# "One Hit" Actors **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 12, 2021, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569 "2021-09-12T23:02:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/162 "2021-09-15T12:24:06Z")
I think Mark Hamill kinda belongs in the child actor category. He couldn’t continue playing the wide-eyed teen forever. Unlike Harrison Ford, who’s cynical curmudgeon has a shelf life that will last forever. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/163 "2021-09-15T12:34:52Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Unlike Harrison Ford, who’s cynical curmudgeon has a shelf life that will last forever. It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/164 "2021-09-15T12:58:44Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I’m wondering if Jennifer Beals could qualify as a “one-hit” actor. > > She starred in _Flashdance_ , and that was about it. She’s had a number of parts in movies and TV since, but never as a star. She has been working steadily, but not in anything as big as _Flashdance_ . Pretty good choice. Maybe the fact that she didn’t actually dance in Flashdance mitigated some of her star potential. I know she was in “The Bride” with Sting, and that was supposed to be a turkey. That was about it for her as a lead. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/165 "2021-09-15T13:08:54Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I’m wondering if Jennifer Beals could qualify as a “one-hit” actor. > > She starred in _Flashdance_ , and that was about it. She’s had a number of parts in movies and TV since, but never as a star. She has been working steadily, but not in anything as big as _Flashdance_ . I think Jennifer Beals is one of those actors who really only cares about the work. I do a little background acting, and being on set with her is like a course in film school. I watched her prepare and shoot a scene in which she imagined that her son, a police officer, was murdered in front of her, and the amount of raw emotion she brought to that one scene in genre television series was astonishing. She treated _Swamp Thing_ like it was _Sophie’s Choice_. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/166 "2021-09-15T13:57:15Z")
> [@mjmartin](#): > > Three actors that come to mind from the early 2000s are Topher Grace, Michael Cera and Josh Hartnett. All had prominent roles in big movies, but then seemed to all but disappear. I see from a quick search that they have all been working, but in either obscure films, or small parts. I’d agree with all three to be honest. Michael Cera had his role on Arrested Development, aged a little bit after and then had a run from '07 to '10 where he was at a huge peak, and then basically disappeared from major films. I dunno if he is a true one hit wonder because he had 3ish movies that were big in that span, but he definitely had a quick peak and little following. Topher Grace is also a good one–he steadily grew his stature throughout That 70s Show’s run, had a bit of a “introduction to the big screen” Rom Com movie aside Scarlett Johansson and Dennis Quaid that wasn’t a major box office hit, but finished in the green and he actually got good reviews as a “serious actor”, got a pretty good role in the third Toby Maguire Spider-Man (as Venom) that was highly hyped and anticipated (the movie itself ended up not being great.) That movie came out a year after That 70’s Show went off the air, and it’s kind of like what was a nascent movie career where he was intended for bigger roles turned into a long career of very minor character roles. One of his biggest credits since Spider-Man 3 was in 2014’s Interstellar–and that’s only because he’s Jessica Chastain’s love interest and it was a huge release film, but his actual on-screen time is maybe two extended scenes (albeit important ones.) Josh Hartnett is an interesting one because he went like over 10 years without doing really much of any work at all. While his imdb has some roles from that span, after about 2006 and until about 2016 he was regularly appearing like a couple times a year in super small roles in very minor movies, sometimes maybe just one scene. It was a notable enough reduction in work for such a big name of the late 90s/early 2000s that some magazine did a big piece on it, they ended up contacting him and he basically said he got burned out on the industry and wasn’t sure he liked the Hollywood scene, and just chose to dial it back a lot. It looks like when he re-emerged so to speak with his role in Penny Dreadful he had decided to get back on the horse so to speak. Unlike a lot of names in this thread his decision to dial back appeared to be entirely on his side. