# Who were the most famous people when you were growing up who have completely disappeared? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 22, 2016, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761 "2016-11-22T19:33:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/121 "2016-11-23T19:17:25Z")
(Haven’t seen this one mentioned yet…apologies if someone already picked him) Before my time, but Vaughn Meader was HUGE in the early 1960s, winning a Grammy award for Album of the Year for his impersonation of President Kennedy. His career ended for obvious reasons on November 22, 1963. They really should make a movie about this guy’s life. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/122 "2016-11-23T19:36:53Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > Come to think of it, is Qantas still in business? I used to love the commercials with the koala grumbling “I hate Qantas”. [The airline’s still operating](http://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/home/us/en?rgn_cam=us:qf:sem:Qantas+Only%7CBranded+E-_GOOGLE_qantas&gclid=CjwKEAiAmdXBBRD0hZCVkYHTl20SJACWsZj9DKXWK9MWgism-yS1YWr0id3ZJ4sV68g1o2oB4st1ThoC5_rw_wcB), and I’ve even seen a commercial (albeit sans koala) in the past year. [Jack Douglas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Douglas_(writer)) and his wife [Reiko](http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwtv/article/Popular-TV-Talk-Show-Panelist-Reiko-Douglas-Dies-at-77-20130911#), as they were invariably introduced, were ubiquitous talk-show guests during the 1960’s and '70’s. Unless you lived through those decades, however, you’ve likely never heard of them. ---
**Author:** ![Reluctant\_A](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@Reluctant\_A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reluctant_A)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/123 "2016-11-23T19:38:47Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Your parents wouldn’t let you watch movies when you were a kid?!? :dubious: :eek: 😕 To partially co-sign what @ **Ulf the Unwashed** had to say, I was also not a movie person as a kid, and even less so now (aside from kung fu flicks and MCU movies) since I basically quit watching movies cold turkey in 1999. Unlike **Ulf** , my parents were much bigger movie fans than I am… just not ‘those’ kind of movies. To paraphrase a line from Michael Irvin… Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, et al. didn’t play to our constituency. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/124 "2016-11-23T20:17:28Z")
Yeah, Gerald McRaney is all over the place, which is why I didn’t include him. I perked up when I saw him in **Deadwood** , **Justified** and **House of Cards**. Of course I forgot about Tim Reid in Simon & Simon. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/125 "2016-11-23T21:35:26Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Farrah Fawcett is a great example. At least from the perspective of a kid, she was more or less THE iconic face (and hair) of the 1970s, and was so in a way that I haven’t seen since. > > And she was really only famous for being on “Charlie’s Angels” and a certain swimsuit poster. She’s most famous for that, but interestingly though AFTER she became famous for"Angels", she proved that she was a genuinely talented actor in the off-Broadway play (and movie version of the play) “Extremities” and the TV movie “the Burning Bed.” Sadly, everyone has forgotten that and only remembers the poster and “Angels”. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/126 "2016-11-23T21:58:55Z")
Jimmy Hoffa. ---
**Author:** ![f.coli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eada6e/32.png) [@f.coli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/f.coli)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/127 "2016-11-23T22:30:07Z")
Brooke Shields. No doubt she is on some TV show that I don’t watch. But she was a household name at one point, and now she isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![DrForrester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@DrForrester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrForrester)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2016, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/128 "2016-11-23T22:37:41Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Just don’t ask him to sing “Alice’s Restaurant.” I saw him in Ann Arbor, MI. Someone asked for “Alice”. His explanation of why he no longer performs Alice was actually LONGER than Alice would’ve been. Oh, and then, a few years later, he did a big 40th Anniversary of Alice tour. Gosh, that was 2006. So, maybe he’s doing a 50th Anniversary of Alice tour now… My contribution - Rick Moranis. He got famous, then retired. I really miss Steve Martin, Dana Carvey, Adam Sandler, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtain, Bob Newhart, and Elayne Boosler. They all had hits in the 1980s that I really enjoyed… then, faded, some more than others. (A shout out to “Third Rock From The Sun” because Jane Curtain was amazing in it!) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/129 "2016-11-24T00:05:28Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Farrah Fawcett is a great example. At least from the perspective of a kid, she was more or less THE iconic face (and hair) of the 1970s, and was so in a way that I haven’t seen since. > > And she was really only famous for being on “Charlie’s Angels” and a certain swimsuit poster. Several years later, she played a battered wife who killed her husband in “The Burning Bed”, which was an instant classic TV movie. Doris Day is still alive and is in her 90s, and the Captain & Tennille were in the news recently because they announced that they were divorcing after more than 40 years of marriage. Daryl Dragon (the Captain) is in very poor health (IIRC Parkinson’s) and so is Val Kilmer. Kilmer denies that he has cancer, but he does not look good in recent photos. Rick Moranis scaled his career way back after his wife died, to concentrate on raising their children. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/130 "2016-11-24T00:41:40Z")
Marie Osmond is constantly on TV doing commercials for Jenny Craig or some such weight loss program. She also released a new album in April. I saw Brooke Shields in a cosmetics commercial a few days ago. She’s also still quite active in films. I wouldn’t say either one quite fits the definition of “completely disappeared.” ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/131 "2016-11-24T00:59:23Z")
