(I think Burt Reynolds somehow sabotaged Gary Sandy’s career, post-WKRP, because, Loni Anderson.)
Here are a few names that seemed BIG BIG BIG in the past, and they just fizzled out.
Mena Suvari (from ‘American Beauty’) - I read she works as a dominatrix ?
Thora Birch, ‘Ghost World’ who is a daughter of porn stars.
‘Fiona’, a rather homely singer who was on one episode of ‘Miami Vice’.
Edie Brickell, now Mrs. Paul Simon.
The cast of Northern Exposure mostly disappeared. Oh, a few worked here and there, but other than Rob Morrow and John Corbett, that was it for them.
I don’t know about Kelly Monteith, who I’ve never heard of. But Randolph Mantooth is of Native American descent. My wife has a huge crush on his 1970s self, and watches him on the reruns of * Emergency* on MeTV. I read an interview with him recently where he said that he was advised to change his name when he became an actor. He responded, “I can’t change my name. What would my father say?”
A few years ago, I had to explain to a few Millennial co-workers (a few GAY MALE Millennial co-workers) who Grace Jones was. I began by saying “She’s as 80s singer who Lady Gaga ripped off.”
Some other folks who used to be BIG!!!
Charles Grodin
Dabney Coleman
Sade
Ani Difranco
The entire cast of “Northern Exposure” (with the possible exception of John Corbett who appeared on “Sex and the City” for a couple of years)
Art Linkletter died a few years ago, aged about 100. Several years before that, he was the keynote speaking at a fundraising dinner for the domestic violence agency in the city where I was living at the time. I purchased a ticket, and ended up not going because I was sick.
Whatever happened to Mr. T? Last I heard, he was doing bit parts in some of those awful low-budget Christian movies.
When I was young, my mom used to love old movies, but I couldn’t see the attraction. It turns out I like them (well, I do now), I just don’t like the same ones my mom did. I go a little weak in the knees for Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey.
I remember in the days before VCRs that old movies would show up in theaters occasionally. I remember my mother seeing Gone With the Wind sometime about the mid-'70s. When I was ten years old, a 35-year-old movie seemed ancient. Star Wars is now 40-years-old. Maybe the question to ask, Rivkah, is whether today’s adolescents are crushing on a young Carrie Fisher.
