“From Stardom to Obscurity: Uncover the 25 Child Actors Who Vanished from the Spotlight!”
Orlando Brown
By the age of 15, Orlando Brown already had a lengthy and varied sitcom career under his belt. By 2005, he had completed long-running stints on The Jamie Foxx Show, Family Matters, Two of a Kind and The Proud Family, and he rounded off this run by playing Eddie Thomas on hit teen show That’s So Raven.
However, Brown stepped away from the spotlight in 2006, and his personal life, rather than his professional one, soon became what was making the headlines. Throughout the 2010s, Brown was arrested repeatedly, first for driving under the influence and then again for failing to appear in court, following a domestic battery charge.
Thora Birch
Credit: Donmike10 via Wikipedia Commons
After debuting in Purple People Eater in 1988, Thora Birch had a string of hits throughout the 90s, from All I Want for Christmas to Hocus Pocus, Monkey Trouble and Alaska. Birch’s big break came in 1999, when she played Jane Burnham in the critically acclaimed American Beauty. She then starred in the cult flick Ghost World and horror hit The Hole, but after that her promising career seemed to falter.
In 2010, Birch was let go from a stage production of Dracula, after her manager father – reportedly an unnervingly constant presence at his daughter’s rehearsals – allegedly threatened another actor. Birch took a break from acting in 2012 that lasted until 2016. A comeback seemed to be on the cards following a turn in The Walking Dead, but trouble for Birch arose again when she unceremoniously left production on Netflix’s Wednesday in 2021 (Christina Ricci took her place).
