I can name MANY celebrities who have disappeared from the public eye, but I’ve never tried to find them, so I have no idea if it would be difficult for a determined reporter to track them down.
If, for instance, o former Yankee outfielder or the star of a once-popular sitcom is now living quietly in a non-descript house in a small town in South Dakota, he may have “vanished” as far as his old fans are concerned, but he hasn’t really “disappeared,” has he? He could probably be found by a journalist or detective. But if the public has pretty much forgotten him, and tracking down would take a lot of effort, most likely nobody will bother to look him up.
For example, Rick Moranis was once a big TV and movie star, but he’s been totally out of the public eye for ages. He’s not hiding in the woods like JD Salinger- he just left show biz and never felt an overwhelming urge to go back.
There are probably many celebs like Moranis. Hardly any who are in complete seclusion.
That’s not really vanished. She’s not hiding, anybody looking for her can find evidence of where she lives quite easily. There may be some vanished celebrities who could be found with some effort not yet exerted, but it has to take some effort. And a lack of people looking for someone makes them forgotten, not vanished. There won’t be many people that qualify from here on out, it’s pretty tough to disappear these days.
Pynchon and Salinger didn’t really drop off the map. They didn’t like to talk to the media, and at times their location has been unknown, but they’ve generally been in semi-regular contact with the outside world. Hell, Pynchon was on the Simpsons a few years ago.
A few years ago, when that awful Johnny Depp remake of ***The Lone Ranger ***came out, I seem to recall that quite a few journalists tried to track down Klinton Spilsbury, the star of an equally awful Lone Ranger movie in the Eighties
That movie was pretty much the beginning and end of Spilbury’s movie career; by many accounts, he was a jerk on the set, and his voice was so bad that James Keach was hired to re-dub his lines.
But nobody seemed to know where he is now, and presumably, he likes it that way.
Again, I’m sure a bill collector who needed to find him could find him! But he’s totally out of show biz, and flying under the media’s radar.
Michael O’Hare, who was a fine stage actor as well as a minor Hollywood figure, spent his last ten years out of the public eye. It wasn’t until he died that JMS - who had confirmed MOH was okay after fan inquiries a year earlier - told B5 fans and others that he suffered from a crippling mental illness that was a major part of the reason he was written down after the first season. The other stories were largely a cover-up. He was still slightly accessible until about 2005, then disappeared off the radar. (I tried to contact him to ask a few questions about a B5 hero prop I own, and got one polite non-answer from his wife and then nothing further.)
Zsa Zsa Gabor, in a coma or something like it for the last decade - maybe that doesn’t count, but she’s hidden away pretty well.
L. Ron Hubbard went to another plane and AFAIK there was never any legal followup or closure.
The people of the small town Salinger lived in delighted in giving invaders bogus directions that took them to the furthest possible garbage dump, police station or mental hospital.
Maybe not quite an ideal answer to the question, but there is the case of Richey Edwards, who was a popular member of the well-known Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers in the early 1990s. He suddenly vanished in 1995 on the eve of a promotional tour to the US and has never been located. His parents refused to declare him “legally dead” but he finally became officially “presumed dead” in 2008.
Although what happened is still a mystery, it would probably be wrong to say he is “widely believed to be alive and well.”
You mean the dead one? I’m kinda glad he’s not in the public eye any more…
Worth tossing in the mysterious “disappearance” of Agatha Christie, although reasonable speculations can be made about that one… from a modern viewpoint.
Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam comes to mind, although he seems to have quietly resurfaced and performs from time to time.
Anyone familiar with the turbulent membership of Jethro Tull is familiar with people just dropping out of sight. Where are Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, Barriemore Barlow or John Evan – prominent former members of the band? (Not to mention the Dee Palmer thing.)
eschereal - 3 minutes on Google tells me whet everybody you mentioned is doing these days, or at least in the last few years. “Not touring with a major rock group” doesn’t equal “disappeared from the face of the earth.”
His high school classmate John Rutsey pretty much did the same thing after he left Rush following the recording of their first album. There were some stories that he was fairly prominent in the world of drug-free bodybuilding for a while, and stayed out of the public eye altogether until his death from Type I diabetes in 2008, which also turned out to be the REAL reason why he left Rush.
He just doesn’t talk to reporters. Though he once appeared in a New York City crowd scene on