Actors who completely disappeared

What's her name.

Michael Schoffling from Sixteen Candles and other films.

Michael Schoffling did not disappear.

'No Mama, I don't hate the world'

Nell Potts

one of the best performances ever captured on film

Robert Tyler - Trucker on Loving

Nathan Benton, in late 90s teen cult classics Nowhere and Go.

Nathan *Bexton

The kid who played Dewey in Malcolm in the Middle.

Linda Fiorentino

I’m a big fan of MST3k and many of the actors in the movies they showed were prime candidates for disappearance — or so you’d think, but oddly enough fan sites for mst always seemed to have the life details of many of the actors — even the nobodies in the truly ghastly Coleman Francis films!

But there was one true disappearance. And that was Emby Mellay, the oddly named, dark eyed heroine of the satanic panic film “A Touch of Satan” (which always sounded to me like a feminine hygiene product). MST fans who love the trivia would just say she disappeared, and leave it at that.

So I decided to find her. And I did.

It took about three months of poking around but I eventually was able to determine that her son worked for Major League Baseball and I was able to get his email. I wrote him to tell him how interested many fans were in getting more information about her.

Eventually she emailed me! I asked her a series of polite questions which she was happy to answer. I think she was surprised to learn people were still watching the movie!

After Touch of Satan she also made “God Bless You Uncle Sam,” a movie that got shelved for years because of the star’s sudden death. When released it was retitled “Black Jack.” She still had a lot of interest in town — she was cute and could carry a role fine, and now she had experience — but she found the experience of making movies exhausting, so she just turned her back on it, got married, had kids, and went to work as an outside sales rep. She lives in Glendale.

I suspect that’s the type of post-movie life most people who “simply disappeared” actually have.

Christina McNichol owns this thread.

Traci Lind

Kristy McNichol Brian Backer

Jordan Brower, teen pinup best known for playing the lead in SPEEDWAY JUNKY (1999), and supporting roles in the tv show TEEN ANGEL (1996), and the movies THE BIG GREEN (1995) and TEXAS RANGERS (2001).

According to IMDB, he last worked on the MST3K-grade horror KILLER SCHOOLGIRLS FROM OUTER SPACE in 2011 that no-one saw and that didn’t get a DVD release, and then...nothing. He just never worked onscreen again. It’s like he hit thirty and just said, “fuck it, I’m out.”

As his social media is inaccessible/not on search engines, it’s impossible to know what he does for a living now. No-one is even sure if he still lives in Texas, his family homestate and his base while he was working.

It’s a pity, as he was talented.

R10 incredible story! Admirable sleuthing skills, too. Was she weirded out that you tracked her down?

Also, is ‘Emby’ short for anything? I’ve never heard that used as a name, for anyone or anything.

Jonathan Scott-Taylor of Damien: Omen II fame

Camp is one of my favorite go to rainy day movies and I love Daniel Letterle who played Vlad, his singing was very sweet too. He had the lead in The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life Of Ethan Green and a run in with the police and then left Hollywood forever to return to Ohio. He was no Leo, but I really liked him on screen and wished he didn’t disappear.

Sarah Holcomb - she was in "Animal House" and "Caddyshack" and had a promising career ahead of her, then just disappeared.

It's rumored she suffers from severe mental illness and has lived under family's care for years. Her brother, David Holcomb, was in a movie called "Stateside" in 2004, and the mentally ill female character in the movie is supposedly based on Sarah.

Someone listed as S.H. is thanked during that movie's closing credits, and it's believed S.H. is Sarah Holcomb.

Loren Dean?

R15, thanks! I explained it in such a way that I think was not too stalkerish and I had asked her son to give her my email so she could respond if she wanted to, so the whole thing was very low key.

Emby was her actual given name. She was named after an ancestor named Emmabeth, but her mother shortened it.

The movie isn’t great and it’s hilariously lampooned in MST, but she’s pretty good in it. She had been Estelle Batman’s secretary and Estelle thought she showed real promise as an actress.

Perhaps not what the OP is looking for, but I've always wondered what happened to the actor (Jorge Julião) who played Lilica in the Brazilian film Pixote. His last credit is from 1987 and he never had a real acting career, although he was talented.

I assume he was a sex worker in real life (most actors in the film were street kids) and I wonder if he died of AIDS.

Harman, not Batman, darned autocorrect lol

Lisa Hart Carroll, who played Emma Horton’s bestie in [italic]Terms of Endearment[/italic]. It was a potential stepping stone career wise, but she disappeared after. Her character was played by the woefully miscast Miranda Richardson in the mediocre sequel.

Jeremy Spenser. Appeared in movies and TV in 50s and 60s, up to about age 30, then disappeared.

Some of these people haven't completely disappeared.

There are recent-ish pictures of Brian Backer online.

Kristy McNichol largely dropped out the public eye after Empty Nest, but eventually resurfaced to give a rare interview or convention appearance.

Denise Miller

R15 I have a friend named Mary Beth (MB) who we all call "Emby"...

Michael Sacks.

Harvard grad who later had starring roles in “Slaughterhouse Five” and “The Sugarland Express.” And in a Broadway flop play, “Kennedy’s Children.”

Nothing much since.

[quote]Kristy McNichol largely dropped out the public eye after Empty Nest, but eventually resurfaced to give a rare interview or convention appearance.

I recall she retired from acting because she was dealing with bipolar disorder. She taught drama classes as a private LA high school for awhile.

Actor Ron Rich had third billing in the movie "The Fortune Cookie" (1966) after Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. He then made on other feature film in 1968 called "Chubasco" and a handful of television credits after that. His last IMDb acting credit is an episode of "Taxi" in 1978. Nothing since then. He's still alive at 82. Did he take another job? Have trouble with alcohol, substance abuse? Anyone know?

Barry Miller.

I was about to mention Jeremy Spenser. He really fell off the radar

Ron Rich was really handsome. I assume that, as a black man, roles in the 60s and 70s weren't easy to come by. Beyond that, I don't know.

Dennis Franz

Dennis Franz made enough money to retire from acting after NYPD Blue. He's very rarely been seen since then, but did resurfaced in recent years to present at 2016 Emmy's and occasionally grant an interview or comment on something like Steven Bochco's death.