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/167 "2021-09-15T14:13:14Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > It wouldn’t surprise me if Bronson Pinchot ended up getting typecast as “the guy who does the funny accent” after playing Serge and Balki. Although I do remember him in _The Langoliers_ miniseries in the mid-1990s, I couldn’t name anything else he did after that. He was pretty great in **True Romance** , but that movie is just a joyous actors’ showcase. The concept of the “It Girl” or “It Guy” has come up a few times in this thread, and I’m struck by the number of actors who either got that tag before they had done anything to deserve it. I seem to remember when **A Time To Kill** came out, there was a sense of, Hollywood is telling us that this McConaughey dude is going to be big not because he’s talented, but because it was decided on a studio lot somewhere. The 90s was also a period where actors would have a few solid hits, sometimes blockbusters but sometimes not, and would see their salaries shoot up to $20M a picture. For men, at least…Demi Moore got $12.5M for **Striptease** , which was newsworthy, but had she headlined a big hit before that? Maybe there’s some backlash when an actor is foisted on the public in ill-chosen big projects. Taylor Kitsch had two massive-budget sci-fi flicks bomb within a year. Not his fault, but he bore the brunt of their crashes. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/168 "2021-09-15T14:30:57Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > The concept of the “It Girl” or “It Guy” has come up a few times in this thread, and I’m struck by the number of actors who either got that tag before they had done anything to deserve it. I was coming in to talk about Lindsay Lohan, and she’s a perfect example of what you said. **Mean Girls** was her breakout role, her biggest hit, and her last hit by any measure. I think _part of_ her downfall was that she took the hype too seriously, besides misinterpreting it. What people were saying was “This is a star in the making; if she keeps getting roles like this, she’ll be an A-list star,” and it’s very likely that what she heard was “Hey, I’m a star! I can do anything I want!”\* I’m saying _part of_ because A-list stars don’t usually carry on the way she did in the 2000s. Sure, party, spend your money while you have it, but for instance, she “borrowed” a car that two people were already in, and that’s just one thing I remember right now. So that’s on her; that’s not H’wood stealing her soul. Anyway, yeah, MG should have been the start of a successful career, and it was…for Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried! \*Makes me think of [Jean Hagen in Singin’ in the Rain.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eagNpJtEha4) “People? I ain’t ‘people’! I am ‘a shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament’!” ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/169 "2021-09-15T14:48:50Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > Demi Moore got $12.5M for **Striptease** , which was newsworthy, but had she headlined a big hit before that? Ghost, A Few Good Men, Indecent Proposal, and Disclosure were all pretty successful. The Butcher’s Wife and Scarlet Letter were minor misfires but still major projects that headlined her. She didn’t headline A Few Good Men, obviously, but it wasn’t exactly a bit part either. > [@Rilchiam](#): > > **Mean Girls** was her breakout role, her biggest hit, and her last hit by any measure. I think Lindsay Lohan’s high water mark was playing matchmaker twins as a kid. The Parent Trap, I think? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/170 "2021-09-15T14:59:16Z")
> [@Rilchiam](#): > > \*Makes me think of [Jean Hagen in Singin’ in the Rain.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eagNpJtEha4) “People? I ain’t ‘people’! I am ‘a shimmering, glowing star in the cinema firmament’!” “It says so, right here!” (“I make more money than Calvin Coolidge …, put together”) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/171 "2021-09-15T15:05:31Z")
> [@veryfrank](#): > > The concept of the “It Girl” or “It Guy” has come up a few times in this thread, and I’m struck by the number of actors who either got that tag before they had done anything to deserve it. I seem to remember when **A Time To Kill** came out, there was a sense of, Hollywood is telling us that this McConaughey dude is going to be big not because he’s talented, but because it was decided on a studio lot somewhere. To be fair, anyone who called Matthew McConaughey an “it guy” after A Time To Kill (which was released 25 years ago) would not have been wrong. He’s had an impressive career since then. And as for Lindsay Lohan, didn’t she have issues with drug and alcohol abuse? I haven’t exactly followed her career but I get the impression that she grew up in Hollywood and that can be extremely difficult, with all sorts of temptations. Drew Barrymore, for instance, was using drugs and partying at nightclubs as a kid before going to rehab at _thirteen_. