19 TV MVPs Who 'Vanished'
Dennis Franz
Dennis Franz
When NYPD Blue ended in 2005, the veteran actor didn't just hang up Det. Sipowicz's badge, he hung up his TV career, too — he's yet to add a single other credit to his IMDb page.
Mercedes McNab
Mercedes McNab
No one who's (even half) as funny as this beloved veteran of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel should ever have a five-year gap between roles, as she would if she were cast in something, like, this hour.
KH Cobb
Keith Hamilton Cobb
An overnight sensation after being cast as Noah on All My Children in 1995, the soap hunk hasn't had a regular TV gig since a mid-2000s run on The Young and the Restless.
nancy-mckeon
Nancy McKeon
After The Division wrapped in 2004, TV appearances by the former Facts of Life tomboy have been (too) few and (way too) far between. She mostly recently turned up alongside fellow Lifers Kim Fields, Mindy Cohn and Lisa Whelchel in Lifetime's 2019 holiday pic You Light Up My Christmas.
landau
Juliet Landau
Though this Buffyverse fave still occasionally appears in indies, she mostly does voiceovers for videogames and animated series. Her last Angel episode aired more than a decade ago!
Ana-Alicia
Ana Alicia
The Falcon Crest alumna should've had a career to rival Heather Locklear's. No one who watched CBS' Dallas companion in the '80s could say that Alicia didn't play bad girl Melissa with (at least!) as much bitchy glee as her blonde counterpart did Dynasty's Sammy Jo.
matthew-fox
Matthew Fox
After Lost, the ABC hit's leading man sensibly embarked on a career in features. But since, six years later, he hasn't become the Tom Cruise that we'd have bet he would be — and has only appeared in a handful of movies.
Bitty
Bitty Schram
Since being dumped by Monk in 2004, Schram — also known as the right-fielder who has to be told in A League of Their Own that there's no crying in baseball — has added a total of one credit to her IMDb page.
tammy lynn michaels
Tammy Lynn Michaels
So indelible was the impression Michaels made as high school glamazon Nicole on Ryan Murphy's Popular that we wouldn't be surprised if she inspired Tina Fey's Mean Girls a few years later. What does shock us, on the other hand, is the fact that Michaels' only TV gig in the past decade has been a role in the Netflix anthology Dolly Parton's Heartstrongs.
Lara Flynn Boyle
Lara Flynn Boyle
Nobody with a track record as stellar as Boyle's should have to kill time in B-movies with titles like Hansel & Gretel Get Baked and Life Is Hot in Cracktown. And we're still bummed she was not invited to partake in Showtime's Twin Peaks revival.
Marcy Walker
Marcy Walker
Fifteen years ago, the Daytime Emmy Award winner left her long-running role of All My Children's Liza and never looked back. We, however, still can't stop reflecting on how brilliant she was, especially when paired with A Martinez on Santa Barbara.
Susan Dey
Susan Dey
Maybe a 30-plus-year career was simply enough for the L.A. Law leading lady, who last appeared on the tube in a Third Watch two-parter back in 2004.
Victoria Principal
Victoria Principal
OK, so she didn't want to do TNT's (pretty-good) Dallas reboot. The erstwhile Pamela Ewing can't want 2001's (not-so-good) Titans to go down in history as her last series.