Jon Paul Steuer had a pretty busy career until he left Grace Under Fire (a drunk Brett Butler reportedly flashed him and he was yanked off the set and out of show business). He had also played Worf’s son Alexander on ST:TNG and been in a few movies (including Little Giants, also featuring Sam Horrigan, the kid who replaced him as Quentin on Grace Under Fire). Seven young actors played Grace’s four kids over the years–including the ubiquitous Dylan and Cole Sprouse–and all but Steuer are still busy acting.
I wonder why Carrie Henn never got more work. She was Newt in the movie Aliens, she never did any other acting after that.
Shia Labeouf.
Oh, wait…dammit.
Chris Atkins.
He starred alongside Brooke Shields in “The Blue Lagoon”.
After that, he faded out.
Does Roger Rabbit count? You would figure after the success both critically and financially, they would have a number of sequels some 20 years later. But all there is was one cartoon short.
How about Carrie Snodgress? She was nominated for Oscar/Golden Globe for the early 1970s movie “Diary of a Mad Housewife” (which is not available on DVD). But she got involved with Neil Young, had a son Zeke with cerebral palsy, dropped out of the business for a while When Sylvester Stallone was casting for “Rocky” he wanted her to play Adrian. She refused, saying there wasn’t enough money.
Deanna Durbin was a very popular singing and film star in the late thirties thru mid 40s. But some of her attempts to play a more sophisticated role fail, she left the business at age 29 to get married (third time) and resisted every offer and all interview requests save one in the 60 years since.
Durbin is mentioned in the Tom Lehrer song “Whatever became of Hubert Humphrey”? He had several comedy records in the mid 60s that were popular with more intellectual audiences but quit.
IIRC, the Warner Bros. catalogue of characters was not available for a second movie, and these were rather key to the success of the film. Marvel Comics actually produced a graphic novel adapting the movie, sans any of the Disney, Warner or other guest cartoon characters. The few people who bought it don’t remember it fondly.
I wouldn’t be too hard on those who eschew a career in show business-sure there may be megabucks to be had, but you also sacrifice a lot to get there (starting with your privacy).
There were three cartoon shorts, and the graphic novel krokdil mentioned. I should also mention the sequel novel ** Who Plugged Roger Rabbit** that Gary Wolf, author of the original novel, wrote (the sequel goes more with the film that the original novel).
Reportedly, Spielberg wanted to make a sequel, but it wasn’t possible to get everyone to agree. I’m amazed that they ever got all those characters from different companies together in the first place. It wasn’t just Warner Brothers – Betty Boop and Woody Woodpecker were in there, too.
Wikipedi has this to say:
Savion Glover. Scored freakin’ big time in Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk, has done very little since.
That was discussed in one of the commentary tracks on Aliens.
She and her parents just decided not to pursue acting.
Also, Carrie was on one of the other tracks and mentions that to this day she gets teased by friends about the “they mostly come out at night, mostly” line.
How about Chris Tucker? From '98 on, he’s only bothered with three enjoyable blockbusters: RUSH HOUR, and RUSH HOUR II, and RUSH HOUR III.
The one who springs to mind is John Cazale, who appeared in just 5 films before his death, each of which was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. He’s probably the great unsung actor of the 70s.
I would say that Mark Hamill would count in my opinion, as after staring in three of the biggest movies of all time, he never followed up with any major roles of note, certainly nothing close to the caliber of the Star Wars movies.
(That doesn’t mean that he NEVER acted again, but realistically, he was a huge star from the SW trilogy, and then…)
Danny Lloyd, who played Jack Nicholson’s son in “The Shining.” He did one other movie afterward and then pretty much disappeared.
Interestingly, according to his IMDB page, Stanley Kubrick was pretty protective of him on set, and he didn’t even know it was a horror movie until he saw it a couple of years later.
He’s had a pretty successful voiceover career, and is probably one of the biggest stars in that field.
Mia Sara and Phoebe Cates both cut back on their acting roles because they wanted to spend more times with their families.
Daryl Hannah is apparently crazy. I’m sure we’ve all heard the Catwoman story dozens of times by now.
But Leelee Sobieski is an interesting case. She was NEVER a big star and most of the movies she’s been in are either terrible (The Wicker Man, 88 Minutes) or B-grade cheeseball stuff that’s pretty fun (Joy Ride, Deep Impact, Night Train). Basically, she was hyped to the heavens because she appeared in her underwear in Eyes Wide Shut making “Fuck me” eyes at Tom Cruise. Oh yeah, she was 13 at the time.
That was Sean Young.
Daryl Hannah had a relatively successful career: a fairly big star throughout the 80’s, fewer roles in the 90’s, a minor comeback with the Kill Bill films, and now she’s pretty much where you’d expect a rather mediocre actress who’s passed the age of 50: doing B movies and TV films. A more or less typical career arc.
Michael O’Keefe also had a regular role on Roseanne as Laurie Metcalf’s husband. He was married to Bonnie Raitt for a while as well.
Bridget Fonda is an actress whose career seemed to get abrubtly abbreviated. Her career was going strong, she was getting a lot of work in big movies (and doing good work), then she just vanished off the face of the earth. The last thing I remember her being in was Jackie Brown.
I don’t think her career was waning or anything, and she hadn’t aged out. It was like she just decide to quit the business. Too bad, because she was a really appealing actress. She had that hot but approachable vibe to her.
Which prompted John Goodman to bounce a basketball off his head while riffing on SANTINI.
I’m disappointed that Hayley Mills didn’t keep making movies.