R34 YES! What became of Dennis Franz? He was huge on NYPD Blue...

R35 Thanks.

Brian Backer has small roles in Amy Heckerling's underappreciated gem "Loser" and "Vamps." He is also a Tony winner for the Woody Allen play "The Floating Light Bulb."

The lead boy in Pixote was killed by police a few years after the movie came out.

Emily Lloyd, poor thing. She was dynamic - but of course suffered from severe mental illness. There have been articles done on her in the past few years. She is living quietly in England. Looks like shes bounced back a little - but lives in a little East London flat by herself..

Jonathan Gilbert from Little House

[quote] Emily Lloyd, poor thing. She was dynamic - but of course suffered from severe mental illness. There have been articles done on her in the past few years. She is living quietly in England. Looks like shes bounced back a little - but lives in a little East London flat by herself..

I met Emily in the late 80s when she was in NYC filming Cookie. My best friend met her at a club and they became fast friends, and she dragged me everywhere with her, even though I was too young to get in most places (but I did). I can recall many nights hanging out in Emily's hotel suite, watching Knots Landing in her bedroom by myself while everyone else partied in the living room.

I completely disappeared in the role of a Polish immigrant in 1982. I won the Oscar for it too.

Tommy Dix, the amazing singer in "Best Foot Forward" (1943). If still alive, he would be 97. The IMDB doesn't list a death date for him, but said he was last known to be living in Virginia.

Most people haven’t ever heard of these actors at any time. Pfffft!

G.

Oh, wait. I thought it read Actors who should have completely disappeared.

I posted this about Robert Tyler in the AS THE WORLD TURNS thread. It got no response though. Admittedly, it wasn’t easy to find. Barry Kaufman is Tyler’s real name.

From the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Peter Ostrum who played Charlie Bucket went on to become a veterinarian.

This was his only film role, having turned down a three-film contract after the film wrapped.

Luise Rainer has dropped off the face of the Earth.

I wonder what she’s up to.

Lani O’Grady. Where is she?!

Lani O'Grady, sister of Don Grady (My Three Sons) died a number of years ago.

Lisa Gerritsen, 'Bess', Phyllis Lindstrom's daughter on the 1970s television series The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off Phyllis.

Helen Lawson. Whatever happened to that old has been?

R48 She was canceled for playing Asian while White.

Gorgeous Madolyn Smith from Urban Cowboy got married and stopped acting. She did a great turn as Ernie Kovaks crazy ex-wife in the tv biopic that starred Jeff Goldblum. She also played Gloria Swanson opposite William Peterson as Joe Kennedy in the Kennedy movie based on the Doris Kearns Goodwin book.

Joey Heatherton

Do we know if Amanda Bynes is even alive at this point?

R10, I want to know you. I bet we’d be friends.

Dawn Lyn

Bruce Jenner.

He was all over reality TV and Wheaties boxes and now you never see him at all.

R46 That is a different Barry Kaufman. Not that same one that also known as Robert Tyler.

About 5-6 years ago, there were a few Loving threads and Robert/Barry disappearing (along with how hot he was) was talked about. There was nothing online about him after 2005, when was a picture of him attending the Academy Awards with a woman who worked behind the scenes at Universal (likely his then girlfriend). I even looked through his brother and sisters Facebook pages and no trace of him there either back then.

Well, I found his brothers facebook page again, and two years ago he posted some pics of Robert with him and their sister. He looks older, but still good for 59, which was how old he was in the pictures. Here they are for those who want to see the ever elusive Robert/Barry.

R60, thanks for the correction. Here all this time I thought I’d found him. The Barry Kaufman I posted does resemble him a lot I think if you give him a beard.

[quote]Do we know if Amanda Bynes is even alive at this point?

She has a Twitter account and an Instagram account

R62 I don’t know who that girl is in the picture, but that ain’t the Amanda I know. She’s disappeared.

Barry Miller is a good one. He just seemed so bitter about being an actor and then seemingly dropped out of sight.

Jonathan Gilbert fits to a tee.

I would add Jimmy Baio, best known for SOAP.

Alison Arngrim said in an interview some time ago that Jonathan Gilbert occasionally got in touch with her over the years. According to her, he travels abroad a lot. I think I also remember hearing he also occasionally got in touch with both Katherine MacGregor and Richard Bull before they died as well.

Nan Woods, who played Cherry White the first season and a half of the TV show China Beach. She was one of the main characters, but supposedly asked to leave the show so the character was killed off. Evidently she decided acting wasn't for her and left the business. She was only 22.

Amanda Bearse -- Marcy from "Married with Children".

OH, wow. Thanks, r60. It's so weird to see him older. He always seemed frozen in time.

Not to knock him now, but I prefer to remember Robert Tyler as Trucker back in the '90s.

Has anyone mentioned Tobey Maguire? Leo’s old fuck buddy hasn’t been seen in years.

What happened to the”Bear” after he went trucking with BJ? It wasn’t him that was made over into Bubbles was it?

Martin Hewitt, who played Brooke Shield's teenage lover in the dreadful "Endless Love.." His career basically went nowhere after that.

After "Alias Smith and Jones" bit the dust Ben Murphy's career tanked. I don't think he ever had another acting success after that.

He was a cutie.

Jeremy Garrett. Had a crush on him when I was 13. Then I forgot about him. IMDB shows no credits in the past ten years or so.

R69 It was a little weird seeing him older. He always looked younger than this his actual age. He was 28 when he stated on Loving and left right before turning 35. I think the soap press once gave his birth year as 1964 (it was actually 1960) and no one probably questioned it. He was so good looking back then - the hottest guy to ever appear on a soap in my opinion. He doesn't look bad, especially for a 59-year-old and seems in pretty good shape for that age but most people hit their peaks in looks in their 20s and 30s - but aging catches up to everyone eventually.

I'm curious to what he's been up to post dropping out of the public eye, but I suspect that will continue to remain a mystery. He seems content to lead a low profile out of the spotlight.

