Phoebe Cates
Hollywood is a place of miracles and helps many make their dreams come true but there are a number of actors who just came to earn fame and left without any further news. Who was it?
Read on to find out.
Phoebe Cates
Phoebe Cates in a red bikini in Fast Times at Ridgemont High is one of the enduring images of 1980s Hollywood.
However, Cates abruptly gave up acting to focus on her family in 1994 – only returning to the big screen for her 2001 appearance in Fast Times co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh’s The Anniversary Party.
Tara Reid
Cates also opened a little store in New York in 2005.
Tara Reid
Tara Reid is no longer the up-and-coming star she was after 1999 mega-hitAmerican Pie or even 2002’s Van Wilder.
Freddie Prinze Jr.
The intervening years saw her mostly in the press for her partying ways, while her most memorable recent role was in 2013’s Sharknado.
Teen heartthrob Freddy Prize Jr.
Freddie Prinze Jr.
was the king of teen flicks in the 90’s, starring in films such as I Know What You Did Last Summer and She’s All That.
Despite Prinze’s financial success in teen rom-com’s, Freddie left the industry after several animated film ventures flopped.
Alicia Silverstone
Now Prinze enjoys time at home with his wife Sarah Michelle Gellar, and it releasing his first cookbook in 2015.
Alicia Silverstone’s resume is extensive without being particularly noteworthy.
Alicia Silverstone
Indeed, everyone still remembers her primarily as stylish Cher Horowitz from 1995’s Clueless.
Jonathan Taylor Thomas
She has three movies set for release in 2016, though, so this may just be her year.
Jonathan Taylor Thomas
In the ’90s Jonathan Taylor Thomas was a star of sitcom Home Improvement and Disney’s The Lion King, but he seemingly stopped movie and TV work altogether in 2006.
Thomas had kept himself busy, though, having enrolled at Harvard in 2000 and eventually graduating from Columbia in 2010.
Macaulay Culkin
He finally returned to the small screen in 2013 with a guest spot in Tim Allen’s sitcom Last Man Standing.
Child stars don’t come much bigger than Macaulay Culkin was in his time.
Macaulay Culkin
But after 1994 flop Richie Rich, the Home Alone star disappeared completely for nine years – during which time he was briefly married.
Amanda Bynes
Since then, Culkin has been hauled in for drug possession, acted in several small movies and started a novelty band called The Pizza Underground.
Amanda Bynes
Former child star Amanda Bynes was a star of the small and silver screens in the early 2000s, making her movie debut with 2002 comedy Big Fat Liar.
Sadly, Bynes’ recent battles with mental illness have been well documented, which is perhaps why in 2012 she claimed to be “retired” from Hollywood.
Renée Zellweger
Her last movie role was in 2010’s Easy A.
Renée Zellweger
In 2014 Renée Zellweger turned heads at the annual Elle Magazine Women in Hollywood Awards – leading to speculation that she’d had extensive plastic surgery during the self-imposed hiatus she’d been on since 2010’s My Own Love Song.
Randy Quaid
Still, with The Whole Truth due out later this year and two movies scheduled for release in 2016, Zellweger is now well and truly on the comeback trail.
Randy Quaid
Randy Quaid thinks that the “Hollywood Star Whackers” are trying to end him, which may explain why he hasn’t worked in Tinseltown since 2009.
Chuck Norris
The troubled actor did, however, make headlines in early 2015, when he uploaded tapes of himself calling out his harassers and then having sex with his wife – who creepily sported a Rupert Murdoch mask.
Chuck Norris
It seems that everybody knows Chuck Norris’ name, but that may have more to do with the “Chuck Norris Facts” internet meme than any actual acting.
Meg Ryan
Indeed, the erstwhile action star has only had three credits in the past ten years – namely, for his roles in The Cutter and a Walker, Texas Ranger TV movie in 2005 and in The Expendables 2 in 2012.
Meg Ryan
Formerly “America’s Sweetheart,” rom-com queen Meg Ryan took a six-year break from movies between 2009 and 2015.
Emilio Estevez
In fact, she moved away from Hollywood completely, relocating to New York in order to focus on family.
Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez hasn’t been making headlines in the same way as his brother Charlie Sheen, but the former Brat Pack member has been forging a quietly impressive resume nonetheless.
Jennifer Grey
Indeed, his directorial efforts Bobby and The Way were met with praise, but there has been nothing since 2010.
Jennifer Grey
Jennifer Grey blames her “nose job from hell” for ruining her career after Dirty Dancing.
Hayden Christensen
In 2012 she told the Mirror, “I went into the operating room a celebrity and came out anonymous.” She did win Dancing with the Stars in 2010, though.
