# Movie careers that petered out while you were looking the other way. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 1, 2019, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858 "2019-06-01T01:59:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/21 "2019-06-01T16:59:25Z")
Pam Grier’s been pretty steady in TV and is in a current show, _Bless This Mess._ She’s been steady in movies too albeit not in starring roles but she’s working. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/22 "2019-06-01T17:46:48Z")
Roughly 15 years ago, two of the greatest movie stars of all time, Sean Connery and Gene Hackman, each made a horrible, soul-sucking movie \*(League of Extraordinary Gentlemen \*and _Welcome to Mooseport_, respectively), said “screw this”, and retired, never to make another film. ---
**Author:** ![turner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@turner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/turner)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/23 "2019-06-01T18:20:08Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > That was John Cameron Swayze. > > “Takes a licking and keeps on ticking!” They were distant cousins ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/24 "2019-06-01T18:33:00Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Brendan Fraser was huge for awhile and we hardly see him in things now. I thought he was A-list level when The Mummy came out. He was fun - “Google it” - in last year’s _Trust_ on TV, though admittedly _everyone_ was playing second-fiddle to Donald Sutherland in that. ---
**Author:** ![Personal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Personal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Personal)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/25 "2019-06-01T18:50:56Z")
I thought that Mira Sorvino was in her way to a nice career, but someone around 2000 or so she fell off my radar. I’ve heard her recently doing a voice-over for one of the animal rescue orgs, but that’s it. I seem to remember reading something about her taking a strong stance against Hollywood sexual harassment and abuse, but I don’t know how valid that is. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/26 "2019-06-01T18:55:32Z")
I don’t find Bridget Fonda’s career to be that surprising. She was in a car crash that messed her up good for a while when she was 39. Within a month after that she and Danny Elfman got engaged and were married eight months after getting engaged. Presumably she and Elfman had been dating for a while before the crash and decided that it was time to get married. She presumably had saved some money from her acting career and got some from her family, and Elfman was presumably doing well in his career and could easily support them. They then had a son. Fonda’s career was slowing down from 2000 to 2002. She did five rather minor theatrical films, two TV films, and some TV appearances. She could surely see that she would not be likely to get leading roles in top films anymore. Rather than spend the next couple of decades doing voice roles and maybe TV roles, she decided just to take a long time away from acting. Perhaps now that her son is a teenager, she’ll decide to get back into acting. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/27 "2019-06-01T18:59:01Z")
> [@Personal](#): > > I thought that Mira Sorvino was in her way to a nice career, but someone around 2000 or so she fell off my radar. I’ve heard her recently doing a voice-over for one of the animal rescue orgs, but that’s it. I seem to remember reading something about her taking a strong stance against Hollywood sexual harassment and abuse, but I don’t know how valid that is. IIRC, she was one of the actresses whose careers were destroyed by Harvey Weinstein when they refused his sexual demands. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/28 "2019-06-01T19:02:37Z")
> [@Personal](#): > > I thought that Mira Sorvino was in her way to a nice career, but someone around 2000 or so she fell off my radar. I’ve heard her recently doing a voice-over for one of the animal rescue orgs, but that’s it. I seem to remember reading something about her taking a strong stance against Hollywood sexual harassment and abuse, but I don’t know how valid that is. IIRC, she says Harvey Weinstein blacklisted her and put out the word that she was “difficult” for rebuffing his advances , ruining her career. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/29 "2019-06-01T19:03:41Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > IIRC, she says Harvey Weinstein blacklisted her and put out the word that she was “difficult” for rebuffing his advances , ruining her career. Eta: ninja’d! ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/30 "2019-06-01T19:10:34Z")
I’m not surprised about Mira Sorvino’s career either. Again, she presumably saved her money from acting and got some from her family. She got married when she was 36 (to a guy who was fourteen years younger than her) and had four children over the next eight years. Her husband doesn’t come from a rich family and doesn’t have a tremendous acting career, so Sorvino needed to keep acting, even though it’s been just in a lot of minor stuff. Actresses have two basic choices at about 40. They can keep acting in minor roles or they can leave the business. ---
**Author:** ![Periwinkle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Periwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Periwinkle)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/31 "2019-06-01T21:37:23Z")
Helen Hunt is the name that came to mind. I just looked on Wikipedia and it looks like she has not been very active the last few years. She certainly had a good run though. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/32 "2019-06-01T22:09:32Z")
Linda Fiorentino is another actress who got the label of hard to work with . She was supposed to be in Men in Black 2 but got replaced by Tommy Lee Jones who they brought back by inventing the machine to bring back his memory. Her last credit was in 2009 (direct to video film) and before that 2002. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/33 "2019-06-01T22:14:57Z")
Michael Biehn is the one I sort of blinked (in cinematic terms) and thought “Wait, where’d he go?” He was quite the leading man/second banana in action movies of the late 80s through mid-90s (_Aliens, The Abyss, The Terminator, Tombstone, The Rock, Navy SEALS_), and just sort of faded out after _The Rock_, and even there, he was sort of a third or fourth banana. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/34 "2019-06-01T22:53:59Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Brendan Fraser was huge for awhile and we hardly see him in things now. I thought he was A-list level when The Mummy came out. The Mummy films also ended his leading man career - he basically destroyed his body doing stunts. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/35 "2019-06-01T23:08:42Z")
that and there was s a big sexual harassment thing he went through that affected him badly for a while… I’ve noticed there used to be a thing where certain people would be big for a few years fade out have a comeback …nic cage and Bruce Willis, Bill Murray Julia Roberts Sandra Bullock come to mind ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2019, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/36 "2019-06-01T23:10:04Z")
I just saw a trailer for a new [Terminator](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCyEX6u-Yhs) movie with a much older but still badass Linda Hamilton. But I’m really surprised to see Patricia Arquette on the list. I think of her as an example of an actress who has continued to work steadily right through her 40s (she’s 51 now). Some of her work has been in television, but it’s been highly acclaimed, and she’s had either at least one movie or a significant television role every year since 2007. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2019, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/37 "2019-06-02T00:32:45Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Linda Fiorentino is another actress who got the label of hard to work with . She was supposed to be in Men in Black 2 but got replaced by Tommy Lee Jones who they brought back by inventing the machine to bring back his memory. Her last credit was in 2009 (direct to video film) and before that 2002. Kevin Smith has said that Fiorentino is the only actress he regrets working with. And Smith even liked Shannen Doherty. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2019, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/38 "2019-06-02T01:06:30Z")
What’s Michael (Batman, Beetlejuice) Keaton been up to lately? ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2019, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/39 "2019-06-02T01:53:43Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > What’s Michael (Batman, Beetlejuice) Keaton been up to lately? Birdman? Spotlight? ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2019, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858/40 "2019-06-02T01:57:43Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I didn’t look up anyone else but Amy Adams struck me as being wrong. She has worked steady and just had a Golden Globe nomination and she has multiple projects in production. Her career seems to be doing just fine so far. She really doesn’t belong on that list at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movie-careers-that-petered-out-while-you-were-looking-the-other-way/834858.md?page=3)