be piling up the credits on IMDB, very few people outside of the filmmakers or whoever might catch those films at some film festival can say they've seem them. And he's being paid shit which is why he was foreclosed upon. So, for all intents and purposes, said actor has "seemingly vanished." On the rare occasion he does a studio movie, it's still always just one day's work. The rest is junk not even filmed in the U.S. most times.

R166 - Gene Hackman retired from acting and writes novels now. He still gets offered roles now and then (including the one Bruce Dern got an Oscar nomination for a few years ago - Nebraska) but they're always grandpa roles and he's not interested. The guy is old as dirt and gave us decades of awesomeness so he deserves to relax in his final years. Better that and maintain his legacy than being a check-chaser like De Niro and Pacino.

R186 - Grant Show is playing Blake Carrington in the Dynasty reboot.

Stephen Caffrey - lead roles in Longtime Companion (1990) and Tour of Duty (1987-1990) but unfortunately not much after that. Since 2000, he's been primarily doing theatre.

R197 Another pic of Stephen Caffrey.

[Quote] Better that and maintain his legacy than being a check-chaser like De Niro and Pacino.

He has his reasons.

WEHT actor/director Edward Burns of The Brothers McMullen fame?

If anyone didn't deserve fame it was him.

David Caruso

R176 - Did Shelley Long's rehab stint have something to do with her sudden substantial weight gain? The first time she was on Modern Family she looked like her old self. Then they brought her back and she had four chins (count them).

As a refernce, this is how Shelley looked the first time around.

Just because you haven't seen them in anything R196 doesn't mean they have vanished. I've looked up some of the people listed here and they are busy as hell. Most actors are lucky to have one hit TV show, let along two. Where do you think Kerry Washington is going to be after Scandal? Unfortunately for most actors there is a short cycle. If you are smart you don't let your ego get in the way and you take 2nd, 3rd or 4th billing. A lot of these character actors are well off.

R204 Again, I never said they'd vanished. I reiterated the OP's thread title which is "seemingly vanished" as opposed to "vanished." Reading comprehension clearly isn't your friend. Nobody's attacking these actors. If anything, most people are (or were) fans of the actors being named in this thread and miss them, wishing they were still coming out with quality shows or movies. Yes, careers goes up and down in Hollywood but when someone is everywhere and then one day you realize you haven't seen them in anything in a decade to the point you look them up online to see if they've died, retired or are ill, people are allowed to mention it to matter how much that pissed you off.

R204 & r205 are why we cant have nice things.

[Quote] Bridget Fonda was in a great little film in the late 90s with Russell Crowe and Jim Broadbent, I forget the name but it was magical realism in Mexico in the 50s. Georgeous clothes.

The movie is called Rough Magic.

R176 = Kirstie Alley

R117 She disappeared for a while because she had a stalker after doing the Scream movies.

Creepy str8 loserboys who jerked off to her were the only ones who gave a shit.

The point R205, which you don't seem to understand, most of these actors people have posted about are continuing to work. They may not be in a hit movie or TV show or be the lead, but they are still working.

If I were an usher at a movie theatre who had to put up the marquee, I'd hate Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.

And you'd love Cher!

R211 - Where did anyone say that any of these people have stopped working (with the exception of Gene Hackman who formally retired)? Nowhere. You're arguing for the sake of it and it's very tiresome. I'm out.

I think we can all agree Joe Pesci owns this thread.

Lola Falana is not a pretty story.

Seann William Scott

Mena Suvari

Shannon Elizabeth

[quote] Matt Dillon. He seems to stick to those straight-to-video indie movies.

He did the TV series "Wayward Pines" two years ago. He's quite rich. His early movie earnings were invested wisely, so not needing the money he only chooses projects which interest him. And when he's not working, his preferred activity is boozing, smoking weed, and hiring very discrete male escorts.

R218 Tell is more! What is his type? Is he a top?

Sarah Michelle Gellar

Freddie Prinze, Jr.

Drew Barrymore

Pia Zadora lives in Las Vegas and owns/runs the Riviera Comedy Club. She's remarried to a hunky cop.

Or so I hear.

R220 Drew Barrymore is starring in the Netflix show, The Santa Clarita Diet.

Shes OK, Timothy Olyphant is better & cuter.

"A lot of people are mentioning women, and the thing you all don't realize is, there is a lot of discrimination against older women in Hollywood. So of course sexist producers are not going to cast them in headlining roles. It's just the curse of show business."

True, but not quite. One would have thought Jennifer Jason Leigh would have had 1 or 2 Oscars by now. Other than that Tarantino flop, she has gone nowhere and done next-to-nothing.

In regard to men, Elliot Gould is one who had a huge heyday and then vanished.

R218 Ive always thought Dillon deliberately backed out of the Hollywood spotlight because as he aged, it was going to become too tough to keep explaining the complete lack of female companionship & fathering children.

