Doris Day, who in her time was the number-one box office draw in the country, and a number-one recording artist, retired from films in 1968, when her husband died, revealing that their accountant had stolen all their money and left them bankrupt. She worked out her TV contract for another five years, and retired for good when the contract was up. Now she makes occasional appearances on a community-access cable show as spokesperson for the Doris Day Animal League. Other than that, she’s stayed entirely retired, even somewhat reclusive.
How do you retire after someone steals all of your money?
By living very frugally, I suppose.
I imagine she still had income (residuals, royalties, whatever) from her previous work, just that her accountant had swiped what they’d saved up until that point.
She sued the accountant and after several years won a judgement of $22 million. He was dead by then, but his insurance company settled out of court for enough to allow her to live comfortably.
Doris Day trivia: at the same time she was finding out her dead husband had been robbing her blind and that after working her butt off for many many years she was broke and in debt, her son (Terry Melcher) was having to hide from the Manson Family. (Manson felt Melcher had screwed him over in a record deal and chose his house to begin Helter Skelter; he didn’t know that by that time Melcher and his live-in-girlfriend, Candice Bergen, had moved and sublet the place to Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate.)
Other retired celebrities:
Joey Bishop
Kurt Vonnegut (he’s an author, but a celebrity author)
James Best (he says he might return to acting if the perfect role came along, “but I can’t imagine it coming along”)
Jean Stapleton (says she was retired in the last interview I read with her)
Tom Bosley said in a recent interview that he intends to retire when his run in Cabaret is up (which, judging from the site , is evidently up).
Richard Dysart, who played Leland McKenzie on LA LAW, is retired, though he did return for the reunion movie.
The cast of GILLIGAN’S ISLAND is retired from show business (though more because it retired them- the
Rand Brooks (who died last week) retired many years ago to manage his ambulance business. Bob Hope, Katharine Hepburn, Gregory Peck and Jack Lord were all retired for years before they died (due to extreme old age, but voluntarily).
TV movie about that show was surprisingly good, btw.
I believe that’s $2.2 million, Sampiro.
oops. looked it up; the site I was citing was wrong; it WAS $22million.
Oh, and also, she retired from films when her husband died, but she honored the TV contract that he had signed without her consent, and finished the run of her TV show. This of course provided some additional income.
Harry Anderson retired to Seattle or some place like that. Now there’s a guy with plenty of funny left in him who just chose to live a simple life.
I saw Harry Anderson on the E! True Hollywood Story about Night Court. He lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, and owns a magic shop in the French Quarter, Spade & Archer Curiosities by Appointment (love the name). According to a CNN.com article I Googled, he said after his two sitcoms he’s “richer than Davy Crockett” and can do what he wants, which is run his magic shop and perform magic for corporate clients at $20,000 a pop. Not bad for what he calls “fifty-five minutes with applause” of work.
That’s my favorite story of the day!
I could be wrong, but I am sort of under the impression that Grace Slick has more or less retired from her musical career. At least, I do not think she has been involved in any of the more recent Jefferson Airplane-Starship tours. In the late 90s, I attended a “Jefferson Starship: the Next Generation” show. Original Airplane members Marty Balin, Jack Cassady, and Paul Kantner were part of the lineup, but not Grace.