I was surprised to see Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs on an episode of Chuck the other day. He’s been working steadily since Welcome Back but nothing spectacular.
What was the “one hit” he acted in? Obviously he’s been involved in several big hits as a producer.
He was famously in The Sun Also Rises, which wasn’t a hit but was pretty notorious as the Heaven’s Gate or Ishtar of its day: huge budget, lots of stars, highly anticipated, etc.
Jennifer Beals. . . .Flashdance, big hit, then nothing, at all that I can recall. I just saw her in Vampire’s Kiss with Nick Cage and I think that predates Flashdance.
She was a lead in The L Word, which (at least in its earlier seasons) was critically acclaimed and had strong ratings.
Sure. But, she was the hottest actor around when Flashdance hit. Think of Pretty Woman and Julia Roberts. It was kinda similar with Jennifer Beals and Flashdance but with much different results.
Also, Timothy Bottoms is a good one.
What about Linda Kozlowski from Crocodile Dundee and it’s sequels? I just checked her in Wikipedia and, though she has been in a few other things, she seems to have disappeared.
I see what you did there.
If you’re counting Crocodile Dundee and its sequels as “one hit,” why not include Paul Hogan? He was huge when he burst onto the scene in the original but has had a pretty sparse resume since then and certainly nothing notable outside of his Mick Dundee character.
Yeah, but did anyone actually expect big things from him? He was the Australian version of Jim Varney.
Actually, another Aussie - Yahoo Serious - brings up this Simpson’s reference:
Yahoo Serious, who annoyed one Australian SF writer so much that the author had a character from the year 2055 criticizing “Young Einstein”
Robert Evans, remembered for having a duffel bag filled with Polaroids of the vulvas of his many sex partners, is buried in the same cemetery as Basil Rathbone and Malcom X, and other notables.
Not here he wasn’t. I remember a huge amount of buzz around him being the next big Bruce-Willis-type action star.
I think Paul Hogan fits the criterion.
Absolutely! Good point
Hogan is surely one of the few qualifying entries who got an Oscar nomination for his big hit. (For writing it, not acting, but still.)
Electric Company. 
I came to nominate Wilhelm von Humberg. He played a henchman in Die Hard and then “Vigo the Carpathian” in Ghostbusters II. He hit some rough times before and after that, and never really capitalized on his hench-ability.
Tripler
It’s a well-known Hollywood term. Trust me.
He played a suicidal townsman in In the Mouth of Madness as well (one of my favorite movies)!
he does a ton of voice work these days … pretty much voicing different versions of miles … my favorite was Disney’s lilo and stitch
I don’t see David Hyde Pierce’s name in the cast list of Lilo & Stitch, which, BTW, came out in 2002, 19 years ago, when Frasier was still on the air. He did have a handful of voice roles around that time, but his last movie credit was 2010 and his last TV credit 2017 (though apparently he does have a supporting role in an upcoming Russell Crowe movie, and the role of Julia Child’s husband in an upcoming HBO Max series about her.)