Hayden Christensen
In December 2015 erstwhile Anakin Skywalker Hayden Christensen told the Los Angeles Times that he took a break from Hollywood because he felt his fame was “too handed” to him.
Mary Stuart Masterson
He was a casual farmer for a time, and he’s had a handful of under-seen screen credits too.
Mary Stuart Masterson
Coming to prominence with a leading role in 1987’s Some Kind of Wonderful, Mary Stuart Masterson has unfortunately made few appearances on screen in recent times.
Ralph Macchio
Indeed, her last film role was in 2006 film The Insurgents, and she has only made guest appearances in TV in the years following.
Ralph Macchio
Everybody knows Ralph Macchio as the butt-kicking Daniel LaRusso from 1984’s Karate Kid, and perhaps that’s why the actor has never really managed to capitalize on that film’s success.
Debra Winger
His most notable recent role, for example, was as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars in 2011.
Debra Winger
Three-time Academy Award-nominee Debra Winger surprised everyone when she spurned Hollywood in the mid 1990s.
Rick Moranis
In 2002 she told the Guardian of her decision, “I looked around and thought: it’s time to go.” She has had a handful of credits since 2008, though.
How great would it be to see funnyman Rick Moranis on screen again?
Rick Moranis
Sadly, the comedian mostly gave up acting when his wife died, and his most recent live-action movie was direct-to-video 1997 sequel Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves.
Neve Campbell
Since then Moranis has only occasionally lent his voice to things, most lately the 2006 Disney movie sequel Brother Bear.
Neve Campbell
Neve Campbell hasn’t strictly disappeared; you can still find her popping up in bit-parts on TV or in indie films.
Sean Connery
But it’s fair to say that she hasn’t been front-and-center since the Scream films, and the last one, Scream 4, was out in 2011.
Sean Connery
Screen legend Sean Connery officially announced his Hollywood departure in 2006, meaning that 2003’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was his last live-action crusade – and even a fourth Indiana Jones outing couldn’t pique his interest.
Val Kilmer
In 2012 Connery did, however, briefly return to voice the titular character in low-key British animated movie Sir Billi.
Val Kilmer
The early ’90s was Val Kilmer’s time, with the actor praised for his performances in the likes of Tombstone and The Doors.
Daniel Day-Lewis
He’s since perhaps become more famous for his off-camera antics, though, and is reported to be on a “hiatus” from Hollywood.
Daniel Day-Lewis
Britain’s Daniel Day-Lewis has won more Best Actor Oscars than anybody else and after 2012 biopic Lincoln is enjoying a “lie down” for at least “a couple of years” – if not more.
Thora Birch
It wouldn’t be the first time, either, as Day-Lewis’ last break from Hollywood saw him make not a single silver-screen appearance between 1997’s The Boxer and 2002’s Gangs of New York.
Thora Birch
Despite being a star of 1999 Oscar-guzzler American Beauty and 2001 cult fave Ghost World, Thora Birch told the Guardian in 2014 that she was “looking for an agent.”
Gene Hackman
She said of her post-Beauty career, “I was always working, it’s just that no one was paying attention.”
Gene Hackman
Gene Hackman is another Hollywood legend who’ll probably never grace the screen again.
He confirmed his retirement from acting in 2008, with 2004’s Welcome to Mooseport then becoming seemingly his last movie.
Alison Lohman
In 2011, however, Hackman told GQ that maybe – just maybe – he’d work once more if the producers came up with a way to film at his home without “disturbing anything.”
Alison Lohman
Alison Lohman rose to fame with 2003’s Big Fish and made something of a splash in 2009 horror Drag Me To Hell.
Joe Pesci
But in 2010 Lohman took time out from Tinseltown to have a son, then welcomed another child before finally returning to screens with the low-key role of “Psych Patient” in 2015’s The Vatican Tapes.
Joe Pesci is another face we miss seeing on screen.
Joe Pesci
Shockingly, the Goodfellas star made his retirement official in 1999 when he was 56 years old.
Damon Waynas
Nevertheless, Pesci did go on to make a cameo appearance in buddy Robert De Niro’s 2006 movie The Good Shepherd and also starred in 2010 drama Love Ranch.
While the career of his son Damon Wayans, Jr. may be on the rise, Damon Wayans, Sr.
Damon Waynas
hasn’t had a single credit since 2011.
Annabella Sciorra
And that may be set to continue, as he last hit the headlines in September 2015 for calling the Bill Cosby accusers “unrapeable.”
Annabella Sciorra caught everyone’s eye in 1991 Spike Lee joint Jungle Fever and again in the early ’00s as Tony Soprano’s gumar Gloria in HBO’s The Sopranos.