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/172 "2021-09-15T15:09:56Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > I think Lindsay Lohan’s high water mark was playing matchmaker twins as a kid. The Parent Trap, I think? No. That was a successful film, but it didn’t lead to the kind of praise she got for MG. Not just her acting, but her attractiveness; she looked like the second coming of Ann-Margret, or at least she was made to look that way in magazine photos. For a brief moment, she got press on the level of Nicole Kidman. Then she went off the rails. (Remember the [Georgia Rule letter](https://images.app.goo.gl/oFe8pb3U8GNxogVo8)? Parent Trap got her noticed, all right, but it didn’t get people talking as if the sun shone out of her arse. * * * Anyway, I came in to mention someone else: Michael Pare. I thought I posted about this before, but I can’t find anything. In '83 and '84, someone was determined to make Michael Pare happen. Eddie and the Cruisers, Streets of Fire, The Philadelphia Experiment. And then nothing. Okay, not literally nothing: his IMDB page has plenty of credits. But there was no such thing as a Michael Pare film. I was in the demographic that Michael Pare fangirls would have been drawn from. I saw two of those films (Eddie, Streets) when they were new, and I somehow missed the bit where he was supposed to be a heartthrob. I was a Tom Cruise fangirl and that was that. Cruise, even back then, had the trifecta: looks, talent, and most importantly, charisma, which can make up for shortcomings in the other two areas. Pare had none of those things, at least not in enough measure to make people seek him out. Only the audience can make someone a star. (And I’m going to take another shot at finding a post someone made a while back, talking about how in the early 2000s, there was some comedic actor who was headlining a lot of movies but not making much impact…and in the meantime, no one noticed Jack Black sneaking up and becoming a genuine hit. At least, I think this was on SDMB.) ETA: **Dewey** , yeah, that’s why I said “part of”. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/173 "2021-09-15T16:00:23Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > The first name I thought was Mena Suvari. Was touted as being The Next Big Thing after both **American Beauty** and **American Pie** (so maybe not a true “one hit” wonder but both films came out a few months apart) in 1999 and then… didn’t really do much else. Looking at her IMDb since then she’s done a bunch of bit parts on TV shows or films I’ve never heard of. That’s who I thought of when I read the thread title, along with the two other teenagers in American Beauty, Thora Birch and Wes Bentley. I saw the movie when it first came out and thought all three were destined to become huge stars. Thora Birch was great in Ghost World, which came out in 2001, but hasn’t really done anything of note since. Wes Bentley disappeared for some years, and then came back and actually delivered a pretty decent performance in the first Hunger Games movie, but doesn’t really appear to have done much else since then. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/174 "2021-09-15T16:09:19Z")
[This February 2010 article](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/theater/08bentley.html) from The New York Times says Wes Bentley’s “disappearance” was due to drug addiction. It sounds like most of the decade between 2001-2010 was lost to that. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/175 "2021-09-15T16:33:24Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Justine Bateman who was arguably like 4th billing on Family Ties I’ve read that Bateman was supposed to be the main kid on “Family Ties”, but with the success that Fox had with audiences, they retooled the show to focus more on him. And then towards the end of the show’s run Bateman was the main star in a movie called “Satisfaction” with a bunch of unknowns, one of whom was Julia Roberts. When her movie “Mystic Pizza” came out that same year and blew up, the marketing for “Satisfaction” was retooled to look like Roberts was the star rather than Bateman. Although Bateman has worked pretty consistently, it has been mostly small parts and stuff behind the scenes. I expected her to become a big star, but it looks like getting eclipsed twice dimmed her star power. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/176 "2021-09-15T17:12:14Z")