Hes pinged to me for as long as hes been around.

Hes what, 50-55 now?

I think Shelley Long got unfairly shit on. I read a number of books and articles about Cheers and Rhea Pearlman acts like a total cunt when discussing her because she never became one of the "gang" behind the scenes. From what I read, the cast and crew said she was nice and professional but didn't party with them or socialize too much outside of work. Jane Curtin was similar on SNL, and said that she was married and had a young daughter and wanted to spend as much time with them as she could as possible. Reading some of her later interview, Long didn't have the attitude that she was too good for TV or mad that she wasn't "the star", she just said that she thought she went as far as she could with her character. She was on for 5 years and came back for one of the last episodes of Cheers and well as Frasier.

Ed Burns wanted to be a star and make his own movies and it didn't work out as all of his subsequent movies after Brothers McMullen were awful.

Elisabeth Shue started Harvard in the early 80's and dropped out to work as an actress, but went back in the late 90's and finished her degree. She didn't make very interesting choices after Leaving Las Vegas, and could've done better if she had gone for smaller character parts then trying to launch herself as a leading lady after an Oscar nom.

Mira Sorvino should've stayed in the supporting parts and/or comedy but thought she could be a leading lady after her Oscar win and made a series of dramatic bombs afterwards. Plus she was difficult and used her Oscar win as a reason to be. She still works but mostly to support her husband and four kids and has spent years trying to get off the the "life's too short" list she got put on because of her attitude.

R223 - Jennifer Jason Leigh also has a Netflix series coming out soon. Netflix. Where "I thought they were dead" stars go to pay the light bill.

Kristy McNichol

Julian Sands

Ed Burns had some 1940's cop show on TNT a year or two ago. It was cancelled.

Teri Hatcher

Some of the young leading men or women don't necessarily become character actors, as the former's type role tend to require not being quirky and the latter's require it. Plus, it takes some real acting ability to be quirky in different ways in different roles and not just rely on being pretty.

The guy who played Superman before Henry Cavill - Brandon Routh.

Ellen Barkin.

Some of you need to get a TV; eg, Aidan Quinn is in the very successful Elementary,Tim Hutton spent years in ditto Leverage. It's not winning Oscars but it's a damn good living.

R233 - More recently Timothy Hutton was in American Crime with Felicity Huffman.

Almost everyone who left Grey's Anatomy or was let go, never to be seen or heard from again.

Timothy Hutton also played Archie Goodwin on a series adaptation of "Nero Wolfe".

Pam Grier. Too bad she never got the same career boost as John Travolta did for starring in a Quentin Tarantino movie. More Pam, less John please!

Ellen Barkin has a show on TNT called Animal Kingdom.

Jenna Elfman - her latest show bombed

Agreed R225, there was an oral history of "Cheers" a few years ago where everyone said that Shelley Long kept to herself between rehearsal and filming. They came to realize that she was choosing to conserve her energies for her character and for her husband child. Ted Danson went so far as to publicly add that Shelley Long's contribution to the success of "Cheers" cannot be underestimated. Rhea Perlman, on the other hand, said that she didn't want to discuss Shelley Long, which after all this time reflects horribly on her (Perlman).

Wouldn't have recognized her in that more recent "Modern Family" photo!

R1 Elizabeth Shue was on CSI 2012-15. Don't think she has totally disappeared - in fact that was a good gig for an "older' woman as we all know it's much harder for 35+ actresses to get jobs.

Doesn't Rhea Perlman have bipolar disorder? I'll bet she was hell to be around.

I actually liked Jenna Elfan on Dharma and Greg. But, I grew to dislike her over time with her crazy Scieno shit. I'm glad that all of her post Dharma and Greg sitcoms have failed.

Didn't that annoying Jenna Elfman also drop out of the revival of NINE?

Anne Heche - bizarre no one mentioned her yet. Probably the most fitting of this category by miles.

YES R245! Exactly.

I always felt Edward Burns was a poor man's version of Ben Affleck. I mean, that's not much to hang your hat on. Not surprised Burns faded fairly quickly.

R247 - Somehow Edward Burns got enough money to buy JFK Jr's old apartment. I wonder if his wife Christy Turlington pays all the bills. His directorial efforts don't make money and he doesn't show up in other people's movies now.

Skeet Ulrich

Edward Norton

Didn't Matt Dillon live with William S. Burroughs for awhile, or did he live with Ginsberg? I know he was in a film with Burroughs...for Van Sant.

Same too since Heche was genuinely talented. She did fine, even post Ellen, on "Hung" and the like. Maybe she's just raising a kid or something.

Rhea Perlman was singularly untalented, on the other extreme. Fucking Lucky Club when she landed Carla. All she can do. Even DeVito has left her now.