August Sehven, born Gary Richard Grove in Oklahoma City in 1946, was a stunning beauty whose sole appearance on film was as the ill-fated Paul in 𝐄𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐧 (1973), after which he left acting and focused on modeling and training models, until his death in 2003. He appears to have been family.

Tom Eplin from Another World

R77 I remember hearing a few years back that Eplin was a used car salesman in California and also at one point owned/co-owned some apartment buildings in California as well.

[quote]I assume he was a sex worker in real life (most actors in the film were street kids) and I wonder if he died of AIDS.

I found a photo of Jorge from 2105. He appears to be involved with a dance troupe.

Google is your friend. He's on the left in this photo.

Connor Paolo ....Once they offed him from Revenge he has barely worked. He seemed headed to come out but it never happened...Video Clip is from "Favorite Son"---and their movie relationship seems creepy : Moms boyfriend gets interested in her teenage son and takes him swimming shirtless?.... Never saw it.

Oooops, that should have been: "I found a photo of Jorge from 2015. "

R80 Connor Paolo still acts, so he doesn’t fit the premise of the thread.

Kate Jackson owns this thread!

Kate Jackson's travails have made the tabloids. It's not a mystery

Catherine Burns.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas. He stopped acting to go to college and then never returned to acting or transitioned to any other kind of career as far as I can tell. He's also 39 and never married, which seems surprising.

William McNamara

R48, Around 32 degrees, Rose.

John and Joan Cusack

had a HUGE crush on William McNamara in High School.............

William McNamara was hot

How’s about actors who disappear into a part? I for one an hour in kept waiting for Nicole Kidman to show up in the Hours until someone told me.

Whatever happened to Taylor Lautner?

The last thing he did was that Cuckoo series three years ago. "Run the Tide", his most recent movie, was five years ago.

He's still young (29) and good looking.

Donde esta Taylor Lautner...?!?!?!?

Let’s face it who expected Kaley Cukco do anything but disappear into the ether after Big Bang. Girl really beat the odds, but I heard she’s upset she does make the same rate she did on BB.

Taylor Lautner can’t act and he doesn’t know he’s gay.

But a lot of casting directors do.

Michelle Meyrink - She was in [italic]Real Genius, Revenge of the Nerds[/italic] and [italic]Valley Girl[/italic] and was good in them. Poof.

Brett Butler

The lovely Leonard Whiting (most recently watched in the bizarre ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN). Pretty much out of the picture by the age of 25.

He's 71 this year.

Beautiful actresses Tuesday Weld, Joanna Pettet both dropped out when they were still rather beautiful and could have got a lead or two on a series surely.

Ken Wahl. I know he married a Barbi twin but he completely fell out of acting.

Also, Bridget Fonda.

Both "accidents"

Samantha Eggar, Julie Christie

I thought I read somewhere that Julie Christie has Alzheimer's and that's why she rarely works

Dan Futterman

Beautiful Joan Prather who played Grant Goodeve’s wife on Eight is Enough. As I recall, I think that she was the one who introduced John Travolta to Scientology. Other than maybe a Love Boat I haven’t seen her in anything in years..... Also Gary Frank who played son Willie in “Family.” He was so handsome - I remember on the show he always seemed to wear a black turtle neck and faded jeans.

[quote]Jonathan Scott-Taylor of Damien: Omen II fame

There were rumors that he was repelled by the number of creepy stalkers he/the character attracted and went on to change his name and drop out of sight.

Here's a good one: the child actor Michael-James Wixted. He was in dozens of TV shows and movies from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s and then just stopped. There's even a webpage for people looking for him.

Omar Townsend who played Mustafa in "Party Girl." That's his only imdb credit. He was so good-looking but I guess uninterested in playing the Hollywood game. There's zero information about him online as far as I can tell. I recall an interview with Parker Posey where she mentioned he didn't like working with her or maybe women in general. I'm assuming staunch Muslim but it makes me wonder how he got involved in the movie to begin with.

A little OT, but was Richard Simmons ever found?

r104, Dan Futterman hasn't disappeared. He just shifted into writing/directing. Still looked good as of a few years ago.

Sammi Davis of Hope and Glory, Mona Lisa, worked with Ken Russell several times including a triumphant sexual role in his filmed ‘The Rainbow’. She came to America, did even more cult projects then sadly retired from acting. Of course I’ve looked her up and she seems very well. Does anyone have any more info on her?

[quote]William McNamara

Found him, he’s still acting in small roles.

[quote]Sammi Davis of Hope and Glory

I loved Hope and Glory when I was a kid.

From Wikipedia (but there are no source links to confirm this:

[quote]Davis was married to the director Kurt Voss, whom she later divorced. After taking a few years out of the film industry to raise her family, she returned to the screen in a cameo role on Lost, playing the mother of Dominic Monaghan's character. She moved back to Britain in Christmas 2008 and married again on 21 June 2009 to Simon Drew, a children's TV show producer. She now lives in Sussex with her family. She works as a photographer.

111 - Sami Davis was really good in Homefront - the ABC series about WW2 with Kyle Chandler, John Slattery and MiMi Kennedy. A lot of good actors disappeared from that show - the girl who played the Italian war bride and Tammy Lauren etc

[quote]Bridget Fonda

She officially retired

Deborah Foreman, the lead in Valley Girl, I believe? I suppose using a different actress on the film's posters to promote the film.

IIRC, Michelle Meyrink dated that nut job Crispin Glover.

I don't think so, r103. At least I haven't heard of that. She did play a woman with Alzheimer's in "Away from Her."

Meyrink retired back in Canada, raised a family and opened an acting school.

Charles Laulette

Someone who runs a social media account knows Kate Jackson personally and is in touch with her. So we got the chance to write a personal message to her. People from all over the world. And Kate loved the surprise and responded with a Thank You message which was very sweet.

The actor who played Julian Crane on Passions. The original Ethan and second Gwen have a Passions Podcast and they said nobody knows where he is at.

Any actor who stands behind or beside of me in a scene. My talent is too big to contain in a tent, I mean specialty sized dresses from Big and Beautiful...

Leelee Sobieski. She was on track to be the next Helen Hunt, but it was all apparently an accident.