First one I thought of was Geraldine Chaplain. After Doctor Zhivago, seemed to fall off the radar screen. (You could also make the same point about Omar Sharif). Decades later, she played her own grandmother in Chaplain. I thought she was great in both roles but it seemed like she should have had more than that. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/177 "2021-09-15T17:29:25Z")
[quote=“kaylasdad99, post:156, topic:950569, full:true”] > [@wjChia](#): > > > [@zimaane](#): > > > > > Other than that, all he has done is voice acting in a few animated TV programs. > > > [/quote] > > > > > > Dude, he’s THE definitive Joker. > > You’re thinking of Caesar Romero. No love here for Jack? I thought Jack was pretty damned good at playing crazy! > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Carey Elwes, Mandy Patinkin and Robin Wright never did re-attain the heights of their roles in ‘The Princess Bride’. All went on to secondary roles in theater or television. I’m surprised no one here has brought up Carey Elwes’ other leading rolls: Saw, and Men In Tights (OMG - I was just checking IMDB - I forgot he was in Twister. Then again, I’m pretty sure he wants us to forget he was in Twister. What a horribly bad movie.) But that brings us back to the question - after Princess Bride, did anyone think Cary Elwes was going to be the next big thing? Not really. Nice roll; nice (extremely quotable) movie; what’s up next? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/178 "2021-09-15T17:39:35Z")
> [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > > [@wjChia](#): > > > > You’re thinking of Caesar Romero. > > No love here for Jack? I thought Jack was pretty damned good at playing crazy More like no love for the notion of treating the Batman universe like something serious. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/179 "2021-09-15T17:55:23Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > First one I thought of was Geraldine Chaplain. After Doctor Zhivago, seemed to fall off the radar screen. (You could also make the same point about Omar Sharif). Decades later, she played her own grandmother in Chaplain. I thought she was great in both roles but it seemed like she should have had more than that. Well, from her Wiki page, she’s only appeared in about 112 movies (and 25+ TV appearances) since Dr. Zhivago, so that’s a pretty good disappearing act. I recall her as a favorite actress of Alan Rudolph and Robert Altman, but hadn’t realized that she is much more famous in Europe than the US, particularly Spain and France, which is not so surprising because that’s where she has lived for most of her career In fact, from the Wiki, here is her complaint in 1977 about getting roles in the US: > “I only seem to work with Altman here … I don’t have any offers in this country, none. Not even an interesting script to read. The only person who ever asks me is Altman—and James Ivory.” Yeah, being sought out by Altman and Ivory, plus Rudolph, Scorsese, Zefferelli and others later in her career, is really falling off the radar. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/180 "2021-09-15T17:56:07Z")
> [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > I’m surprised no one here has brought up Carey Elwes’ other leading rolls: Saw, and Men In Tights > (OMG - I was just checking IMDB - I forgot he was in Twister. Then again, I’m pretty sure he wants us to forget he was in Twister. What a horribly bad movie.) Even before The Princess Bride, I liked Elwes as Guilford Dudley in **Lady Jane**. I thought after Princess Bride and Robin Hood that he would be going places, but his career kind of stalled. The reason I took note of Guilford Dudley was that I had written a play on the subject myself, and I was curious how the role of Guilford was played. It was written entirely differently than I had done (and as the historical record would suggest), so it wasn’t really a one-on-one comparison. The film is worth looking up. It didn’t make a big splash, but it’s got an impressive roster of actors, starting with Helena Bonham Carter in the title role. John Wood, Michael Hordern, and Patrick Stewart. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569/181 "2021-09-15T18:08:08Z")
Just to add to what peccavi has already posted: Geraldine Chaplin wasn’t even the star of _Dr. Zhivago_. She has acting credits for nearly every year since 1965 and usually more than one per year (seven credits for 1967, six in 2011). In most of the movies she has made in the U.S., she was not the star; she has arguably never been a star in the U.S. Most of the movies in which she was the star were made in Europe and Latin America and did not get a U.S. release. And this qualifies as falling “off the radar screen?” I think the issue here is that your radar has extremely limited range. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-hit-actors/950569.md?page=10)