That's "Shame", above. Fucking keyboard.

And not buying that Dillon is gay. We'd have heard about it and I actually met not one but two girls who fucked him along the way. Hence, his great line about how his favorite pick-up line is, "Hi, I'm Matt Dillon".

Margaret Elliot

Leelee Sobieski

Didn't she die in a fire?

I thought she became a call girl for foreign billionaires like Lindsay.

James Marsden. Failure to launch. Repeatedly.

Josh Hartnett. Launch, relaunch, relaunch, engines off.

Too bad, I really like them both.

Jack Black & Dane Cook. Wherever they are now. I hope they stay there. Quietly.

Josh Hartnett was great in the too early ended Penny Dreadful.

Some of these people are working on good projects. Debra Winger just got great reviews for The Lovers. She's also in the TV Series The Ranch.

Jennifer Jason Leigh is in the upcoming Alex Garland film, and she has another film down the pike with Matthew McConaughey. She's got a supporting role in the Rob Pattinson indie Good Times that got excellent reviews at Cannes. She also has a Netflix series.

I think Ed Burns has another TV series project coming up.

Anne Heche is working. She's done some indie movies and b grade stuff that hasn't been seen. She had one series, Aftermath, that failed, and has a new series coming up.

Josh Hartnett has five or six movies in various stages of production. They seem like indie films, but that's where actors go to find work if they aren't a superhero.

Jack Black is always in stuff. He's in the new Jumanji movie. He got great reviews for Bernie a few years back.

Meg Tilly did the Canadian series Bomb Girls. That put her back on the map. She's in the Netflix movie Wargames right now. She's one of those who walked away from the industry and has come back.

A lot of the actors mentioned here really hurt themselves by being difficult. Winger certainly, and also Edward Norton, Ken Wahl, Linda Fiorentino, Sean Young, etc. Others kill their careers with addiction, like Wes Bentley, who at least kicked his habit and has worked again. Lohan still can't get out of her own way.

Others retired or seldom accept work. Gene Hackman, Joe Pesci, they choose to leave. Same with Bridget Fonda and Leelee Sobieski.

Some of them make bad movie or TV choices and fall down the chain. That seems to be what happened to Matt Dillon, who really had it all, looks, charisma, acting ability, but never quite made stardom. He works regularly, but mostly in stuff that no one sees.

Some of them just weren't that good, and when they got older and less hot, there wasn't any need for them.

Lots and lots of these people are mainly doing TV. That's where the work is when you get older, especially if you're a woman.

Tom Welling. Sure not greatest actor but if Dean Cain and Brandon Routh can get work, why can't he?

Miss Dora Dumfuck, Ingenue

Benicio Del Toro

Matt Dillon was with boyish Cameron Diaz for a while, who revealed that he only fucks bareback.

Ed Burns has that annoying high pitched speaking voice; he was never leading man star material.

Julia Ormond was the first person I thought of when I read the title of this thread.

Seriously, she came out of nowhere to star in four major studio movies (Legends of the Fall, First Knight, Sabrina, Smilla's Sense of Snow) with big-name costars in three years, and then -- poof! -- you hear nothing from her after that. Not one film most people have ever heard of. I mean, she sank to the point of playing LiLo's mother in the Razzie-winning classic I Know Who Killed Me!

I wonder what happened. Did she finally have enough of going down on Harvey Weinstein?

Julia Ormond aged very badly I met her in person 10 years ago and she looked 10 years older than her age back then. She did play Megans mom on Madmen.

Julia looked pretty good on that witch show on Lifetime but that was a few years ago.

R266 - Julia Ormond vanished for a while and then came back as a quite talented character actress in movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (as Cate Blanchett's daughter) and One Week with Marilyn (as Vivienne Leigh). She also had a Lifetime series called Witches of East End with Channing Tatum's wife. She's in the upcoming remake of Howard's End with Hayley Atwell next. Most of those It Girls and It Boys that Vanity Fair pushes on their cover tend to fall off the face of the earth. Julia was definitely one of those before she clawed her way back (and became a much better actress along the way).

Benicio Del Toro is doing both Marvel films and the next Star Wars. He's fine.

She is only 52 and she looks every minute of it. That is not even that recent a photo.

Holy shit, r271, is that really Julia Ormond? I mean, even allowing for horrific lighting, she looks like her own grandmother! And she used to be very pretty.

Those wrinkles... I wonder if she's a smoker or a sun-worshipper, or both. Seriously, I'm a 51-year-old female myself, and I've never been beautiful, but I definitely look better than she does in that photo.

Use sunscreen, people!

R271 - Perhaps she's going the Maggie Smith route and not giving a fuck. Good for her. Better to end up looking like an old woman than a monkey like Faye Dunaway.

Teri Hatcher was on Supergirl.

Skeet Ulrich is on Riverdale.