Tuesday Weld is said to have retired from acting. She is 77. Wiki's last news on her is "Weld sold her beach house in Montauk, New York, in the late 2000s and moved to Carbondale, Colorado. In 2018, she left Colorado and bought a $1.8 million home in the Hollywood Hills." I always found her overrated anyway and don't get why everybody was always offering her the primo parts.

Taylor Kitsch - everywhere from 2010-2013

Is he still alive?

Robert Duvall

R78, Tom Eplin was last seen in 2007...in some cheapo horror flick. Looks like Tom's bloated quite a bit. Maybe trying for wide-screen success?

James Olson

Stollery and Considine, AKA Spin and Marty.

Reuben Greene, who originated the role of Bernard in "The Boys in the Band" and repeated his role in the 1970 movie version, fell off the radar years ago. Filmmaker Crayton Robey released a documentary about the making of the play and movie in 2010, for which he interviewed the surviving actors, with the exception of Greene. Robey said in an interview at the time that Greene's whereabouts were unknown.

Oh come on R131. He was never ON the 'radar'...

I miss Bridget Fonda. It seems weird…quit acting, okay, but she seems to never appear anywhere or an interview.

I worked at an NYC restaurant with Johnathan Gilbert aka Willie Olsen in the 90s. He was bartending and going to college. He eventually took his series 7 and became a stock broker. Still lives in NYC.

Danny DeVito. He was in that LA movie with the ubiquitous Nicole Kidman and then completely disappeared.

I'm sure R135 is joking. Outside of various film projects he's be a regular on the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia since 2006.

Can't believe I'm the first to mention him but....MATT KEESLAR! So memorable as the goofy hunk in Waiting For Guffman as well as brilliant sexy performances in Psycho Beach Party, Splendor and Urbania.

I remember hearing he'd left show biz around 2010 to become a nurse and Wiki now says he is married with 2 kids and practicing PA-C (whatever that is) and is an Instructor of Urology at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon. Talented though he was, I admire him for realizing acting wasn't for him and giving it up to do something worthwhile with his life.

That guy who played that guy in that movie.

Also Vincent Price.

Bridget Fonda was an It girl in the early 90s but her career stalled out by the end of the decade. Her last couple of projects were pretty low-rent. She was apporaching 40 and had married well, and apparently, she also got into a car accident that left her with chronic pain. It sounds like she just got tired of the rat race and happily retired.

[quote] Martin Hewitt, who played Brooke Shield's teenage lover in the dreadful "Endless Love.." His career basically went nowhere after that.

They awful movie killed both of their film careers. James Spader and Tom Cruise ended up with the better film careers. Brooke luckily made a comeback on TV. Martin became a home inspector. Here's his website. It's a shame because I don't think he was that bad and he was so beautiful to look at.

British actor Nicholas Hoye specialized in playing malevolent posh twinks in the early 70s, starring in "Unman, Wittering and Zigo" and "Because of the Cats". He also appeared in a bunch of tv shows, but then retired from acting in his mid-20s. Can't find any information on what became of him afterwards

Hoye:

Jennifer Lawrence

The beautiful Cleatus Caldwell in SUSIE STEPS OUT (1946) .

IMDB only lists one other role as an unmilled "Indian Maid" in TWO GUYS FROM TEXAS (1948)

I'm very impressed she kept her name, which probably killed her chances of any show-biz career.

Justin Whalin. He worked steadily for 20 years, but then nothing since 2009.

Hot blondie Jeb Stuart Adams who played Chris (though he was 10 years too old for the part) in the laughably bad 80s adaptation of "Flowers in The Attic". His career didn't exactly work out.

He's now a real estate agent in California.

For someone who could have been dismissed as merely a beneficiary of Hollywood nepotism, Bridget Fonda had quite a decent career in her own right and some really memorable highlights on her film resume. She's gone, but not forgotten.

This is the most recent clip I found of Jeb Stuart Adams. He was the son of actor Nick Adams, who was bisexual and "friends" with James Dean, Elvis and others.

Zach Galligan

TV actor Wes Stern seems to have truly disappeared after his mid-'60s--early '70s career.

... and by "truly," I mean in the sense I thought the OP intended: not that their careers petered out and they moved on to other careers in relative obscurity, but that they just stopped working and no one seems to have any idea where they went after that.

Before I posted to this, I wanted to see if someone had already mentioned Sarah Holcomb…of course someone had, not to mention that some version of the same thread emerges like a wart every year or two…which begs the question…will datalounge ever index posts? So it’s not like a fucking echo chamber?

Margaret Nelson who played Sara in Picnic at Hanging Rock has not been heard of since the late 1970s.

Refer to the last paragraph of this article:

If we include those actors who never made it to even one supporting role in a film, I'd say Datalounge is full of these failed actors and singers. Even Cheryl can smell their envy and schadenfreude in here.

Cathy Tyson. She was MONA LISA directed by Neil Jordan. The Serpent And The Rainbow, and a small role in the film PRIEST with Linus Roache playing a gay priest and that was it .

She kind of looks like Jay Davidson from The Crying Game in this photo, which was also directed by Neil Jordan. Coincidence?

It's "Jaye."

R151, R152 Not only that, but in these threads people always bring up actors who are still actively acting. Usually in lower profile stuff, but a quick check of the IMDb or Wikipedia would likely show what they were up to more recently.

Dan Montgomery

[quote]I remember hearing he'd left show biz around 2010 to become a nurse and Wiki now says he is married with 2 kids and practicing PA-C (whatever that is)

A certified physician assistant (PA-C) is a healthcare provider similar to a nurse practitioner, basically a rung below an MD.

she didn't completely disappear but Mary Kay Adams, who slayed on Guiding Light as India, popped up as one of those human interest pieces on line Humans of New York; she works as a teacher for the deaf.

She always played a little older than she is...she could still have a comeback playing matriarchs.

Patti Duke won an Oscar as a teen and made that bomb of all time Valley of The Dolls and I don't think she's worked since? Her fame was decades before I was born but I've seen A Miracle Worker in some school class and my granny told me that Patti had a TV series once but might have jumped off a building? I don't think that is true because she has grown children. The Duke brothers. Did Patti ever get work as an adult?

