Quit dissing Adam West. He is doing okay, hawking that Wi-Fi access investment opportunity. Not to mention his voice work on Family Guy, which will be coming back. Plus he had one of the all time greatest lines in the Batman movie.
Ralph Macchio is such a great choice.
This is probably more my own personal issue than a widespread one, but Ted Levine will always be Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs. It doesn’t matter what I see him in–and he works a lot–whenever he talks all I hear is “it puts the lotion on its skin” and I see him dancing in front of the video camera. He was fantastic in that role, but at least for me, he’ll always be associated with it.
Howsabout Jaye Davidson, who played Dil in The Crying Game? Apart from appearing in the Stargate movie, he’s done only one other thing since then.
Tim Curry. Great actor, but no matter where I see him, I always think, How’d you do–I think you–'ve met my–faithful HAN-dy man…
This IS called “pulling a Shatner” sometimes, isn’t it?
Matthew Broderick has had a good career, but he’ll always be Ferris Bueller.
I doubt David Duchovny will ever get away from Fox Mulder. Gillian Anderson, I think, is doing theatre in England, but in America I’m not sure she’ll do much better at being anybody who isn’t Dana Scully.
Interestingly, many of the roles noted here (their most famous roles) would be roles that I would consider MADE their careers instead of destroyed them (or nearly). I’d never heard of Anthony Hopkins until Silence of the Lambs (I have since seen him in several pre-Hannibal roles, but I was 15 at the time!)
Since then, though, I’d say his career was far better.
I wouldn’t say a MEMORABLE role equates to dooming a career (because Harrison Ford would laugh at me. Sean Connery would laugh at me. My wife already laughs at me, but that is none of your business.)
But sometimes it does. I wonder does it have to do with the quality of the actor? Someone pointed out that Mark Hamill just wasn’t a strong enough actor to overcome his singular fame. Harrison Ford was. It still baffles me that Christopher Reeve found it difficult to find work (a few great exceptions). I thought him to be quite a talented actor.
I also wonder if child stars fit this discussion. Macauly Culkin never could get around being Kevin from Home Alone. I heard he was good in SAVED!, but I’ll bet people kept waiting to see him slap his face and scream! Plenty of child stars have been unable to break the mold and become adult stars. For every Jodie Foster there are ten washouts. Dustin Diamond, the guy who played Urkle, The OTHER kids from Full House, Dickie Roberts, etc.
Were they typecast or just bad actors?
Oh, and Ned Beatty will always, for me, be Mr. Morehouse from the Toy!
But just like Ned Beatty, he’s done a lot of work since then without having to revert back to the RHPS character (one segment on SNL excluded.)
Okay, then how about Burt Ward? Can we diss Burt Ward?
Good pick. Still, he’s had a Mark Hamill-type career: he’s done a ton of voice work and does get regular work in movies (unfortunately he usually seems to be cast as a bad guy in a bad movie 90% of the time). He’s apparently quite a singer, too, and he did do at least one other really good movie, Clue.
Also another disagreement about Ned Beatty and “Deliverance”. He’s the company exec in “Network” (and a lot of others) to me.
Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl in “Popeye” is the classic example I heard most often. She just looked too perfectly like Olive. She’s an amazing actress and then “poof” bigtime. Very secondary roles and TV since.
It’s somewhat too early to tell, but one wonders if Mena Suvari is ever going to get back the hype she had from “American Beauty”.
Plus David Letterman as the “Wanna buy a monkey?” guy in “Cabin Boy”. (Quick, name a movie he’s done since.)
Will Kelsey Grammar ever be anyone but Fraiser?
I guess we’re focusing more on the memorable part and finding actors who’ve only had one big one.
Nah. He dropped off the radar, and the movie was so long ago. People sort of chuckle when you say his name, but he was fine in the movie and it’s not like anything he did reminds you of Home Alone.
I don’t think we’ve gotten into it yet, but I guess this is why TV actors often have tough time getting into movies. It’s one thing to have one memorable movie role define your career. It’s another to play the same part once a week for years on end; it’s probably a lot harder to escape that. Duchovny, Anderson, the Seinfeld stars and the Friends cast all played their roles for NINE YEARS. Which is an exceptionally long run for a TV show, but still, it’s an example. What was Roseanne going to do after Roseanne? What, if anything, can Kelsey Grammer do after Frasier? He played the same guy for 20 years or whatever it was.