Mira Sorvino was on Stalker.

Teri Hatcher pretty much ruined her own career by being an evil cunt.

Yet she has steadily worked since the ending of Desperate Housewives R275.

In less than staring roles R276.

Julia Ormond has smoker lines around the mouth. In a way, her look kind of worked on Witches of East End as it was said that her character didn't age and her two daughters were constantly reborn and usually one lived until their late 20s/early 30s in each of their lives.

Very few getting staring roles after their series has ended. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the exception where she was/is the lead in two successful series after Seinfeld. I haven't looked to see what the cast of Friends have been doing. I know Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc can't seem to get a successful series.

A number of these people mentioned seemingly vanished because they wanted to -- Bridget Fonda is a remarkably sane woman, given her background -- she just didn't like doing the Hollywood thing anymore; she wanted a stable family life. Her pal Phoebe Cates made pretty much the same move, given that she, too, came from a Hollywood family and had enough of it.

Some of these people saw their careers vanish -- like Shelley Long, Sean Young, Ken Wahl -- because they had fragile psyches. Being an actor is very tough, given all the rejection, fame, power, harassment, the roller coaster lives that are only as good as the present....etc etc.... I've worked in and out of Hollywood most of my life and have only met a few actors who I thought seemed stable.

All the more amazing that Matthew Perry, given that he's had more problems staying sober and sane than just about anyone, has been able to maintain his career. He has a terrific manager, which often helps a great deal. That's what most people don't realize -- it's often the support staff that keeps a career going, a supportive agent, a smart manager, a good lawyer, a solid shrink, and everyone else who takes 10 percent, 15 percent, or more.... These people might sound like they make a lot of money, and many of them do, but they often are supporting many other people off that salary.

"James Marsden. Failure to launch. Repeatedly."

James Marsden, star of the hottest show on HBO right now? Take him off the list.

What happened to DB Sweeney I thought he was kinda cute. He was in the dumb skating movie. He was also in a series that I loved that was canceled after one season.

Valerie Cherish.

I predict she'll be back, R283,

R284 The only back that that old cum guzzler Valerie Cherish knows is bareback.

Julian McMahon and Anthony LaPaglia were TV stalwarts but haven't got a pilot off the ground in a decade.

Didn't Anthony return to Australia after his divorce from Gia Carides (Robin Swallows from Austin Powers 2) and hooking up with a younger woman? I've seen him in a few Australian projects of late. Maybe he gave up on the U.S. and stays in Australia where all the American money he made goes much further with the exchange rate.

Tony-winner & star of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" Brian Backer

Who?

The wonderful Carey Mulligan's career went into Old Grandma Putter's shitcan after The Great Gatsby TANKED.

And of course the delightful Ms. Lilith Fair herself Sarah McLaughlin Soot.

She went and married that old drip Ass-win Soot and retired with her 1990's millions in O' Canada.

Shit.

Talk about a sporadic career R288. He fits the title of the thread more than anyone posted so far.

Julia Ormond has a great face, especially with all the wrinkles. She was wonderful in Mad Men. Her nosejob is painfully apparent now, though, and looks very unnatural.

Two from the former CBS soap “Guiding Light”:

• Sherry Stringfield

• Beth Ehlers

R2 Interesting point. Linda Fiorentino is a photographer now and says she isn't interested in acting anymore.

Beth Elhers is now an EMS driver. Has been for years now

Elizabeth Berridge, who played Mozart's wife in "Amadeus," did a quick disappearing act

More like acting isn't interested in her hateful ass anymore.

"Others retired or seldom accept work. Gene Hackman, Joe Pesci, they choose to leave. Same with Bridget Fonda and Leelee Sobieski."

Leelee "chose" to leave because she wasn't getting work anymore. Very few stars walk away if they are getting good roles, most are too addicted to the spotlight to give it up.

"James Marsden, star of the hottest show on HBO right now? Take him off the list."

Westworld isn't the hottest show on HBO, Game of Thrones is. Most HBO shows are flopping lately, anyway.

Come on... by any stretch of the definition, "Westworld" is a big hit show. The first new one for HBO in a long time and it's got the reputation of helping "save" the network after a long lull.

"Teri Hatcher was on Supergirl.

Skeet Ulrich is on Riverdale.

Mira Sorvino was on Stalker."

So in other words they completely vanished.

Westworld is not a "big hit" - just looks big in comparison to HBO's flops

Westworld had huge potential but then they had to make it arty and complex( and boring) with parallel timelines and human angst.

Despite a promising career on Broadway, Matt Cavenaugh just walked away, returned to college and now works in the financial world. Arthur Laurents lusted after Matt after casting him as Tony in the most recent revival of West Side Story, even tried to discourage Matt from marrying his fiancee. I hope someday Matt tells his version of the situation with Laurents.