Patti Duke died of sepsis in 2016; link to her wiki below

I recall she did a Police Woman episode playing an extremely sympathetic character; she was the target of a hit, was about to get on a bus to go home to see her kid, and stopped to get him a toy (BIG MISTAKE); the toy cost her her life when a hitman got her...I remember the toy hitting the ground? Not sure. I was 9 or 10 years old.

It was extremely sad and stayed with me all these years.

Ed Furlong

Crackhead

Nick Stahl his life has been destroyed by a very bad drug habit.

R165 and 164 have no idea what "disappeared" means apparently

Catherine Burns's story (see R85) is fascinating. Before the [italic]Hollywood Reporter[/italic] story came out, I only knew her from her TV appearances. The one I remember best was her guest spot on [italic]Medical Center,[/italic] in which she played a crazy woman who attacked people with acid.

R73 beat me to it, but WHET Brandon Call (J.T. from [italic]Step by Step[/italic])?

R162 Actually, Bo and Luke Duke were Patti’s cousins, not her kids. She also dated Lucie Arnaz, but Lucille Ball was so against the relationship she had Patti blackballed. I don’t know anything about people jumping off buildings.

[quote]R139: Bridget Fonda was an It girl in the early 90s but her career stalled out by the end of the decade. Her last couple of projects were pretty low-rent. She was apporaching 40 and had married well, and apparently, she also got into a car accident that left her with chronic pain. It sounds like she just got tired of the rat race and happily retired.

[quote]R147: For someone who could have been dismissed as merely a beneficiary of Hollywood nepotism, Bridget Fonda had quite a decent career in her own right and some really memorable highlights on her film resume. She's gone, but not forgotten.

Accident aside, there has been speculation that Weinstein also played a role in her retirement.

Klinton Spilsbury, one of the most handsome men to have ever appeared in moving pictures.

Karen Cellini

Leslie Ann Powers played Penny Pingleton in the original Hairspray when she was 16 (it was Amanda Bynes in the remake). It's her only credit. I vaguely remember reading that her on-set experience convinced her to choose a different career.

Amanda Bynes has more significantly disappeared. In that she actually had a career. Though she was terrible as Penny.

Can't remember if I already mentioned this way upthread months ago, but I did a play with Catherine Burns in the early 1980s, long after the height of her fame in LAST SUMMER. It was probably one of her last professional acting credits. I remember her as sweet but very melancholy, almost depressive, and quiet and very private, though she was brilliant in the play.

I can't imagine how bad an experience Leslie Ann Powers could have had on Hairspray, which by all accounts was a pretty fun set.

One credit on a cheap John Waters film does not an actress make. What's so hard to understand? She didn't like it.

R18

The pedo Scott Bairstow

Brad Renfro

Shalane McCall who played Priscilla Presley’s daughter for 5 seasons on Dallas. Very pretty and supposedly dated brad Pitt when she was 15 or 16. Also had a stage mother and got married in 1989 at 17 and faded into obscurity.

Google is your friend for most of these “missing” individuals.

Maybe he's already listed here, but James Franco. We know why and good riddance. Dude has a tattoo of Brad Renfro on his body. Franco is all kinds of bad news and sexual deviance.

R150, Wes Stern lives in the Los Angeles area. He’s in his mid-70’s now.

Has anyone mentioned Billy Warlock? No credits since 2011.

Amanda Bynes is on TMZ occasionally, R174. Not for acting, but she's still a celeb. I expect to see her on 'Dancing with the Stars' someday.

Erik Per Sullivan who played Dewey on Malcolm In The Middle. He was a busy child actor but has disappeared since Malcolm ended. Last IMDb credit was in 2010 and no active social media. He didn’t show up for a 2012 reunion event that the rest of the cast attended. Several years ago there was an anonymous Reddit AMA from a former child actor that many assumed to be Sullivan. It detailed abuse on the set of the show and adults in power turning a blind eye. I’m not convinced it was true or that it was Sullivan posting but I imagine it’s still archived at CDAN if anyone is interested.

R171 - and Klinton Spilsbury's voice disappeared even before he did because his voice ended up being dubbed in that one movie he made.

I just saw Cathy Tyson in a BBC series. She has 5 credits in 2021 alone.

Crystal Bernard’s last IMDb credit was 2008 and she seems to have completely disappeared. There’s a Twitter account with her name but it’s not authenticated and seems likely it’s not actually her. She was so omnipresent in the 80s and 90s it’s surprising she disappeared so completely. I would have expected Hallmark movies or appearances on talk shows or even the 700 Club or something.

DL should get together a fund to hire a private investigator to hunt down Ken Wahl and take a bunch of pictures of him now. Probably bald and fat, though.

R185 Billy is a ski instructor in Telluride, Colorado. If you want to see him pay for ski lessons.

[quote]Jeremy Garrett. Had a crush on him when I was 13. Then I forgot about him. IMDB shows no credits in the past ten years or so.

He's now a successful interior designer based in LA and Montreal, R74.

Traci Lind. A blogger did get to do an interview a while back but she didn’t say much. A doctor’s wife. I imagine she’s still beautiful.

K.C. Martel

Barry Miller

Dennis Franz

Monica Horan

Veronica Hamel

Miss Kay Lenz

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Susan St. James

Heath Ledger

Veronica Cartwright!

Soap-opera buffs of a certain vintage can help out here:

I recall from long ago a soap star whose first name (I think) was Robert.

He was very hot, and they constantly showed him off, as in appearing wearing nothing but a very small towel held against his parts that didn't quite go all the way around.

Then there was some trouble, but I don't think we ever knew what it was. I believe he was fired and all the soaps turned their back on him.

Does anyone know whom I mean?

Is it Victor Newman R199? My great granny lusted after him.

I haven't read this whole thread to see if he has already been mentioned, but apparently the actor who played Bernard in the original film of THE BOYS IN THE BAND dropped out of sight in later years, and the surviving people who worked on the film had no idea if he was even still alive.

Aileen Quin was on top of the world in 1982 and a year later had completely disappeared!

