Credit: @1107miss
A recent article on Buzzfeed made us all sit back and think. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, there were certain faces and names that were everywhere. Everywhere from the magazines we consume to the television we watch to the music we listen to, many of them are no longer around. What happened to them? Some of them are still around, but we are wondering about someone very specific. What happened to Thora Birch? She was the biggest child star of our generation, and she’s…gone. She disappeared. How did she go from being Dani in Hocus Pocus to being nowhere?
Thora Birch’s Career Got Off to a Stellar Start
She was born on March 11, 1982, and she knew she’d go into the entertainment business in some capacity. After all, both of her parents were part of the entertainment business by way of acting. She wasn’t interested in following in the footsteps of her own mother and father – we aren’t even sure she knew what they did for a living when she was little – and entering into the world of pornographic acting, but she knew she’d be a star. Her mom and dad were not all about it. They did not want their daughter to go into the industry.
Thora Birch’s Babysitter Got Her Into Acting
Believe it or not, it was her own babysitter who helped her become a star. She knew that the little girl was a talented one, and she took her to an audition. By the time she was four, she was the little girl in the Quaker Oats commercials, and she was a rising star. She was in all the commercials after that, and it would only take another two years before she was cast in her first movie. It was the 1988 movie called Purple People Eater to us. To Birch, however, it was the beginning of fame.
Credit: Now and Then
The 90s were quite good for Thora Birch. She starred in dozens of television shows and movies, and she worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Of course, she was part of the 1993 cast of Hocus Pocus, which starred three women as witches who were already famous (but would later become the most famous women in the world). Bette Midler and Kathy Najimy were already quite famous, but Thora Birch and Sarah Jessica Parker were less so. They didn’t know it at the time, but SJP would become one of the world’s most fashionable and most beloved style icons.
Where is Thora Birch Now?
The funny thing is that she’s still quite busy acting, but we don’t seem to notice. Why? Likely because those of us who grew up watching her play a child star in so many amazing films and shows don’t recognize her as an adult. However, Thora Birch is still very much a strong presence in Hollywood. In fact, in 2022, she starred in The Gabby Petito Story as Nicole Schmidt. She also worked as a director on a television movie, and that’s something she’s been regularly doing, too. She’s been behind the camera for a while, and she loves it.
In 2019 and 2020, the grown-up child star was a recurring character in “The Walking Dead,” called Gamma Mary. Of course, it’s not easy to recognize anyone in this show, so we will give you a pass if you didn’t quite know who she was here. Before that, though, she hadn’t starred in anything on television since the 2010 film The Pregnancy Pact. She did, however, star in some films during that time. She starred in a 2021 movie called Petunia and nothing again until 2018, when she was part of three movies. She did the same in 2019, and she took a role in the 2021 film 13 Minutes. We can also expect to see her in the 2023 film The Midway Point.
Credit: Now and Then
Thora Birch Prefers Privacy Over Celebrity
Perhaps the biggest reason we feel she’s disappeared despite continuing to work regularly is that she’s not one to make appearances. Thora Birch makes red carpet appearances so rarely that it does make headlines when she does. She’s not on the talk show circuit. She doesn’t share her personal life with many and keeps to herself. She likes to work but also protects her peace by keeping the world out of her life. It’s not a bad thing, and it might be just the thing that allowed her to grow into the woman she is today. Not allowing the press and everyone into her life has kept her sane.
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