John Wayne

Paul Newman

Steve McQueen

Jennifer Aniston

Anne Heche had a long interesting conversation with Brett Easton Ellis on his podcast recently.

R303 There is a difference between someone that chose to walk away as opposed to not getting parts.

R119-Paul Williams ended up with a drug and alcohol problem in the 1980s which is why he basically disappeared. If you see the documentary done on him called "Still Alive", he talks about it. But he made a recovery and had a music comeback when he won a Grammy for working on Daft Punk's album.

So many names mentioned here are RIDICULOUS.

Time after time, I'm seeing actors working regularly who are listed here as "vanished" or "seemingly vanished" (whatever the hell that is). You know, every actor can't be Chris Pratt red-hot year after year, decade after decade.

For Christ's sake, Sally Field was mentioned many posts back -- the same Sally just nominated for a Tony as Lead Actress in THE GLASS MENAGERIE.

If you don't watch much television or don't keep up with what's gong on, Google is free.

Atta girl, R309!

I think part of the problem is that a lot of the TV work from the "vanished" is stuff gay men don't watch, mainly network TV, especially on conservative leaning CBS, or lesser cable channels like TNT. The films are straight to video, or only seen at film festivals, or they're indies that maybe get shown on the coasts. The work isn't high profile, or high quality, but they are working at their profession long past the age when most people are gone. Hallmark Channel is pretty much an employment agency for older TV stars from the 70's, 80's and 90's, but my mom is their demo, not datalounge. If you want to find "missing" actors, though, it's a good place to start.

Fair amount of DL'ers are aging fellows with fading acuity, or young and quite stupid with diarrhoea of the keyboard. The latter just shart anything that pops into their heads on any subject with no reflection whatsoever.

"diarrhoea of the keyboard... just shart anything that pops into their heads on any subject with no reflection whatsoever."

Oh, the irony that is r312.

Josh Hartnett. The midget killed his career.

No R260 Indies are not the place you go to when you can't bag a Superhero movie, that would be major cable tv and mainstream movies. You do Indies because your career has died and no one calls you, so you wallow in obscurity and take the scraps offered.

[quote]Fred Dryer, I seem to recall him harassing her on set or something and being just a huge dick overall.

I'll say!!

Tom Cavanaugh.

Dabney Coleman

Philip Michael Thomas

Sela Ward

Sela was great in "Gone Girl" and she's still lovely too.

Sela is doing okay for a 60-year-old woman. And I agree with r320 that she's aging well.

Brit actor Jeremy Spenser was popular as a kid/teen actor in the 50s but quit acting in the 60s and pretty much vanished off the face of the earth

Sela Ward should aim for a supporting role on a cable show. She was terrific on Sisters back in the 90s. Didn't she win an Emmy?

I just watched Sela Ward in Independence Day Resurgence. She was the POTUS.

Yep, Sela is doing pretty well especially considering she lives in Mississippi, doesn't she?

No R325 she was born in Mississippi.

Victoria Tennant. Her career seems to have taken a nosedive after she divorced Steve Martin.

Miss Kay Lenz

Anne Hathaway

Season Hubley

Lee Remick

Darryl Hannah

R328, Lee Remick died in 1991, which might explain why she hasn't been active.

That's no excuse, R330.

Elsa Martinelli has died. Could someone start a thread about the lovely Elsa? Thanks.

Madeline Kahn

Miss Brooke Adams

LeeLee Sobelevsky

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Jada Pinkett Smith

Anne Hathaway hasn't disappeared. She was in The Intern with DeNiro, a crappy movie but it made a lot of money. She was also in Colossal which is excellent. She's in the upcoming Oceans Female Remake and she's currently making a movie with McConaughey, it's described as a sexy film noir and it's from the director of Peaky Blinders so it might be good.

Eric Roberts

Tom Sizemore

Brendan Fraser

r290 I think MIchelle Williams is getting Carey Mulligan's roles.

Eric Roberts makes lots of straight to DVD movies, most of them Christian-oriented.

R337 God I wish they'd both disappear like tearful Renee Zellweger before them. They always looks like they're scrunching up their faces to burst into tears. I wanna slap both of them.

For R332 -- contains some stunning photos!

Seriously R250? Ed Norton? I think it was the year before last he was nominated for an Oscar in the Oscar winning Birdman.

R341 Check out Norton's IMDb - little to nothing (mainly voice acting) lined up. Norton is notorious for being an asshole. Only Wes Anderson and then Inarritu were willing to give him supporting roles. The studios won't work with him anymore after all the shit he pulled.

Debra Winger

Mila Kunis

Don Cheadle

Hayden Christensen. Of course, his marriage to Rachel Bilson and raising their daughter make his career seem less important.

Hayden gets a raw deal. He was so great in "Shattered Glass" and deserves more. Plus I met him and he was a perfectly nice guy (and cute, of course... skinny as a rail but cute).

