If your career trajectory went from Ghostbuster to Carnosaur (with a made-for-TV Brady Bunch reunion movie in between), you’d get out of the business, too. What’s next, looping dialog for porn actresses who whistle on their S’s? A straight-to-video Murder, She Wrote prequel? Dancing With the Stars? How low do you want this poor woman to sink?
Too bad, though, definite babe.
Hey, now. Her trajectory started with Up the Creek. Ghostbusters is just the zenith.
Ruby Keeler was a major star in the 30s, but quit when she married her second husband.
Louise Brooks was a big silent film star who pretty much left films in the 30s (she wasn’t getting good parts and didn’t like Hollywood) to become a writer.
I was going to do this with Natalie Wood but I see there I don’t have a monopoly on testeless.
The guy who played Oliver in the musical film version is now a chiropractor.
From the responses so far these strike me as the best examples:
Phoebe Cates
Doris Day- she quit at age 50, but probably would have quite five years earlier if
she hadn’t have needed to do the TV show to clear some financial obligations
Deanna Durbin
Bridget Fonda
Greta Garbo
Grace Kelly
Jennifer Jones, although she was in The Towering Inferno in her 50s
Yvonne Lime
Michelle Meyrink
Rick Moranis, although apparently he still does voices
Leonard Whiting
James Cagney, Cary Grant, and Randolph Scott were already in their 60s when they quit (Cagney was in his 80s when he did Ragtime).
Charmian Carr.
Played the incredibly beautiful Liesl in The Sound of Music, did two TV shows and that was it.
And Louise Brooks and Ruby Keeler, those are good ones.
Arnold Schwarzenegger. Took a bit of a pay cut, I’m told.
Wayne Rogers
Lisa Gerritsen
By the time Schwarzenegger left acting he already had enough money (and managed it intelligently enough) to not need movie pay cheques.
It’s amusing to think of the girl who played Jordan (based on a real person nicknamed Tigger) would find Hollywood “too fast-paced”.
Also, Deborah Foreman hadn’t done a film since 1991’s “Lunatics: A Love Story” (which is actually a lot better than it sounds). She’s spent her time making custom painted furnature and becoming a yoga instructor. But then she had a small part in a film in 2008!
“Oh, 'cause I’m 19, I’m brilliant, I’m hyperkenetic…guys are a little afraid…possibly if I stopped to think about it, I’d be upset.”
How about Shirley Black, aka Shirley Temple? Per IMDB she was born in 1928 and her last movie was 1949, although she did a little TV around 1960.
I can’t believe that this is post 52 and nobody’s mentioned Joe Pesci. Basically decided while still getting big paychecks and big roles “I’m rich, I don’t wanna do this any more… so I won’t.” He made a short cameo as an aging mob boss/worry-wart grandpa in that Matt Damon/Martin Scorcese movie (whose name I can’t recall and don’t feel like googling), but otherwise that’s it for about the past 8 or 9 years.
Ali McGraw was still doing pretty well when she stopped. She even turned down the role of Natalie Jastrow in War and Remembrance (great part, big paycheck, and she’d originated the character) and yet took a part in a Gunsmoke movie in which she played a character called “Uncle Jane”). Having seen her recently on an interview I was stunned to see on imdb that she’s 70 years old! (Doesn’t look it.)
(emphasis added)
I’m so sorry to hear it! 
Roddy
Sorry to disagree, but although he had to turn down a lot of action pictures, he did do 10 more films after Chips right up until his death in 1958. He would only work in England*, though, so many of them weren’t popular here.
*His last film was Inn of the Sixth Happiness, which might have been filmed at least partly outside of England.
Roddy
Most recently, Peter Billingsley co-produced and played a small part in Iron Man.
Really.
That was why I put “largely.” An actor of his success and stature would have had a huge career if not for his illness. I should have said it curtailed his career, not that he retired. I’m sorry.
ETA: on the way home I was thinking about Dolores Hart, star of King Creole with Elvis and Where the Boys Are, who made about 10 movies and then ditched the business for the convent. She’s now Rev. Mother Dolores Hart but retains her voting membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences!
Raymond Griffith. He was a top silent comedian – just slightly below Agee’s big four*, and some critics (e.g., Walter Kerr) put him at that level (it’s hard to say, since many of his films have been lost). But he walked away from films as soon as sound came in. It wasn’t really due to illnesss, but he had lost his voice many years before and could only speak in a whisper. He went into film production at age 36.
*Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and Langdon.
Maureen O’Hara. She did return to acting for a while, but from 1973 (when she was still very much in demand) to 1991 she made no movies, and it was by choice. Ironically, what brought her back was John Candy’s doggedness in wanting her to play his mom in Only the Lonely and her meetings with him. She found him charming and thought “well, it’s a good role- why not”. She was devastated when he died a few years later.
Since Only the Lonely she’s acted occasionally- once every few years, nothing in quite a while though. She’s in her late 80s now (and very very wealthy) but last time I saw her she was still beautiful. (She also grew up in an “Irish only” home- English is her second language.)