Vanishing starlets

Cafe Society
41

Caitlin Clarke was Valerien in Dragonslayer. I thought she was so cool and wanted to see a lot more of her, but she pretty much disappeared.

:eek: That’s a name I never would have expected to see in this thread.

New to the Dope? That movie’s been a favorite among Dopers since it was first released in theaters. There have been several threads about it, and it’s mentioned in other threads all the time.

High profile? The lead in Alexander, playing, you know, Alexander the Great, wasn’t high profile? The lead in Terrence Malick’s The New World wasn’t high profile? Define high-profile? Something Joe Sixpack who goes to the movies twice a year would have heard of? See, there’s your problem. People who love and follow smaller and independent films know that he hasn’t gone anywhere and that he’s been busy the past 5 years. Besides the ones already mentioned, there was the beautiful 30’s-era Ask The Dust with Salma Hayek, the wonderful A Home at the End of the World with Robin Wright Penn, Cassandra’s Dream which was a Woody Allen movie, with Colin and Ewan McGregor, and the terrific Pride and Glory with Edward Norton.

He’s in two movies coming up in the next couple of weeks. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Terry Gilliam’s next movie. Farrell, along with Jude Law and Johnny Depp, stepped in to help Gilliam finish the film after Heath Ledger’s death. And starting Friday (at least, here in Chicago) is Crazy Heart, with Jeff Bridges (probably the next Best Actor Oscar winner). He’s got others coming up in the next couple of months: Ondine, the next Neil Jordan film, and Triage, directed by Danis Tanovic (Academy Award winner No Man’s Land).

He’s got 3 more that should be released in 2010: London Boulevard with Keira Knightley; The Way Back, which is the next Peter Weir film, his first since Master and Commander; and At Swim-Two Birds with, oh hold me back, my swooning heart! Gabriel Byrne, Cillian Murphy, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Brendan Gleeson, who wrote and will direct it.

So anyway, needless to say it’s a bit shocking to me to hear Colin put in the “Where Are They Now?” category just because he hasn’t been in blockbuster monster hits.

42

She finished in 24th place which isn’t close. That was after she trained for over a year, full time, with the best equipment and coaches that money could buy. Most other aspiring archers have to work day jobs.

43

Deborah Walley was Eve Arden?

Or Kay Ballard?

44

Yes, of course it was. Do you know what “5 years” means?

Meh. Not really.

Hollywood blockbuster, as was his expected career trajectory based on the early 2000s.

I am a person who loves and follows smaller and independent films, and I know he hasn’t gone anywhere. Get over your snobby self. I probably watch more independent films than you do, though I wait for them to hit premium cable.

Again, his career now is much smaller than it was in the early 2000s. He is nowhere near the “it guy” right now, but he once was. Contrast that with someone like Gretchen Mol who never actually was the “it girl.” She was merely predicted to be. Farrell actually was. And he’s not now. Get it?

45

Not surprised at all; a bit disappointed, really. I think it’s a disservice to the fans. You just start to appreciate a young woman’s talent as an actress, and by the time you find out her measurements, her address, and what medications her pets are taking, she’s yesterday’s news and you have to start all over again with someone else.

46

Well, there is a way to avoid this pattern of constant disappointment: never be a fan of a particular actress.

47

I suspected that someone was going to challenge me about how good an archer Geena Davis was. Look, you have your definition of “close” and I have mine. She went to the semifinals where there were 300 women trying out for the team and did well enough to be one of the 28 who went to the finals. She was 24th in the finals. I didn’t claim that she was the greatest archer in history.

The interesting thing is how late she took up the sport. She took it up at 41 and was a pretty good archer by the time she was 43. That’s amazingly late in most athletes’ careers. It’s my impression that generally one is expected to peak in archery somewhere in one’s twenties or thirties. One of the interesting things about Davis is that she did everything relatively late. Even her modeling career was late. She didn’t become a model until she was 23, which is just past mid-career for the average female model.

Robot Arm, the problem is the fans. They think that they’re helping when their main comment about a new, young actress is “Wow, she’s really hot. I’d hit that. I get all hot and bothered just thinking about her.” (In many threads on the SDMB, that seems to be the only comment about new, young actresses that many posters can make.) It isn’t surprising then that producers say, “Hey, it’s obvious that all that many male moviegoers want is someone who’s hot. They don’t care about her acting. Let’s get somebody new, because it’s clear that they don’t want a woman who doesn’t look like she’s jailbait.”

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But we had something special, if I can just keep her in the basement long enough to realize it.

49

Molly Ringwald intentionally left the business for a while. She moved to France, got married, and lived a normal life. As mentioned upthread, Phoebe Cates opted for motherhood and a focus on charitable work.

But whose expectation was that? Obviously not his, because other than “Miami Vice” and perhaps “Alexander” (and wasn’t he in that failed SWAT remake too?) Colin Farrell has rather made it a point to do films that aren’t at all destined toward blockbuster status. It’s an intentional crafting of his career, and he’s been successful and acclaimed in so doing. It’s not as if he can’t get cast in blockbuster films, he’s worked steadily, even through his addiction issues and sex tape controversy. He’s choosing another path.

50

Jenny Agutter was a favorite of mine in sci-fi. She did Logan’s Run, An American Warewolf in London, Equus etc.

She’s got recent credits but I think that’s British tv. I haven’t seen her in anything since Amazon Women on the Moon in the late 80’s.

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Yes, she was great in that role! I was saddened to hear of her death a few years ago. :frowning:

52

Same here. :frowning:

Alexander was released in 2004…

2005
2006
2007
2008
2009

I counted that as “5” years. Maybe you counted it as 6, which is fine. It isn’t as if I was off by 6-7 years.

53

Not to mention being part of Andy Warhol’s factory scene in the late 60’s/early 70’s. She’s had quite the life.

I recall her in Night of the Comet, which re-teamed her with Eating Raoul co-star Robert Beltran, most famous for playing Chakotay on Star Trek Voyager.

54

E.J. Peaker was a wholesome, bubbly sort who was in the movie version of Hello Dolly, was in several TV series in the '70’s. Love, American Style kind of stuff, and a sit-com with Robert Morse. (For some reason, I always picture her wearing a babydoll nightie.) The only reason she stuck in my memory is because I read Andy Warhol wanted to put her in one of his movies. That just did not compute!

55

How about Paige Moore, who played the lovely Cindy Lite in The Wizard of Speed and Time? Only role listed for her on IMDB.

56

I was under the impression that Paige Moore wasn’t an actress at all. She was just a friend of Mike Jittlov who offered to help him with the low-budget film he was making by appearing in it.

57

That’s a fair point, and I’m forced to agree. (Though I think he dabbled quite a bit more in the blockbuster pool than you give him credit for. Phone Booth was billed as such, Minority Report was, and in addition to SWAT, The Recruit certainly aimed to be a blockbuster. So too with Daredevil.)

Regardless of the reason, his career trajectory has been decidedly downward since his blockbuster heyday back when he was wondering aloud what being the next “it” guy even meant. Whether he did it by choice or fought against the “decline” tooth and nail, the result is the same from the context of the movie-going public.

It would be sort of like saying Bridget Fonda didn’t vanish, she chose to leave show business to raise a family. Despite it being by choice, she’s still not making movies.

heh, six of one, half-dozen of another. I originally wrote that he’d only headlined one major feature since Alexander, but that didn’t seem to convey the length of time well enough to me. So I changed it to one high profile project in five years. As to how I got that figure, 2009 - 2004 = 5.

No worries. I take your point and hopefully you take mine.