I thought Michael Beck had a shot after The Warriors, but I guess making Xanadu screwed it up.
Bai Ling’s acting wasn’t exactly electrifying in The Crow, but it wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, and I thought she had enough dark beauty to make something of herself.
No, but I get Showtime now that I bundled my cable. I’ll see if I can catch it in rerun.
(Where’s the swooning smiley?)
Michael St. Gerard, the my-T-fine actor from the original HAIRSPRAY who went on to play Elvis in several unrelated projects, sure as hell had the looks and was okay talent and even had a hella-cool name, but never went anywhere. I don’t know if he left show-biz or show-biz left him, but according to unsubstantiated reports he’s a minister now in NYC.
Boy-next-door type Chris Stafford (pic) starred in gay coming-of-age flick Edge of Seventeen (lots of clips on YouTube) and certainly had a gay following (no idea if he is or isn’t in real life), but after that and a couple of supporting roles he left the business and went to law school. I think he could probably have made it as an actor.
I thought, after Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Beverley Hills Cop, that Judge Reinhold was going places, but then he became Mr Direct-to-video.
Bai Ling’s been busy winning the Go Fug Yourself Fug Madness Championship.
Chris O’Donnell is a die hard family man, kind of like Rick Schroeder. They both prefer to take extended abscences from the screen to spend time with their families.
Michael St. Gerard had trouble shaking the Elvis typecasting, but he left Hollywood rather than the other way around afer he had some kind of spiritual epiphany and does run a ministry in New York.
The guy I thought would do a lot better was Michael Schoeffling who was the Matt Dillon lookalike who was Molly Ringwald’s object of desire in Sixteen Candles. He makes handcrafted furniture now running his own business. I didn’t think he’d ever be a “huge star” or anything, but I thought he’d end up doing more substantial stuff.
()WTF is with the edit function???)
I was trying to add, a Michael St. Gerard ministers at the Harlem Square Church that is/was affiliated with the Times Square Church and he’s a guest speaker at a lot of other ministries. A buddy of mine saw him speak as a guest pastor in Pennsylvania awhile back.
Seconding Alicia Silverstone and Thora Birch.
Richard Grieco
Andrew McCarthy
Molly Ringwald
Christian Slater was on the verge of superstardom, then rapidly faded. He’s been in lots of movies, but these days seems to be doing mostly guest spots on TV shows and second-rate sequels going direct to video.
I was just pointing out this phenomenon last night to my wife when F/X came on… Bryan Brown. First Breaker Morant, then to a great deal of exposure in The Thorn Birds. That was around the time of what seemed to be a growing US fascination with all things Australian (Crocodile Dundee) and it looked like Bryan was on his way. But after moderate success in F/X and Cocktail it’s seemed like he’s been curiously absent, in lesser or less successful roles ever since.
I know Tori Spelling only got her part on 90210 because she was the producer’s daughter, but she’s not a bad actress and I would have expected such a high-profile part to launch a real career.
I guess she’s just not pretty enough. Very good-looking by met-on-the-street standards, but she was always the ugly duckling of the 90210 cast.
I think you could say the same thing about most of the 90210 cast, as the majority of them are doing Lifetime movies now. Tori’s the only one who’s had her own reality show, although I would pay good money to see a reality show based on Shannen Doherty’s life.
ETA: Who would have thought Hilary Swank would have the most successful career of all?
Who could ever have predicted that her fate was to be fired by Alyssa Milano? How humiliating.
I’m pretty sure he married his Thorn Birds co-star **Rachel Ward ** - otherwise known as Mrs. WordMan when I was a pining fanboy of dark, sultry, British hotties who can’t act. I think they kinda checked out and ended up owning a ranch in Australia or something…
Why didn’t STARWARS actors Mark Hamil and Carrie Fisher get bigger careers out of this? Harrison Ford went on to fame and fortune!
Scott Wilson. So excellent in “The Grissom Gang” & “In Cold Blood” - and then…kinda petered out. Pretty substantial supporting work and always interesting to watch, but I really would have thought he would have been a biggie.
As a PS - anyone know where Michael Schoeffling has his furniture store? I heard it was in PA, and I bet an ENTIRE generation of admirers would love to buy some of his stuff (OK - visit his store and drool all over him again) 
VCNJ~
My WAG is that, while (as a teen) she had the looks for the vulnerable/cute girl-next-door, she wasn’t destined to be a leading lady type when she got older. Michelle Trachtenberg I’ll posit will have the same problem; not typecast so much as that she’ll always look younger than her real age, and hence probably won’t get many roles with significant gravitas. Looking over Michelle’s 3 future releases on IMDB, they all seem to be supporting roles as someone’s daughter.
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Matthew McConaughey. After A time to kill I remember reading almost everywhere that he was going to be the next huge movie star, the next Harrison Ford or whatnot. But nothing he’s done since has really left a mark.
I could ever figure out how Hamill never got at least a few decent roles. I’m glad he did so much voice work, he’s awesome with cartoons. But you’d figure that someone would have cast him in something more worthwhile than Corvette Summer.
Carrie Fisher is more understandable. With substance abuse issues and being bipolar, I can see her just having a tough time with the high-stress environment of movie-making.