TJ Knight

Julia Stiles

Jamie-Lynn Sigler

Any cast member from "Entourage" other than Jeremy Piven

Stephen Moyer

[quote] Madeline Kahn

She's dead, hon. How could you have missed that?

[quote] Hayden Christensen. Of course, his marriage to Rachel Bilson and raising their daughter make his career seem less important.

Yes, men frequently give up their careers when they marry and have children.

Casper van Dien

Starship Troopers, followed by some awful night time soap opera that was cancelled almost instantly.

Then, poof, he was gone!

I just saw Stephen Moyer in some independent movie it was OK.

Julia Stiles is actually starring in a series called Riviera but I think it's on some foreign cable service.

Iwan Rheon is playing her stepson and Anthony La Paglia is the late husband. Lena Olin (remember her?) is playing the first wife.

Gorgeous location shots but kind of "meh" so far.

Forgot to mention that although Joe Pesci is officially retired, I heard he got some ghastly plastic surgery years ago which led to his hiatus.

He's also one of those big closet cases who flies under the radar for most people.

R352 Pesci flies under the radar... because NO ONE finds him sexy.

Madeline Kahn is dead?

JEREMY PIVEN

r354, SHE'S FINE! SHE SENDS HER LOVE!

Mia Farrow who now spends all her time screeching on Twitter. Does she still collect disabled foreign kids (because she thinks they won't leave her except for those that died under her care)?

Will Raul Esparza ever return to Broadway?

When did George Hamilton last work?

Raul Esparza died in 2014 of a fatal lisp. George Hamilton is starring in Chicago on Broadway.

R359, George Hamilton is the Extra Crispy Col. Sanders.

Ryan Phillippe had a promising career. He was very popular among teenage girls when I was a teen myself. But I guess he's luckier than many other former teen heartrobs since he's still getting roles.

R362 * teen heartthrobs. Sorry. autocorrect.

Angelina Jolie

Sadly, my super sexy crush ERIC THAL belongs on this M.I.A. list.

I also lust strongly over Ed Burns and Skeet Ulrich. Hopefully they'll remain in the public eye, to some extent. Burns sizzled it up alongside his supermodel wife in a recent Calvin Klein ad.

Mira Sorvino owns this thread.

[Quote] Ryan Phillippe had a promising career. He was very popular among teenage girls when I was a teen myself.

He seemed to spiral after Reese won her Oscar.

R366 - It was before she won the Oscar. The night she won is the night she found out (after going through his phone) that he'd been fucking someone else for months. Nice way of dampening her victory.

[Quote] The night she won is the night she found out (after going through his phone) that he'd been fucking someone else for months.

With Abbie Cornish or was it Amanda Seyfried?

R362 I think with 'actors who have disappeared' you have to realize that roles get cast based on age, popularity, sex appeal (or not), etc. Philippe is in an age group full of very successful actors who get 'first dibs' on the juicy roles. Somebody like Philippe would only get scripts with Damon, McConaughey, Affleck, etc., etc. fingerprints all over them.

R49, Kelly McGillis is a good one. Between1985-1988, she co-starred in Witness with Harrison Ford, Top Gun with Tom Cruise, and The Accused with Jodie Foster. She was a good actress, stunning-looking, and after those three big movies she disappeared from movie screens. I saw her guest starring on Syfy's zombie show, Z Nation, a few months back. Depressing.

Sean Young was cast as the lead in one of those MyNetwork telenovelas about 10 years ago. Supposedly she was such a diva during the filming of the promos (she reportedly locked herself in her trailer at one point, if I recall correctly) that they ended up canning her and replacing her with Tatum O'Neal before the show even started production.

I looked up some of Sean Young's credits on IMDb. She wasn't even top billed in the shitty low budget direct to video movie. Most of the top billed cast don't even have photos on IMDb. She's in the same position as the actor friend of R192, maybe a worse position.

It wasn't the stuff with Woods that did the most damage to her career, she got work after that. It was the Catwoman stuff. She made cringe inducing appearances on TV demanding the role. She snuck onto the studio lot and demanded the director see her. The general public were laughing at her and I expect so were industry people. She defended this behavior as being some kind of feminist act. She didn't have the good sense to try and laugh it off rather than doubling down. Even if she'd had a great reputation before that it would have been a career killer. I think she thought that since she got replaced in the first Batman (due to an injury during rehearsals) that she was destined to play Catwoman.

R369 I meant to say that Ryan had a promising career but it didn't take off, like his ex wife's did. When they started dating he was more famous than her.

Then I realized he may not be a mega star like McConaughey or Gosling. But he actually has been doing better than most former teen-movie stars since he at least has been in some decent films and is still getting roles.