P. J. Johnson - she played Madeline Kahn’s maid, Imogene, in Paper Moon. I thought she was brilliant, and she never did another film.

Brian Bloom

Christine Nordern.

Barbara Stanwyck.

No, R200, the Victor Newman guy, Eric Braeden, was a mainstay of his soap for decades.

The one I'm thinking of was by comparison a drive=by of an actor, also very slim and constantly unshirted, which wasn't true of Braeden.

And I'm pretty sure his name was Robert something.

E. J. Peaker

Agree, r203, though she does have a credit for Bogdanovich’s Texasville from 1990. I’ve never seen it but I imagine Dairy Queen Waitress isn’t a big part. She also appeared in one episode of the Paper Moon TV series. A shame she didn’t do more because she stole all her Paper Moon scenes.

Callum Blue, was in Dead Like Me, and later played Zod on Smallville, but he doesn't seem to pop up anywhere anymore.

Scott Doebler

Buck would never appear in movies.

I can't believe a real man has a surname of 'Blue'.

r199, maybe Robert Kelker-Kelly? There was talk about him back in the day and why he was fired from Days, and he hasn't worked in a while since leaving GH.

This isn’t an actor but maybe worth mentioning because it was kind of a big underground story.

Q Lazzarus disappeared in the mid 90’s. People thought she was dead or homeless or mentally ill.

And a few years ago she was found driving a bus in NYC and said she wanted to be left alone.

R213 I'm not R199 but I think you got it. He had a bad rep among co-stars when he was on Another World and Days of Our Lives (where he was infamously fired and replaced by his predecessor Peter Reckell). Don't recall hearing anything bad about him during his stint on General Hospital though. He later became a pilot and pilot instructor.

The guy you say "Who" about.

Also we should start a thread about stars we hope would disappear like Ellen or Madonna.

Urkel. Anyone seen him?

i used to see Zach Galligan around HK about 15 yrs ago when he was living at the Gaslight, he was tall and still hot but a hetero. Back then I found out his dad founded a big law firm I used to work at but now has closed.

Elaine Giftos. She appeared on the box of a word game I had as a teen. I can't remember the name, but it involved launching a Plastic Letter and catching it.

Jack Noseworthy - another one I used to see in HK. Major hot, last I heard he was onstage in the dreadful Come from Away.

John Wilkes Booth

R218, have you heard or read the background on why Jack Noseworthy pretty much disappeared? It's not much of a secret.

R214 But that’s not proven that it’s her driving the bus.

They all but confimed that was Q Lazzarus. An Asbury Park Press newspaper article from 1994 also confirmed her real name was Diane Luckey. She just wants nothing to do with her past music career at all but lowkey put it out there was she was alive and well on a twitter account she had up for a brief time. She won't even claim signifigant music royalties due to her.

R220 no I haven't heard or read why Jack Noseworthy has disappeared, could you enlighten me?

Erica Leerhsen

Emily Lloyd of Wish you were here

[quote]I haven't heard or read why Jack Noseworthy has disappeared, could you enlighten me?

I've always guessed it was due to a combination of two reasons: (1) he really suffered from all of the bad publicity he got surrounding "Sweet Smell of Success," which came right out and claimed that director Nicholas Hytner kept pushing to enlarge Noseworthy's role because they were sleeping together, and (2) Noseworthy started to age out of being cast as a hot young thing. So, a double whammy. Fortunately, he married Sergio Trujillo, so one person in the family still has a thriving career.

WHET Lindsay Crouse?

R226, if you are not currently a wacky, tacky flacky p.r. person you should consider it. You made it sound like Noseworthy had some serious disease, or drug addiction, then you merely speculate as to why he is not a bigger star. I looked at his imdb, and he has been working steadily in film, t.v., and stage. I didn't think the Hytner p.r. was negative at the time, I thougjht it made him look like more of a stud. He should be as big as Neil Patrick Harris, he's way more sexy and talented.

[quote]I didn't think the Hytner p.r. was negative at the time, I thougjht it made him look like more of a stud. He should be as big as Neil Patrick Harris, he's way more sexy and talented.

Well, I get the impression that a lot of people did not perceive that publicity as positively as you did, to put it mildly.

Joe Piscopo

The guy who played Julian on Passions, Ben Masters. Nobody in the cast can find him!

Callum Blue has at least a few projects in the works

The three youngsters from 'Young Sherlock Holmes'

Bruce Soloman.

He played sexy Sgt Foley on 'MARY HARTMAN.'

R18, Sarah Holcomb was one of several kids who were fired during the first few weeks of Jaws 2. Ann Dusenberry was her replacement. WHET Ann?

I know Linda Manz died a few years ago but I still wonder what happened to Jackie Shultis, whose only role was as Linda’s Friend in the classic Days of Heaven. I think she was a real street kid like Manz who was discovered in NY by the casting director. I like to pronounce fur the way she did in that film-“fuh.”

R233, Nicholas Rowe still works quite a bit

I thought at least one of the two girls from 1987’s “Housekeeping” would be a breakout star at the time.

r193, thanks for the update! I'm glad that he seems to be doing well in his new career

Here you go, OP:

Patrick Houser. He hasn't been seen or heard from since a 2004 Hot Dog reunion screening.

Melinda Dillon (the mother in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”)

Yep. Linda Fiorentino owns this thread. I loved her in The Last Seduction and she had some mainstream success with Men In Black. I know she got sued over a Georgia O'Keefe biopic that was shut down after she couldn't be bothered to show up for costume fittings and she had a reputation for being a cold cunt but I'm still surprised that she suddenly stopped working except for one little movie directed by her old Jade co-star Chazz Palminteri. I assume it was her choice but she never made a lot of money as most of her stuff was indies and she came from nothing (she used to bar tend and live with her sister and Bruce Willis back in their salad days) so not sure how she's surviving. Haven't heard of her doing anything else whether in the industry or not. Did she marry some rich guy?

Joe Pichler, a child actor who was in "Varsity Blues" and several kids-themed movies (two of the "Beethoven" dog flicks and one of the "Shiloh" ones) actually disappeared in 2006 at age 18 (as in he is a legitimate missing person).