> [@Don\_Draper](#): > > (snip) > > Ani Difranco Not sure I would have ever called Ani “big”; certainly not ubiquitous. Going her own way and dodging the celebrity machine are kind of her trademark, after all. She’s still touring, but she now has two children, which of course slows down the public stuff. Her last album was released in 2014, but she has one coming out in 2017. She still draws crowds; albeit, older, and with far more men and families than earlier in her career. Back in the 90’s, I can say from personal experience that being a straight guy at an Ani DiFranco concert was a lonely experience. > [@penultima\_thule](#): > > Australia Prime Minister [Harold Holt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt) ISWYDT. ::golf clap:: According to Bill Bryson, he has a memorial in Melbourne - a public pool. Aussies know irony. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/132 "2016-11-24T01:04:24Z")
> [@Reluctant\_A](#): > > Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, et al. didn’t play to our constituency. Your loss. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/133 "2016-11-24T01:15:22Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Your loss. ☹ They just don’t make stars any more. I can’t tell one Ryan from a Chris from a Tater Channing - they’re all so generic. The women, pretty much the same. Little brown hamsters, all of them, running running running on the Hollywood wheel, all in movies about men in tights. I’m not criticizing really, that’s the way of the world. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/134 "2016-11-24T01:49:13Z")
> [@Reluctant\_A](#): > > … Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, et al. didn’t play to our constituency. Isn’t that kind of like saying you never read anything by Faulkner, or Hemingway, or Joyce? ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/135 "2016-11-24T02:19:30Z")
Various Vice Presidents and candidates pretty much disappear after they lose an election or their term of office expires. In the mid 1970s one of them, William Miller (Republican nominee in 1964), even did an American Express commercial saying “Do you know me? With the American Express card, I can use it everywhere”. Some musicians can be very huge for a while and while they are still around, it’s at a far smaller level (Peter Frampton, Garth Brooks). Deanna Durbin was very popular, and highly paid, in the 1930s and 1940s but around 1950 she gave it it to get married, live in France and avoid the limelight. Tom Lehrer was making jokes about it in the mid 60s and her death in 2013 was little noticed, which she would have wanted. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/136 "2016-11-24T02:28:29Z")
> [@Reluctant\_A](#): > > Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, et al. didn’t play to our constituency. > [@jaycat](#): > > Isn’t that kind of like saying you never read anything by Faulkner, or Hemingway, or Joyce? No. I’ve seen Peck, Grant, and Stewart in movies, but I’ve never read anything by Faulkner, Hemingway, or Joyce. My taste in authors tends more towards Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, and Ed McBain/Evan Hunter. Or Peter David. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/137 "2016-11-24T02:34:22Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Several years later, she played a battered wife who killed her husband in “The Burning Bed”, which was an instant classic TV movie. Sure, but that was 1984, and she only passed away seven years ago. What did she do in the intervening quarter century? ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/138 "2016-11-24T02:55:57Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > Isn’t that kind of like saying you never read anything by Faulkner, or Hemingway, or Joyce? Maybe it’s just me (I can’t speak for my “co-signer” Reluctant A.), but this seems like a really strange comparison. I looked it up. Jimmy Stewart was indeed in _Rear Window_. It’s one of the (few) movies of his I’ve seen. I liked it. It was fun. The plotting was excellent. The acting was fine. I’m sure the “production values” were good. But the whole thing had much more in common with a novel by John Grisham or Lisa Scottoline than with _The Sound and the Fury_ or _The Old Man and the Sea_. Nothing against Grisham or Scottoline, who are good writers…but Faulkner and Hemingway they’re not. _Rear Window_ is just not in the same league with novelists like Faulkner and Hemingway. It’s not intended to be. Or, Cary Grant, who was in _Bringing Up Baby_. I remember now that he was in it. I saw that movie years ago and don’t remember it well. It was enjoyable, I do remember that. But it was a potato chip movie. Fluffy. Very, very far from the best of Faulkner, Hemingway, or Joyce. As for Peck (and I think I really have never seen anything with him in it), what do I get by watching _To Kill a Mockingbird_ that I didn’t already get out of reading the novel, which I’ve done on multiple occasions? (The other Cary Grant movie I realized I’d seen was _Suspicion_, which is god-awful. So there’s that, too.) So again: _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_ and _It’s a Wonderful Life_ on the one hand, _Ulysses_ and _Absalom, Absalom_ on the other…these are just extremely different kinds of artistic works. As I said, maybe it’s just me. But I doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![Reluctant\_A](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@Reluctant\_A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reluctant_A)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/139 "2016-11-24T06:36:32Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Your loss. ☹ I’ll take your word for it. > [@jaycat](#): > > Isn’t that kind of like saying you never read anything by Faulkner, or Hemingway, or Joyce? Well, A Farewell to Arms was required reading in my AP English class in high school, so… not exactly. Besides which, if you’re a moderately good student, and like to read, you will usually find yourself having to read multiple classic novels. Classic movies, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2016, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761/140 "2016-11-24T07:14:02Z")
The one I’ve wondered about is Bridget Fonda. She seemed to be doing very well as an actress and just disappeared. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-famous-people-when-you-were-growing-up-who-have-completely-disappeared/772761.md?page=8)