Daniel Day-Lewis retired in 2017; he was only 60 at the time, and certainly could have continued working if he wanted to.
And, it’s the third time that Day-Lewis has retired (or at least taken an extended break) from acting; he spent three years in semi-retirement in the late '90s/early 2000s, in which he pursued woodworking and shoemaking. Then, he took another break (that one for about five years) after making Lincoln. He came out of retirement to make Phantom Thread in 2017, before again retiring.
Helen Gahagan, Robert Montgomery, George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Sheila Kuehl and a few others forsook acting careers for politics.
Sometimes they say they’re quitting, then come back anyway like Marlon Brando did.
I think Tom Hulce stopped doing movies in order to teach.
I was going to mention Angus Jones. Being on a long running hit show (probably making a mountain of money), and being a child (and therefore probably spending almost none of his earnings), he has apparently decided to walk away from acting. He appeared in 213 episodes, and was making a reported $350,000 per episode during the latter years. He should have plenty of money to live well on if he doesn’t foolishly spend it.
Yeah - $$$ was a criteria of the OP.
Deanna Durbin was reported to be the second richest woman in the US when she walked away from performing.
Supposedly Angus T Jones was in a conservative Christian church, which may have influenced him to decry the show and supposedly he gave all or most of his money to it.
Pauley Perrette who is probably best known as Abby from NCIS announced her retirement from acting a year or so back at about 50 years of age.
She quit / was fired / was forced out of NCIS amid issues with the show’s star and producer Mark Harmon (Gibbs) and her next project, a sitcom called Broke, was canned and that was it for her.
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Mark Lester was a successful child actor probably best known as Oliver Twist in the musical film Oliver. Aged about 19 he retired from acting, he used some of his earnings to buy a Ferrari car and tour Europe.
He then caught up with his education and trained as an osteopath setting up his own practice which he has worked at ever since.
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Shirley Temple retired when she was 32, and became a diplomat. Lots of child actors retired after their childhood, or very early in their adult acting careers; they’re a separate category really - but Shirley Temple continued acting for a fair while.
British actress Glenda Jackson retired from acting in her fifties and became an MP.
French sex symbol Bridget Bardot ended her acting and singing careers at 39 years old and devoted herself to animal rights work.
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English comedian, comic actor and comedy writer Ronnie Barker almost counts. (He was very famous and successful in Britain.) He announced his retirement from show business aged 58 and opened an antiques shop. But after a decade away he resumed his former career with small cameos, minor roles and appearances as himself until his death aged 76.
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Josh Hartnett was at his peak and was being offered leading roles in action blockbusters when he decided to walk away from it all, move to England, and try to be in smaller less know flicks.
I often think back to the 80s and 90s and the young actors who I thought for sure would have a successful career. For every “That Rob Lowe’s pretty good”, I have three wrong guesses (where are his fellow brat-packers like Ally Sheedy and C. Thomas Howell and Judd Nelson doing now?)
Was that thank you to Ms. Diaz? :~}
(I’d buy an expensive Thank You card for Minnie Driver… or Jason Biggs or Katherine Heigl or Adam Sandler… huh, my list seems to have no end. Retire already, annoying actors!)
Cary Grant stopped making movies at age 62 and, despite many lucrative offers, did not return.
After stepping down as Tonight Show host, Johnny Carson did a voice-acting job on The Simpsons and a couple of short appearances on Letterman but that was it. He stayed retired for the rest of his life.
You might recall Michelle Meyrink, who played the nerd Judy in Revenge of the Nerds, and Jordan in Real Genius. She had a few other movie and TV roles, but gave up acting when she was in her late 20s. She has subsequently started up an acting school in Vancouver BC, but that’s the closest she’s come to acting since the late 1980s.
Your mentioning Harvey Weinstein made me think of another:
Rose McGowan
Sarah Holcomb, an actress who had roles in both Animal House (the underage daughter of the mayor) and Caddyshack (Danny Noonan’s Irish girlfriend), stepped away from Hollywood after Caddyshack. She apparently had some substance issues (the Caddyshack set was said to have been drug-fueled), and may also have had mental issues, so she just quit the business. She’s stayed well under the radar since then.
Kaki Hunter, who starred opposite Meat Loaf in the movie Roadie, and is best-known for her role in the Porky’s series as Wendy, quit acting and went on to teach white-water rafting in Utah. I read somewhere that she only did the third Porky’s movie as a favor to the rest of the cast, that she had wanted to quit before then.
Grace Kelly was a big star, but she quit acting after she got married. I think her husband was famous. 