Linda Hamilton of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and The Terminators was red hot for a couple of years and then, pooof, she disappeared.
Same thing for Joe Pesci. You couldn’t spit without hitting Pesci in the early 90’s. (Goodfella. Lethal Weapon. My Cousin Vinny. Something else about getting back to college that I forget right now.) He seems to have faded into oblivion.
And the same thing with Helen Hunt. She was EVERYWHERE in the late 90s, and she even won as Best Actress in “As Good As It Gets”. And then she just seemed to fade after that Mel Gibson movie “What Women Want” and “Cast Away”.
And Helen Slater. I think her and Helen Hunt are the same person.
I have to step in and comment on Lucy Lawless. I think she’s right on track as a rising star. Xena cultified her, and she’s milking that celebrity for guest appearances on Eurotrip and Spiderman. Tarzan was a flop, but it was a big opportunity, and she got several development deals out of it. She may not be appearing on screen, but she’s going to all the right parties and charity events, and she’s in the dynasty that takes credit for Spiderman II and The Grudge. Her failure and fadeout is yet to come.
Some names to add…
Andrea Thompson - Famous television actress from Babylon 5 and NYPD Blue. When I saw her last year at a con, she had two or three big television projects on the table (mostly docudrama cable stuff). Nothing ever came of them.
Jodie Foster - While she’s done good work, she never managed to turn Silence of the Lambs into Hollywood gold. Like Lucy, she’s more of a celebrity than a success.
Whatever happened to Meg Tilly? Judging by her IMDB entry, I wonder if she chose to leave the profession altogether.
Ellen Barkin. After “The Big Easy” and “Sea of Love,” she just kindof tanked.
Marisa Tomei has never become the A-Lister one would’ve expected after “My Cousin Vinny.”
Kiefer Sutherland, while doing quite well in television these days, sure didn’t become the box office sensation he was slated to be, either.
Didn’t Andrea Thompson turn her back on Hollywood and become a news reporter?
For awhile. She was an anchor for CNN Headline News. She enjoyed it, but due to the internal politicking (she was resented for being a starlet rather than a journalist), she was ousted/quit. I saw her soon after it happened, and there was a lot of bitterness.
From here. She seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. Maybe she is spending time with her son.
I can’t comment on those names I don’t recognize, but of the ones mentioned here that I do recognize, I can point out: all or almost all of them are on the north side of 30 years old. And if you look around the world of entertainment these days, you basically have to be an embryo to be on the track for superstardom. That’s probably the answer to all questions here.
Having said that, anyone who says Denzel is not a superstar is totally high. Brilliant actor, gets his name over the title on every movie he does, among the most recognizable people in the world–he’s clearly A-list.
Hey, Lion, since your email is disabled, welcome to the boards! Your first 12 posts have been stellar. Keep it up. 
(I’m only saying this because you’re a fan of Renee O’Connor)
Merci, beaucoup.
Yep, she’s my Muse. And, despite my previous post–on the age thing–I still think Reneé can have a great career ahead of her, if she wants it.
And thanks for the heads up on the email. I didn’t even know I was disabled. Maybe I can get a better parking space…
He’s getting slightly pathetically ubiquitous in the UK.
I guess that his first recent involvement over here was filming Churchill: The Hollywood Years, which pretty much sunk without trace even here when it got released a couple of months back. But by the time that came out, he’d gathered some respect by playing in the stage version of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, doing, not entirely unsurprisingly, the Jack Nicholson part. The production originally played at the Edinburgh Festival over the summer, though the main story there was how he’d come down ill just before the opening. It has transferred to the West End, even if it does seem to be slightly running on his star casting alongside Mackenzie Crook.
He’s apparently decided to move to London on a permanent basis. Though one wonders whether this has anything to do with the fact that he appears flavour of of the month when it comes to TV producers looking for an American voice to dub documentaries these days.
Well, at least she got nekkid in Second Time Lucky.
Jenny McCarthy. She was a former Playboy playmate and I actually thought she might have decent career doing comedy. I was wrong.
Marc
Judge Reinhold looked like he was going to be huge, but after Beverly Hills Cop" pfft, nothing.
She’s actually writing books now. Red Hen Press will be publishing her second novel, though I can’t remember the title for the life of me, or the release date. I interned there last summer and had a chance to read the manuscript. It was very good.
My nomination would be Christopher Walken - haven’t heard of him for years.
C. Thomas Howell.
The one actor in “The Outsiders” whose career went nowhere.
The first actor I thought of (and I scanned and didn’t see him mentioned) was
Mickey Rourke.
He seemed to have the world on a string. A nice supporting role in Body Heat. Several lead roles (Angel Heart, Johnny Handsome, Barfly, 9 1/2 Weeks, and my all-time favorite, The Pope of Greenwich Village). Turns out… he was just too weird.
I guess the same could be said for one of his co-stars, Eric Roberts. Although it’s a little more understandable with Eric, since he’s not all that good looking (not that Mickey is all that good looking now either, but he was then).
Steve Zahn. Seemed to be in every other movie in the late 90’s, and then he seemed to just trickle out of the limelight. Shame, he turned in some good performances in “Out of Sight” and “That Thing You Do.”