Jane Curtin

Laraine Newman

Timothy Bottoms

Joseph Bottoms

Michael Moriarty

Linda Evans

R373 when Philippe's gotten a decent role, he's always given fine performances but he only gets the leftovers bigger stars don't want. Can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Lupita Oingo Boingo

Perry King -- almost a big star... now, where is he?

Sarah Michelle Geller

Joe Manganiello

Matthew Settle - not exactly a huge star, but so very handsome.

Dylan Walsh

Jim Carrey

R374, Jane Curtin has worked steadily for the last 40 years! Laraine Newman on the other hand...

Ryan Phillippe's critically acclaimed hit TV series Shooter was picked up for a second season so he's doing fine. It's a shame he doesn't do more (good) movies but a TV series is better than nothing. Besides, he always came off like someone who's not overly ambitious. Unlike his ex-wife Reese whose production company title Type A says it all.

Philippe remains one of the nicest guys which which I ever got to work. Definitely NOT a "Desperate Housewife".

Ryan Phillippe is a gay man's idea of hot, but too short and not masculine enough to be attractive in most leading roles. Teenbeat looks don't translate well when you're in your forties.

Meg Tilley and Rosanna Arquette seem to have both choked when their sisters got in the game. No reason why they should have faded, Tilley particularly.

383 replies and not one mention of Heather Locklear ? ! She was HUGE back in the day . I know she's had some drug and alcohol problems but so does every other actor.

Luther Vandross

Keanu Peeves disappeared, I don't know why.

He's BAAAAAACK. You bitches conjured Joe up again, I swear.

Heather Locklear wasn't a great actress but in her prime she was a real knockout. I think she got about as much longevity from her career as I'd expect. When it's built on looks and not acting ability there's not much you can do north of forty.

The cast of CSI original. Gil Grissom/Billy Petersen: had surrogate twins at 60, moved back to Chicago I think. At one point, he made the most per ep of any TV star until Sheen took over with 2.5 men. He's got enough $$.

Catherine Willows/Marg Helgenberger: was past 50 when she left the show. Kept in great shape. Won't be surprised if she's moves to Ohio now to unwind and be a midwest lazy fat. She deserves to.

Greg/Eric Szmanda

Sara/Jorja Fox.

Luckily, old DL fave George Eads is co-starring on McGyver and tapping McGyver's ass!

Agree that Philippe had too much of a "twink boytoy" vibe to be an A list leading man.

R384 - Yep. Heather Locklear is now reduced to guest starring on a shitty Tyler Perry series though she was fun (but fat) in her guest spot on Fresh Off the Boat.

[quote]Lupita Oingo Boingo

Little Peter Nono played an alien in some movie.

R392 A supporting role that was all CGI isn't what she was hoping for when she was onstage with that Oscar though was it?

Lupita is in Black Panther.

Lupita won an Oscar in 2014. Other than Queen of Katwe last year, Black Panther is the first movie since she won an Oscar that she's shown her face. And that's after the over-the-top hype. Her other roles in The Jungle Book and Star Wars have been motion capture. Embarrassing.

The curse of Best Supporting Actress... Mercedes Ruhl, Mira Sorvino, Brenda Fricker, Jennifer Hudson, Monique, the list is endless....

r26, but Shaun Cassidy has had one of the most successful careers in the decades after being an teen idol. He has 7 kids, yikes.

Some of the women that people mentioned are the ingenue or romantic leads that cannot move to character acting after 40.

I'm still big! It's the pict-chus that got small!

I hear Debra Winger has a very happy non-show-biz life in the Catskills now.

Oooh, R245... I watched a Lifetime movie from 2006, that Anne Heche was in with Eric Roberts (another WEHT):--Fatal Desire... She was excellent as a sociopathic lover/killer! Based on a true story, you can find full movie on youtube.

R399, Debra is currently playing Ashton Kutcher's mother on the Netflix sitcom "The Ranch".

Stephen Collins

Maryanne DiNardo

The Piven has a network show this fall, a drama about vigilantism.

Paula Prentice and Richard Benjamin

Andrew McCarthy has been directing episodes of Orange Is The New Black. Jodie Foster also did a couple of episodes.

R405 Paula Prentiss has had severe mental health problems for years which, sadly, limited her career trajectory. She had a lot of screen charisma, charm, and potential as a young actress. Her husband, Richard Benjamin, has stayed devoted to her throughout a very long marriage which is a testament to his character. Not sure what his career path has taken recently but he has had a strong career behind the camera for many years. It appears to be one of those rare devoted marriages, despite the odds, in show business.

Elizabeth Berridge, who played Mozart's wife in "Amadeus," did a quick disappearing act

She was hilarious (playing tennis player Rosie Casals) in the telemovie When Billie Beat Bobby.

Mary Stuart Masterson

Alison Elliott

Genevieve Maranaldo

Pamlyn Ferdin

Wow, r397, Shaun Cassidy has seven children????

