On a related note, last week I was at a meetup and some other people there were talking about a TV series featuring James Spader, and expressed surprise that a middle-aged man would suddenly rise to fame out of nowhere. I replied that he was a very popular actor in the late 1980s, and withdrew from public life when he had children. The money he made from his box office success enabled him to do local theater and other acting parts where he would not have to go on location, and decided to take bigger parts when his kids were grown.
He’s actually done some comedy recordings, and was up for the Grammy for Best Comedy Album back in 2006.
He got out of movies (with the exception of some voice over work) because he found it hard to raise his kids and do films, as his wife had died, so he picked his kids.
There was a good baseball player in the 1960s named Tony Horton who had mental problems. He once struck out on Steve Hamilton’s “folly floater” and crawled back on his hands and knees to the dugout. People didn’t know of his inner turmoil and assumed he was joking. He left the game and disappeared. A couple decades later a writer tracked him down in Silicon Valley. The writer said from the brief glance he got Horton looked to be in shape, just gray hair. But he and his father refused to give an interview and slammed the door.
In the 1890s there was a great base ball player named George Davis. In the 1950s a researcher named Lee Allen noticed Davis had disappeared from the baseball community around 1915 and no one knew what happened. After an extensive search, Allen found Davis had died in 1940. Davis was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1998.
The person I first thought of is Sarah Holcomb of Animal House and Caddyshack fame. Shortly after those she disappeared, supposedly due to drug addiction problems she picked up while doing Animal House.
According to the comments on IMDB, it appears that her whereabouts are known to people who lived around her family, but she is gone from the public eye. I don’t think that fans could find her, and when she didn’t participate in the Caddyshack reunion in 2013 I’d like to know if it’s because she refused to attend, or if they just couldn’t find her.
While he probably doesn’t completely fit in with the requirements of the OP, Jimmie Nicol was a celebrity for a little while, having played drums for the Beatles during their Australian tour when Ringo was ill.
Statements like:
satisfy the requirement (at least to me) of having “completely vanished.” That’s 17 years between a rumour that you’ve died and the confirmation that you haven’t, and even that event was 10 years ago.
Sixto Rodriguez, Otherwise know and Rodriguez. Musician form the 70’s that no one could find. They made a very interesting documentary on him. The Documentary was called Searching for Sugar Man.
John Evan formed his own construction company, and later moved to Australia. Jeffrey Hammond became a painter, his primary passion. Barlow continued work as a session drummer and managed some indie rock bands, though he doesn’t seem to have done much lately. All of them have shown up in Jethro Tull retrospectives from time to time.
And then there’s David Palmer… “Er, he’s gone for a piss but he’ll be right back…ah, David’s back! Give it a good shake, did you? Huh?? You did WHAT with it?!?!?”
Anyway…in the era of 21st century globalization, it seems well nigh impossible for any ex-celebrity to remain completely incognito, as long as someone has the means and desire to track them down. Even the ur-example Rod Evans has remained enough in touch with his former colleagues to repeatedly refuse to participate in any reunion for Captain Beyond (his post-Purple band.)
An example that didn’t turn out so well: Philip Taylor Kramer, bass player for Iron Butterfly, mysteriously vanished in 1995. Four years later, his body was found inside his vehicle at the bottom of a deep canyon near L.A. The precise circumstances of his death were never determined, but it’s presumed to have been suicide.
Betty Davis, She released 2 albums that were decades ahead of their time, the line up on her first is nuts (pointer sisters singing back up, Neil Schon and a handful of other outstanding performers) then she just vanished, Totally gone until the guys from Seattles Light in the Attic label picked up the rights to her first album. They managed to track her down so they could pay her Royalties for the first time on any of her music.
Has there ever been any suggestion that he may not have been utterly sincere in his beliefs, and instead of living in his deranged world he just lucked into a sweet gig pretending his theses and using his evident artistic gifts to con the world, including fundie christians and outraged atheists, making money, as a grand Épater la Bourgeoisie ?
> Sixto Rodriguez, Otherwise know and Rodriguez. Musician form the 70’s that no
> one could find. They made a very interesting documentary on him. The
> Documentary was called Searching for Sugar Man.
And there are certain ways in which that documentary wasn’t accurate:
Cat Stevens doesn’t fit all OP criteria because he didn’t completely disappear, but I’m submitting him because he did disappear from the eyes of his once huge fan-base, and his is an interesting story worth learning for those (young whippersnappers) not familiar with his career.
Cat abandoned his productive pop music career for a ~25 year hiatus, after converting to Islam in ’77, changing his name to Yusaf Islam and living primarily in the Muslim community, involving himself in philanthropy and creating some controversy. He did briefly pop up again into the pop music scene, but didn’t make much of a stir.
I’m not sure if “on the lam” is the same as “vanished.” He was heavily using heroin and had warrants in New Jersey so he couldn’t return home. He was unemployable due to drug use and did not have stable living arrangements. But he did not disappear.
I didn’t realise about him taking money out and getting passport at the time. I remember reading about his car being found near severn bridge, and people thinking that he had committed suicide, all from NME…
I was aware of his family circumstances, but didn’t know about his recordings.
I was just picking him as an example of a big star who seemed to “disappear” as far as the public was concerned, but who hadn’t really vanished. He was still alive and well and living an ordinary life. He wasn’t a recluse, after all- he just wasn’t in the spotlight any more.
MANY celebs who “disappear” are in a similar boat.
