the list of 9 for august 8, 2004:
NINE "ONE-HIT WONDER" ACTORS
In pop music, the phenomenon of the one-hit wonder is well-established: A band or artist comesseemingly out of nowhere, produces a monstrously popular song that takes over the world for a fewweeks or even months, then, failing to repeat that success for whatever reason, promptly vanishes.What people don't talk about as much is the one-hit wonder actor, an unknown who makes asplash in a quirky or one-of-a-kind role (often their debut) then disappears, going back to anormal job, stage acting, straight-to-video obscurity, or sometimes an even grimmer fate. I'veeven worked with a couple such actors (*cough*Wil Wheaton*cough*). There are quite a lot of them.Here are nine of my favorites:
- Elizabeth Hartman. After a fantastic, Oscar-nominatedperformance as a blind white girl who unwittingly falls in love with a black man (Sidney Poitier)in the great 1965 drama A Patch of Blue, Hartman struggled with lifelong depression thatended her screen career and, years later, her life. She committed suicide at 43.
- Jaye Davidson. This London club kid became the "surprise"of 1993's The Crying Game as the leading lady who famously turns out to be a guy.Pigeonholed by his androgynous looks, and with no formal acting training, Davidson didn't go far.Though he made a cool million as the silly villain in the movie Stargate, he quit the bizsoon after.
- Linda Hunt. Like Davidson, Hunt garnered an Oscarnomination for a gender-bending performance (as a young Chinese man in 1982's The Year ofLiving Dangerously). Unlike Davidson, she won. Though she hasn't wanted for work since - mostnotably as Judge Hiller on the TV series The Practice - her projects have paled incomparison.
- Duane Jones. One of the greatest things about GeorgeRomero's original horror classic The Night of the Living Dead (1968) was his bold castingof an African-American in the lead. Jones's measured performance added gravity to the film,helping to make it a much more serious work than merely a zombie flick. But NOTLD was astrange creature: a thoughtful horror piece, starring professional stage actors, that played onlyat drive-ins. Hollywood did not come a-courtin'. So, like costar Judith O'Dea (who incidentallywound up in my film Claustrophobia), Jones went back to live theatre, where he stayed untilhis untimely death at 52.
- Harold Russell. The god of one-hit wonder actors,Russell was a sergeant in World War II who lost both of his hands in an accidental explosion. WhenWilliam Wyler was making his postwar coming home drama The Best Years of Our Lives (1946),he cast the untrained Russell in a leading role. For his sympathetic performance, Russell actuallywon two Oscars: one for Best Actor and one for being an inspiration to other disabledveterans. With just two other small film roles to his credit, Russell was much more involved inthe fight for veterans' rights.
- Karen Lynn Gorney. Most people who haven't seenSaturday Night Fever will know her only as the girl on the poster behind John Travolta'sinfamous "pointing at the stars" pose. But she was the female lead in the film and held her own.Sadly, while her costar strutted into superstardom, Gorney, who was already 32 when the film cameout, fell victim to Hollywood's ageist casting policies. Her career died, her next role coming 14years later in the Michael J. Fox vehicle The Hard Way. (She played "Woman in Subway.")
- Thomas F. Wilson. This standup comic got the break of alifetime when Robert Zemeckis cast him as the villainous Biff Tannen in Back to the Future.Wilson made a career out of the BTTF franchise (call him a "three hit wonder"), butcouldn't break out of the Biff mold. So, like many actors, he turned to TV guest roles andvoiceover work. He now channels his fame into selling his paintings and Christian folk songs.
- Renee Maria Falconetti. Billed only as "Falconetti" in the1928 silent film classic The Passion of Joan of Arc, her intense leading performance isstill the stuff of legend. Some say she invented modern screen acting. But she never made anotherfilm at all, dying 18 years later.
- Quinn Cummings. I certainly can't end this list withoutpaying tribute to the countless child actors who qualify as one-hit wonders. It's all too common:a movie needs a precocious kid to play a specific role, one comes along who takes direction well,looks the part, and is the right age. Boom: Instant fame. But child stardom being what it is, fewmake the transition to an adult acting career without drugs, bad professional choices, otherinterests or simply the harsh reality of their post-pubescent selves getting in the way. Let thisOscar-nominated star of 1977's The Goodbye Girl be their representative on this list.
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