I used to have a poster of him in my bedroom when I was about 12. Interesting that he actually managed to transition successfully from teen idolhood to a behind-the-scenes job. Not many people manage that (think of his half-brother David).

R156 aw, Erik Von Detten, haven’t thought about him in forever. Personally I thought he was relatively entertaining & likeable for a teen ‘idol’ actor (he could sell a gag and get a reaction, at least). He was decent in that short-lived ABC sitcom ‘Odd Man Out’, and gave a good performance in ‘Dinotopia’, and he could have kept going in light tv imo.

Could we really ever call him B-list, though? He had a voice role in a seminal Disney flick, sure, but who really noticed it was him? I feel he may have been too obscure for B-list; his demo was kids & teenage girls.

Ted McGinley

Eric Thal - Omg.. so hot back in the day.

Emile Hirsch

Erik von D was so fucking cute in "Celebrity Mole" with DL fave Kathy Griffin -- who said she thought he was "retarded, although he didn't bring a doctor's note."

JTT!!!

Sam Worthington

Someone had a post about Chris Klein the other day.

He was a thing for a few seconds about 10 years ago.

I thought he was hot AF and he seemed like a nice enough guy. No real acting chops, but no worse than a whole lot of guys who've become well known.

I liked her better bigger, more weight on her bones.

R416 I miss their friendship. Still, expecting Erik at 19 or 20 years old to be anything-but self-absorbed & shallow was unfair, as almost all college boys act like morons and he’d been treated like a pretty-vacant blond by everyone in his entire life up until then.

Interesting he left the business to become an FA. I wonder if that decision was partially spurred by the need to prove his intellect...

I miss Paula Prentiss. She had such a distinctive voice and quirky comedic skills. I guess mental illness runs in her family since her sister died in prison after trying to kill her father and brother in law Richard Benjamin.

Paula was in I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House last year, but it was mostly a mute performance. But it was an effective ghost story. I hope she works more.

[quote]Eric Thal - Omg.. so hot back in the day

Ohhh yes! I cannot understand why he didn’t have a bigger career. He was so gorgeous, but he could act, too.

Annabella Sciorra was totally blacklisted by Harvey.

Many of the negative Sean Young stories come from Harvey, Warren Beatty or James Woods, each of whom she rejected.

Some of the others listed here may have "vanished" for saying "No".

R420, the more she starves herself, the bigger her head looks

R424 The fact that Sean Young also happens to be certifiably insane must have had something to do with it as well.

STOP MAKING THREADS ABOUT ME

[quote] Lots of people from old TV who were everywhere then their place in pop culture disappeared when tastes changed and they are not well-remembered today

The 1970s produced a disproportionate number of those. What makes that all the more ironic is that it was the last decade before cable or home video started to pose a serious threat to network TV's dominance of television, so the shows they were on got more viewers when they were new.

Kristin Davis. Between raising her daughter and her charity work I don't think she is interested too much in acting.

Loren Dean and Eric Thal. Both mentioned earlier, bit worth mentioning again. How largth thwere their thcockth?

I give Mira Sorvino a pass because she didn't vanish, Harvey VANQUISHED her after she rejected him.

Anyway, how great would it be in the very near future if the names on the list were "Ben Affleck and Casey Affleck, are they even working in the business anymore?"

Where the heck did Helen Hunt go (and her younger doppelgänger Leelee Sobieski for that matter)?

R432 I like to blame Andrew McCarthy and ONLY YOU, the romcom they did together, for the downswing of Helen Hunt’s career.

He was never a huge star, but according to IMDB David Schramm, who played Roy on Wings, hasn't done a thing in almost 20 years. Wings ended and he vanished.

I understand he does some theater, but I like to think he spent a decade on Wings filling giant sacks with money and then left LA to devote his life to breeding poodles or something. If anyone knows the real story about him I'd like to hear it.

I used to love Loren Dean. Then I forgot about him.

R417 qwerty still works in entertainment, just not in front of the camera anymore. Wasn’t he writing/directing a sitcom a couple of years ago? WHET that?

He’s gone from the DL but not forgotten.

George Hamilton is recurring on that ABC "American Housewife" show. He's not bad as a rich man next door that the snobby kid Oliver likes to hang out with.

turtutyu

Billy Zane

R439 I was always more partial to Lisa Zane, and felt she was the more talented.

Marthe Keller

Jaye Davidson

I thought popular scene stealing James Marsters (from Buffy The Vampire Slayer) would've been offered a starring role once the show was over.

Now that I think about how much of a critical darling the show was it's shocking that most of the cast has been M.I.A.

that manly looking blonde actress from 3rd rock from the sun. very tall. dont remember her name.

Most of those late 90s teen idols

Alice Eve

Deborah Foreman