Of course, these kinds of people are also very rich and famous, so ‘ruined’ applies mostly in the sense that it’ll be very tough for them to be successful in other work because they’re so clearly identified with one part.
Alright, alright, I’ll take Hopkins off the table. But let’s be real, Adam West’s career didn’t stall because of his Batman role…in fact, he never would’ve had a carreer if not for Batman! He was lucky enough to have a part come his way that required him to act in a ludicrously stiff, wooden manner. If anything, Adam West (and William Shatner too, for that matter) are more famous than they deserve to be.
In place of Hopkins, let me suggest – Agnes Moorehead. Decades into a successful carreer, one that included memorable Broadway roles and parts in Orson Welles flicks, she did “Bewitched” as a lark. (Apparently, she didn’t think the show would stay on the air longer than a year.) Forever after, she’s been remembered as the bitch-witch stepmother Endora.
With child actors, you can never predict who will make it and who won’t. But I think it partly has to do with the type of work you do as a kid. Jodie Foster started to leave the Disney-kid movie business and do extremely serious work like her role as a prostitute at age thirteen in Taxi Driver. This put her foot in the door to serious work as an adult. But this isn’t always the case. Look at Linda Blair.
There are a ton of other factors like how good agents are at getting the work, how well your parents raised you while you were the most famous child star in the world, etc.
And in the case of someone like Drew Barrymore, it’s not a bad idea to be a part of an acting family.
I think that the point I was trying to make in the OP was that although people like Ned Beatty and Tim Curry (who I think is another excellent example of this phenomenon) have gone on to many, many other roles, upon hearing their names mentioned, a huge majority is still going to say “Oh, he’s the one who took it in the poop chute by the hillbilly!” or “Hey, he’s the guy who dressed up in fishnet stockings and high heels!”
I think it’s more of a “Man, I really wish people would move on already!” reaction by the actors in question than that they couldn’t get any work at all.
I agree with Marley23 that putting TV actors into this category after they’ve played the same role for year after year isn’t quite the same issue…it’s perfectly natural to not be able to see Michael Richards as anyone but Kramer after 9 years of Thursday nights, but for someone like Ned Beatty to make a 2 hour movie and be known forever as the Deliverance rape victim is unfortunate, especially in light of his talent. You have to wonder if he kicked himself six ways from Sunday after that movie came out.
Alright, alright, I’ll take Hopkins off the table. But let’s be real, Adam West’s career didn’t stall because of his Batman role…in fact, he never would’ve had a carreer if not for Batman! He was lucky enough to have a part come his way that required him to act in a ludicrously stiff, wooden manner. If anything, Adam West (and William Shatner too, for that matter) are more famous than they deserve to be.
In place of Hopkins, let me suggest – Agnes Moorehead. Decades into a successful carreer, one that included memorable Broadway roles and parts in Orson Welles flicks, she did “Bewitched” as a lark. (Apparently, she didn’t think the show would stay on the air longer than a year.) Forever after, she’s been remembered as the bitch-witch stepmother Endora.
Ah. Okay, then, Kurt Russell took forever to get to the point where people weren’t saying, “Wow! That was a great performance! He sure has grown since making all those Disney teen movies!”
Gotta disagree with Tom Hulce. He’s had too many different memorable roles for me to pigeonhole him when I see him. (Animal House, Parenthood, Amadeus, Dominic and Eugene).
In the spirit of the revised explanation of Jadis’ OP, I’ll go with Charlton Heston. Fantastic actor, many, many acclaimed roles, but who would see him on the street and not want to say “GET YOUR STINKING PAWS OFF OF ME, YOU DAMN DIRTY APE!!!” 
The obituary for Fay Wray noted that she was unable to get other good roles after King Kong (according to IMDB, she was in a whole lot of movies since, just none that you’d recognize).
Nuts to that! Mattew Broderick will always be David Lightman from WarGames.