Some folks stick on for a while even if they don’t find the kind of fame that made them famous in the first place, while others might fade off for a while and then come back. But then there are those that have one significant role and end up never coming back for any number of reasons. For the purpose of this article, we’re focusing on people that have either starred in a major motion picture and then never been seen in another one since there are plenty of people that have appeared in smaller roles but had that one big debut role and nothing else following. When you really think about it, that one defining role is how a lot of people are going to know a lot of actors for a while, so if there’s nothing significant that comes later on it’s easy to think that they kind of fell off the map in terms of the movies or just overall. It could be that the fame wasn’t what it was cracked up to be or they were trying things out to see how it went, but some folks have decided to never set foot in movies again.
Here are a few actors that appeared in one big motion picture and then faded out.
5. Jeff Cohen – The Goonies
Jeff did manage to show up in a few smaller projects after this role, but throughout his life, this is the one role that everyone has known him by, even when he finally managed to get in shape and ended up looking almost completely different. He’s bound to be remembered for the Truffle Shuffle for a long time since his role as Chunk was the one that catapulted him to fame as the character has been kept in mind for decades now since he’s a part of childhood that many people don’t want to let go of considering that he was one of the characters that helped to really make the movie what it became.
4. Danny Lloyd – The Shining
Danny actually did try to keep his career moving forward, but nothing ever really caught on, and eventually gave in and just went on to school and to have a normal life. It’s been said that he didn’t really get to see any of the overly scary stuff that went on during the movie as the director kept him rather closed off in order to protect him from any and all imagery that might have been too disturbing. But strangely, Kubrick absolutely tormented Shelley Duvall since he made certain that she was a nervous wreck most of the time in order to get her into character, which is pretty messed up.
3. Britney Spears – Crossroads
So yes, Britney Spears is a huge pop star and has had a pretty successful career, but when it comes to movies she only did the one as a star and had a cameo in another, which we’re not going to count for the sake of this article. It does feel as though she found out that acting wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, or perhaps she felt that she couldn’t hang with the idea of being an actress on top of being a popular singer. It’s hard to see her admitting to this, but at the same time, it’s hard to think that she ever thought she could be an actress in the first place. But for better or worse she hasn’t been back in a starring role since.
2. Peter Ostrum – Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Peter didn’t even want to get into acting, but for one reason or another was convinced to act in this one movie. To be honest, he wasn’t all that bad since it was a fairly decent movie despite being kind of odd in some places and absolutely creepy in others. The fact is that it did show that a person that’s not all about the acting can get in and do the same thing that many others have spent much of their life perfecting, but while Peter was offered a chance to become a star he made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with the idea and ended up fading off after the one movie.
1. Carrie Henn – Aliens
This is one character that we can actually be sad about since Newt was almost instantly a great character for some reason, and part of it has to be the fact that she’d managed to survive for a good long while until the marines came in and mucked about. She was THE survivor of the movie, to tell the truth, but when the third movie came around she was offed in one of the most horrible ways imaginable as she drowned in her cryotube, which isn’t exactly a fitting end to someone that was able to survive a xenomorph infestation for so long.
Sometimes people just decide that acting isn’t for them.
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