Actors who have several slumps and comebacks in their career

Cary Grant was actually considering retiring before To Catch A Thief. This would lead to his career resurgence with NxNW and Operation Petticoat making him a bigger BO draw than ever

Errol Flynn, did a few movies in england trying to fund a William Tell movie that was never made, his comeback roles in The Sun Also Rises, and Too Much, Too Soon where he played his old drinking buddy John Barrymore.

The Cary Grant flop was Dream Wife 1953, anyone seen that movie? Is it as bad as they say?

One should mention Whataever happened to Baby Jane? Joan did a few more horrors, while Bette was more diverse.

Don Ameche lovely in Heaven Can Wait, returned many years later in Trading Places and Cocoon

Mary Astor (1906-1987)

Astor began her long motion picture career as a 14 year old teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s.  her first small part in a dream sequence ended up on the cutting room floor but after her next few films she began to receive critical recognition. In 1926 Mary Astor was included in a list The WAMPAS Baby Stars which was a  promotional campaign sponsored by the United States Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers, which honoured 13  young actresses each year whom they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom
As the film industry made the transition to talkies in the late 20's, Fox studio gave her a sound test in 1929, which she failed because they found her voice to be too deep. Astor was released her from her contract and she found herself out of work. she used this time taking voice training and singing lessons , but no roles were offered.

Mary Astor debuted in her first talkie, Ladies Love Brutes (1930) at Paramount, which co-starred friend Fredric March. her career was beginning to pick up but suffered another slump when she had a nervous breakdown brought on by the trauma of the tragic death of her husband .
She picked up again and had some good starring roles which drew attention in Red Dust  (1932) and The Kennel Murder Case (1933), but a troubled re-marriage saw her abandon Hollywood for the social scene of New York.
While there she met the playwright George Kaufman and they had an affair, which she documented in her now infamous diary.
In 1935 news broke of the custody battle over Astor and Thorpe's 4 yr old daughter during divorce proceedings  Astor was forced to defend herself as Thorpe threatened to use Astor's diary in the proceedings, which told of her affairs with many celebrities.

Astor had just begun work as Edith Cortwright, opposite Walter Huston in the title role of Dodsworth (1936)  Producer Samuel Goldwyn was urged to fire her, as her contract included a morality clause, but Goldwyn refused and the movie was a huge hit and had rave reviews.
The scandal had caused no harm to Astor's career, which was actually revitalized because of the custody fight and the wide publicity it generated. Dodsworth's success was the public's acceptance and assured the studios that Astor remained a viable commercial property.
Her best and most famous roles followed Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941).and she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Great Lie (1941).

Mary Astor held back from being propelled into the upper echelon of movie stars by these successes.
Personally she always declined offers of starring in her own right. Not wanting the responsibility of top billing and having to "carry the picture," she preferred the security of being a featured player .
She made many more memorable film appearances and did some TV work.  After 109 movies in a career spanning 45 years, she turned in her Screen Actors Guild card and retired after a her final key role as Jewel Mayhew in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

Seems like Judy Garland would be among the most prominent examples.

Dumped by MGM after 15 years, most of them as a top earner; reinventing herself as a major light of the concert stage, paving the way for her triumphant screen comeback in A Star Is Born; the subsequent collapse of the multi-picture deal between Warners and her production company Transcona; another screen comeback in Judgement At Nuremberg and another triumph (at Carnegie Hall) taking place in the same year, leading to a major TV special followed by a series; the one-season failure of that series; two more screen appearances, more years of concerts and yet another planned but abortive screen comeback after four years away (Valley Of the Dolls); still more concerts.

She was often down, but never out.   

Blast, you're right!

Travolta, definitely. We could put together a fairly long list of gifted actors of recent vintage many of us would like to see make comebacks, or to have had second winds (whatever). I think of Kevin Costner.

Also, Meg Tilly, Roseanna Arquette and a lot of other young actresses from the Eighties, including Brits and Europeans. Greta Scacchi (sp?) comes to mind.


The thing about today that keeps this from happening as often as it did in the old days is the lack of infrastructure in the movie business.The old Hollywood is dead. Movies get made everywhere these days. It's not like an actor quits or gets dropped from one studio, gets picked up by another, and enjoys a second or third act, the way, say, Joan Crawford did.

I also would have to agree with......Mel Gibson. Hopefully, this time, he'll mind his "P"'s and "Q"'s.