Hey, I didn't disappear. I merely "made the choice" to act in Canadian indies and shitty network TV series. I've been telling everyone it's because TV has better writers these days, but are you really buying that?

Emily Longstreth (Private Resort, Pretty in Pink, The Big Picture) was pretty visible for a short time mid 80s to the early 90s but totally disappeared after that. About 10 years ago, reports started going around on the internet that she suffered from schizophrenia and was homeless in NYC. Various people claimed to spot her, saying she was nice but obviously unwell mentally. A woman claiming to be her brother Eric's ex claimed the rumors about Emily were true also.

Her very defensive mother posted on the one of the sites talking about Emily and the way she went on about it, how great and perfect her daughter was, made one think she was majorly covering her daughters' problems (perhaps in denial too) and was probably off herself. Not long after that, her brother Eric died, he suffered from mental illness and drug addiction issues also. Someone claimed the mother died soon afterwards also, she did disappear shortly before that and always had a presence on the internet before that. Then in 2015, several people claimed Emily froze to death on streets in January of that year. Apparently, her father is still alive as well as step siblings and other extended family members, but they've kept quiet about Emily. She wasn't well known enough for some journalist to do an investigative report on it, so we may never find out what happened to her.

It's easy to track down a lot of ex-actors who got "normal" jobs. A lot of the time, if you Google them their LinkedIn page will show up, or they'll be featured on the website of the business where they work. Law, real estate, teaching and psychology seem to be popular careers for former actors.

There were many D List actors and the like from the 80s who stumbled further into obscurity, finally becoming altogether lost. They were believed to have been unhinged, delusional. Vicious. Even viscous. But then they were discovered alive, posting and reposting from the depths of DataLounge.

Ken King, the cute punk rock son who loved stomping on women's feet in Polyester, essentially dropped off the planet after that movie. He did turn up for an anniversary screening with John Waters a couple of years ago but no photographic evidence has been shown. He was quite cute in 1981, makes me wonder what he looks like today

R243 I also love The Last Seduction. I read somewhere that Tommy Lee Jones stopped her from being cast in MIB 2 because he hated her. Maybe that experience ruined movies for her.

Or maybe it was a bad rep which did her in.

[quote]r250 I also love The Last Seduction

Fiorentino was fantastic in that. Sadly, it was shut out of Oscar consideration because it aired on a cable network shortly before its theatrical release.

Did all these people turn into Norma Desmonds?

What about all those 30Something actors like Ken Olin and Patricia Wettig and Plly Draper and the sexy blonde who dated Michelle Pfeifer? I know what's become of Timothy Busfield and Melanie Mayron.

And what about the 2 kids who played the Soprano children? Meadow and Junior?

Linda Fiorentino DID get the dreaded "difficult to work with" tag that kills the careers of actresses. As far as I know, the only person who's publicly said that they didn't like working with her is Kevin Smith. She's also worked with several people more than once, which made me wonder if her reputation was real.

However, her Wikipedia has this tidbit: "In 2009, former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Mark T. Rossini pleaded guilty to illegally accessing FBI computers during the prosecution of Los Angeles private investigator Anthony Pellicano. Law enforcement officials said Fiorentino previously had a relationship with Pellicano and wanted to assist his defense.[21] According to prosecutors, Fiorentino was then dating Rossini, and told him she was researching a screenplay based on the case. He conducted searches of government computers for information related to the Pellicano case and passed the results to Fiorentino,[22] who then handed the files over to Pellicano's lawyers in a failed effort to help Pellicano avoid a 15-year prison sentence.[21]"

Also, I didn't know that crazy lady that married David Fincher and Gary Oldman is her sister!

R254 Ken Olin mostly directs and produces now, but occasionally acts. He is one of the producers of This is Us. He also produced and sometimes acted (alongside Patricia Wetting) on the show Brothers and Sisters. Wetting still does guest spots here and there.

Peter Horton (the sexy blonde) was actually married to Pfeiffer for 7 years. She credits him for helping her escape some weird cult she joined. He is also a director and producer. He is one of the producers of Grey's Anatomy.

I forgot! The actress that played Meadow Soprano is on the show Big Sky now.

The Sopranos gal gave a chunk of time over to anorexia… a disease I have little patience for (though I know I should be more charitable.)

It just annoys me. Eat a sandwich, bitch! Stop CREATING problems!

As usual, 50% of the posters fail to respect OP's criteria about what constitutes "completely disappeared".

I’m just responding to comments!

BUT BEFORE I GO:

This is the old thread where we discussed Oscar nominee Catherine Burns, mentioned upthread:

R240, is that a picture of Jamie Smith?

It appears that half the people posting here have never heard of IMDB. Or Google for that matter.

If we all consulted IMDb and Google there'd be no thread and no discussion, r2623

Yes there would be, R264. But it would be about actors who actually disappeared, not about actors who continue to work.

Most of the single-episode actors who appeared in the original Star Trek series.

R264 This fine performer has disappeared

Paula Sheppard, who gave a haunting performance in 1976's "Alice, Sweet Alice" playing a 12-year-old girl who may or may not have murdered her little sister (played by Brooke Shields). Sheppard was 19 when she filmed the movie, but was very short and could still pass for an adolescent. She also had a lead in the bonkers sci-fi flick "Liquid Sky" (1982) playing a lesbian drug dealer. Those are the only two films she did, and she was memorable in both. However, after "Liquid Sky," she seems to have vanished into thin air. By some accounts on the internet, she moved from the east coast to Seattle and became a nurse, though I'm not sure where the evidence for that is.

The delightful Martita Hunt has completely disappeared.

Some actresses disappear because they get so skinny. Just smaller and smaller, then… POOF!

Kevin Smith tends to spill dirt on a lot of people he works with. His Reese Witherspoon story was especially interesting. She starred in a movie he wrote and I think almost got cast in Mallrats.

The 80s actress Kim Valentine completely disappeared.

For r268

What about all the teens in Jaws 2?

R272 She's now a real estate agent in Georgia. Doesn't seem to try to attract any attention to herself as being a former actress though.

Where did Glenn go?

