> How did we get this far without mentioning Geena Davis?
Say what? Geena Davis has had a good career. The astonishing thing is how late she came to everything and yet still did well at what she tried. Take a look at her IMDb entry:
She didn’t become a model till she was 23, when is when most female models figure that they’re over the hill. She came close to qualifying for the Olympics in archery at 43, although she didn’t even take up the sport until she was in her late 30’s. I gather that most top archers are in their 20’s and 30’s. She had her first child at 46. She’s still a real babe at 46, and I’m certain that after taking a little time off to take care of the kid, she’ll be back working again. She accomplished all that while having a turbulent personal life. (She’s on her fourth marriage.) The only sense in which she’s missed anything is that, unlike most actresses who were once considered the “hot new starlet,” she didn’t spend several years playing roles in which she was basically the bimbo who becomes the male lead’s girlfriend.
I really liked Diane Franklin, Last American Virgin was a great movie and not nearly as derivative as its title would indicate. She was also wonderful in Better off Dead.
Someone mentioned Phoebe already. I just saw her in a film with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cummings. Kevin Kline and their kids were in the movie, too, as… her husband and kids! But mostly, yes, she gave up the biz and let’s her husband handle it now.
thermalribbon, I beg to differ with you about Debra Winger. She had a pretty good run until the mid-1990’s when she cut back–due to either by her own choice or the choice of others–on making movies. On the other hand, Elizabeth McGovern is a good example of someone who didn’t live up to her early potential. As for Kelly McGillis, she’s somebody who was there and suddenly dropped out of sight.
It must be noted, however, that the careers of these and the other actresses mentioned in this thread prove how much more difficult it is for a talented actress to maintain a successful career in Hollywood than it is for an actor. If you want proof, just compare the number of actors and the number of actresses who’ve emerged to have successful long-term careers in movies over the last 20 to 25 years.
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Say what? Geena Davis has had a good career…{etc.}
The OP Title reads Hot '80s actresses with fading careers. Up to early 1992, Davis was Hot in the industry. Your link only cemented her career’s status as Fading (although Faded may be more accurate): 5 Box Office disasters (some as infamous as the industry has known in the last decade), and then 2 films where she’s upstaged by a computerized mouse. Oh, and a miserably unsuccessful sitcom and a terrible pre-Oscar show interviewer. She may still be a “babe” (though one who still doesn’t know how to dress well, from assorted award show appearances), but Hot? Uh-uh.
I consider her lukewarm at least. She still gets significant film roles, which is a lot more than you can say about most 46-year-old actresses. Granted, she’s made some bad choices of roles (though some of those bad choices can be blamed on her ex-husband Renny Harlin). The fact is that in an actress’s late thirties, either she becomes one of the three or four bankable actresses at any time who get the top roles, or else she takes whatever roles she can get just to stay working in the hope that she’ll last long enough in the film industry to get good roles again, or else she simply fades into obscurity. Actresses like Diane Franklin, Molly Ringwald, Phoebe Cates, Kay Lenz, Ellen Barkin, and Mia Sara have simply faded away. I think of Geena Davis as being more like Jennifer Connelly, who is relatively hot again based on one good role. All it takes is one good role and Geena Davis will be hot again.
I just want to point out that Kelly McGillis went to the stage and has had a great career with the Shakespeare Theater here in Washington, DC. I’ve seen her in a few things there.
> But she isn’t starring opposite Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise in
> these theaters is she?
No, and neither is any other actress of Kelly McGillis’s age. Cruise is mostly cast with actresses who are ten years younger than him. Ford is mostly cast with actresses who are twenty years younger than him. And they are both dating women of about that age too. That’s why so many hot '80’s actresses are no longer hot, because they can’t get the good roles since they are now (according to many Hollywood producers) too old to be cast against actors of their own age.
Her career isn’t actually that bad for a 45-year-old actress. As I said, in their late thirties, it becomes clear for most actresses what their career is going to be like. They can either become one of the three or four bankable actresses who continue to get good roles well into their forties, or one of the couple dozen of mid-range actresses who take whatever decent roles they can get in hopes that eventually they will get a good role and become hot again, or they can simply fade away into obscurity. McGillis has lived in Washington, D.C. and Key West, Florida for the past decade, acting in roles in the Shakespeare Theater and running a restaurant in Key West. Meanwhile, she continues to take whatever TV and movie roles she is offered.
Actually, Ellen Barkin was in her heyday when she was IN her 30s. Her first really big role, in “The Big Easy,” was when she was 33.
To be honest, I wonder how true it is that actresses are dumped in their 30s. Sure, most of them disappear - but a lot of actors disappear, too. Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise are exceptions, not the rule, and I can think of actresses who have kept working in big films well past their prime years:
Rene Russo got her first movie role when she was 35 and was doing hot sex scenes well into her 40s.
Sharon Stone did’t get major roles until she was 27 and wasn’t a star until she was 32; “Total Recall” was her big notice-that-girl role at 32. Her first major starring vehicle, “Basic Instinct,” when when was was 34 and she’s still a sex symbol.
Jessica Lange has worked pretty much nonstop right through her 40s.
Catherine Zeta-Jones is, I suspect, a lot older than she admits.
Sigourney Weaver still opens movies at 50. She became a star at 30 (Alien) got her first Oscar nomination at 37 (Aliens) and had a long string of big time roles right through her 40s.
Julia Roberts turns 35 next week and she’s the hottest actress in the world.
Nicole Kidman turned 35 a few months ago, and she’s the second-hottest actress in the world.
Other new candidates who didn’t make it really big until their 30s, or who look like very good candidates to work for many years to come; Naomi Watts is all the rage now at 31, Cate Blanchett’s first starring turn was at 29, Carrie-Ann Moss is a cult phenomenon at 35, Lisa Kudrow didn’t make it big until her 30s, Jennifer Aniston is starting to make waves at 33, and I like Cameron Diaz’s chances - she just got her first really serious role at 30. Helen Hunt didn’t make it until she was in her 30s.
There’s a strong bias against older actresses to be sure, but the really good ones seem to last. They don’t seem to get sex symbol roles when they’re really old and gross like Harrison Ford, but… ewww, I don’t wanna think about Harrison Ford and his stupid earring and his hideous, skeletal girlfriend right now. I wonder if the problem isn’t that we’re just in a dead zone right now of good leading ladies. Mrs. RickJay complains all the time that there seems to be a lack of really glamourous, A-level talent actresses right now aside from Nicole Kidman (she hates Julia Roberts) and maybe she’s right. These things happen in waves.