This gorgeous man has completely disappeared—

R271 I've never been a fan of Witherspoon, but Smith came off as really petty and immature in his story about her.

Horror and sci-fi character actress Brenda James (or Klemme) worked steadily from the mid 80s to the mid/late 2000s, perhaps "peaking" as the rape victim slash exploding blob lady in 2006's Slither effectively disappeared after 2008. Apparently she quit acting to be a businesswoman

Hart Bochner (Apartment Zero)

Hart Bochner, Laurie Metcalf, Polly Bergen

Darnell Williams

Roz Ryan

Sheryl Lee Ralph

R137 Don't forget "Last Days of Disco". Keeslar was very convincing as the recovering mental patient Josh.

[quote] Josh Neff : [referring to Lady and the Tramp] There is something depressing about it, and it's not really about dogs. Except for some superficial bow-wow stuff at the start, the dogs all represent human types, which is where it gets into real trouble. Lady, the ostensible protagonist, is a fluffy blond Cocker Spaniel with absolutely nothing on her brain. She's great-looking, but - let's be honest - incredibly insipid. Tramp, the love interest, is a smarmy braggart of the most obnoxious kind - an oily jailbird out for a piece of tail, or... whatever he can get.

Charlotte Pingress : Oh, come on.

Josh Neff : No, he's a self-confessed chicken thief, and all-around sleazeball. What's the function of a film of this kind? Essentially as a primer on love and marriage directed at very young people, imprinting on their little psyches the idea that smooth-talking delinquents recently escaped from the local pound are a good match for nice girls from sheltered homes. When in ten years the icky human version of Tramp shows up around the house, their hormones will be racing and no one will understand why. Films like this program women to adore jerks.

R281, Polly Bergen is quite dead.

Broadway's Matt Cavenaugh.

Joe Penney

Sorry, Joe Penny.

John Stockwell

I was just rewatching Top Gun and I noticed how hot Cougar was although he was just in the movie for 5 min. Even better looking than Cruise. He also starred in Christine and North and South and I thought he had a great career ahead of him, but he completely disappeared in the late 80s. He sporadically works as a writer and director. What happened to him?

R288 You could say the same about everyone who worked on "Christine." They cast unknown actors, but none of them really took off after that movie.

Actually, most of the cast from "Christine (1983)" went on to have decent acting careers. A couple were already big time character actors (or becoming).

John Stockwell went into directing in the 21st century. B-movie kind of stuff. The Paul Walker-Jessica Alba joint "Into the Blue (2005)" was his biggest claim to fame.

Keith Gordon also went on to be a director, but more of a highbrow type (until the mid-00s, when he started directing television- but to fair, most of those shows are good).

Dominique Dunne. Strangled by her boyfriend, rightfully so, then she disappeared.

I worked with an actor, Tad Hilgenbrink on one of the American Pie sequels. He played Stifler's little brother, and did such a great job, that he impressed Eugene Levy and signed up with his agent. Worked for 5 years, then quit. Last "known' public thing was a twitter comment back in 2014, but I don't know if the account is his. Completely disappeared, and a hoax death announcement the last few years.

I heard he was involved in heavy drugs, but that doesn't fly with my experience with him- he was very focused and work driven, with a great attitude.

According to Keith Gordon, he and John Stockwell didn't become buddies on the set of "Christine." He doesn't know if it was a macho thing or what.

Actress Rainbow Harvest.

In one flew over the cuckoos nest. The tall hulking Native American man who befriends Jack’s character.

Last scene gets to me. The big guy discovers they have lobomotized Jack. After smothering Jack , big guy rips some huge object like a refrigerator or toilet, hurls it through the window, breaks free and runs away.

R294 She did a do a good disappearing act. There are no photos of her since the 90s online and isn't on any social media, so it looks like she really wants to lead an anonymous life these days. She married another actor, worked as an assistant at Universal Studios before moving on to work as a project for some elevator company.

Steve Antin from The Last American Virgin (1982)

What ever happened to Carey Lowell? Did she go the way of Richard's gerbil?

Matt Lattanzi

He now owns a huge marijuana farm in Oregon. He runs it with his wife, son-in-law and his nephew.

Scott Bairstow really fucked up his life.

Bambi Woods, who skyrocketed to success in DEBBY DOES DALLAS, disappeared and left no trace.

Roger Herren, who played Rusty in Myra Breckinridge (1970), which was his only film role, He apparently died in 2014. I always assumed it must have been the combination of the infamous rape scene and the fact that the film was horribly received when it came out that contributed to his not doing another film.

Also if this thread wasn't limited to just actors then Bobbie Gentry would completely own this thread.

R300 I had a huge crush on him after seeing "Wild America" as an adolescent. I always sort of wondered what happened to him (as in why he didn't have a career). Had no idea he was a convicted sex offender/pedo. Yikes.

Jeff Howard, the hot guy who played student Joe Ferrone in “Up the Down Staircase” (1967).

Bump

R301 Some people know where she is, but she has no interest in revisiting the past and being back in the public eye.

Brian Wimmer, from China Beach.

"Wimmer has been the owner and operator of Fly Fishing Provo River, guiding and running fly fishing operations since 2004. In 2016 Brian helped to create the Sundance Fly Fishing program and Fly Shop at Sundance Mountain Resort, where he continues to operate. He has been fly fishing all over the world as a VIP guest angler and host to Fly Fishing America and Fly Fishing The World on ESPN."

I guess he didn't completely disappear, but his acting career did.

Jamie Walters (Ray Pruitt on Beverly Hills 90210). Left the business to become an EMT.

Carol Potter has rarely been seen since 90210 and I believe she became a therapist.

David Chokachi (Baywatch)

An update on Emily Longstreth, who discussed earlier in the thread. She did indeed die according to her father's obituary from last year. Sadly, all the rumors about her sad life after acting seem to be true.

Cheryl Barnes who had a show stopping moment in Milos Foreman's Hair.

I guess she had a career as a singer but I think that was her only movie.

I think most of these people decide to leave when they get relegated to cattle call after having a taste of a major career. They rarely leave for ethical reasons. Some get really lucky if they stick with it.