While many sitcom stars have gone on to continue in many films and TV shows,
others have decided to move on with their lives. Though we'll always remember them for their roles,
here are the real reasons you don't hear from these sitcom stars anymore.
Ross Bagley appeared in the final two seasons of "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" as Nicky, the youngest
son of the Banks family. Though he was the smallest member of the cast, he left a strong
impact, be it mocking Uncle Phil's age or just goofing around with Will. He also spent time
with Will Smith the actor outside of Bel-Air on the set of "Independence Day" as his son.
Since then, he's mostly stayed away from Hollywood. Is he another child star burnout?
Nope, he's living a normal life in California doing normal things.
After leaving acting, he grew up and went to college at California State University-Northridge.
He's been working as a realtor in California for real estate company Keller Williams,
selling homes in the Los Angeles area. He also DJs there under the name “DJ Ro$$y B.”
In between all of this, he's raising a son who looks like a carbon copy of him
from the "Fresh Prince" days. And on top of everything, his LinkedIn shows him as the
director of Pathways Consulting, a corporate finance and IT recruiting firm. Busy guy!
Bagley wasn't asked to reprise his role in "Independence Day: Resurgence." He ended
up getting the last laugh, though. The movie had poor reviews and underwhelmed at the box office.
Eric Lutes played Del Cassidy, greeting card proprietor and on-again-off-again boyfriend of
the titular "Caroline In The City." It remains the most high profile role of his career. After
"Caroline" was canceled, he starred in the short lived Mary-Kate and Ashley TV series
"So Little Time." This marked the second time he played the father of the twins and has only worked
sparingly since. That's in part because of a health scare that saw him readjust his life.
In 2013, Lutes contracted Lyme disease and malaria after a tick bite. The recovery lasted two years,
during which he lost a lot of his strength and suffered immense joint pain. During this time,
to aid with his recovery, he changed his exercise routine, his diet, and his priorities. He credits
his recovery with making him a more compassionate person. His inability to do much besides sit also
saw him dive into one of his true passions: painting. In 2020, he told Encourage TV,
"I couldn't really go to the beach, because you have to stay out of the sun,
so I would paint what I wanted to be in."
He sent the paintings to a gallery where they sold well, and that became his main
focus. The move to painting isn't all that huge a jump. His father was an accomplished artist,
and Eric himself has always found comfort in it. He told The Chariho Times in 2020,
"Deep down I've always been an artist. I trusted my ability in painting more
than my ability in acting. I never doubted my ability to sell a painting."
Fans of Danielle Brisebois fit by and large into two camps:
those who know her best as a child star, and those who know her best as a musician.
For those in the former camp, here's what happened to Stephanie Mills.
Brisebois played Molly, an orphan, in the original Broadway staging of "Annie." In 1978,
one year after "Annie," she joined "All in the Family'' as Stephanie, the niece of Archie
and Edith. She warms the cold heart of Archie Bunker, quickly becoming a surrogate daughter.
She stuck around through sequel and spinoff series "Archie Bunker's Place," where the
audience watched her grow from a cute kid to a teenager. She acted for a few years after "Archie
Bunker's Place" went off the air, but largely retired from acting to pursue her other passion.
She told the Los Angeles Times in 2015,
"I found out that after doing the TV show,
I wanted to do music and more than anything to write music."
Brisebois soon met musician Gregg Alexander, and the two formed a partnership that would last
decades. She performed backup vocals on his 1992 album "Intoxifornication."
In turn, Alexander produced and co-wrote Briesbois' solo debut album "Arrive All
Over You." The alt-rock album was a minor hit in Europe and has a cult following in America.
Her career as a musician reached its peak when she and Alexander formed the New Radicals,
the short lived rock band best known for hit single "You Get What You Give."
Alexander ended the band not long after the single charted, but their creative
partnership has continued. Alexander produced her second album and co-wrote the music for
the 2013 Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo film "Begin Again." For this, they nabbed an Oscar
nomination for Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures for the song "Lost Stars."
On her own, Brisebois has been a successful songwriter. The most notable examples are the
hit singles "Unwritten" and "Pocketful of Sunshine" by Natasha Bedingfield.
Rebeca Arthur played Mary Anne on "Perfect Strangers” from the second season to the series
finale. Mary Anne — with her recognizable curly hair and high pitched voice — fell in love with
Balki, married him, and had his child. Rebeca, however, didn't do much in the way of acting
after the series concluded — entirely by choice, after marrying and becoming Rebeca Arthur Golden.
She told the Perfect Strangers Reviewed blog in 2020 that after “Perfect Strangers” ended,
she was still working but had lost her love for it. She had gotten married and
had her first daughter, which needed to become a higher priority. She explained,
“With acting, it was all about me. But with motherhood,
it was all about them. So, I chose them."
Arthur also shared that she has kept busy with volunteer work
and her clothing business, which she is very vocal about on Instagram.
She added that she enjoys what she’s doing and has no regrets about moving on from her acting roles.
Lauren Lane played C.C. Babcock, Maxwell's work associate and the frequent antagonist
of Nanny Fine on "The Nanny." Lane told Vice earlier this year that her specialty was, quote,
"evil vixen" roles, an apt summary of the C.C. character.
After "The Nanny" got canceled, Lane found her career stifled by two factors. First,
casting directors only seeing her as C.C., and second, the fact that she
was pushing 40 in an industry where that's not a friendly milestone for women. She told Vice,
"If you're Jessica Lange, you can work through your 40s and 50s. But the only way you can
is if you have an Academy Award. That's reality."
“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but bad reviews can kill you.”
In the early 2000s, she auditioned for a trendy teen soap as a mother.
She recalls nailing the audition but realizing the young white male writers didn't connect with her.
This was a turning point. Realizing that it wasn't worth struggling for roles,
she moved to Austin, Texas, and focused on raising her daughter.
While she's barely been on screen since "The Nanny," she hasn't exactly left acting behind.
She's a tenured theater professor at Texas State University, and often performs in
plays across the country. Lane is also considering a return to screen acting:
she'll be qualified to retire from academia around 2023, and the time feels right to
her. When asked if she'd be interested in a "Nanny" reboot, her answer is a resounding
"Hell yes, I would do it."
In 1994, Holly Fulger had a supporting role in the notable sitcom “Ellen.” She played Holly Jamison
in the first season, a quirky best friend, before getting written out of the show the next year.
Fulger bounced around Hollywood for the next decade or so. Her most recognizable role is
probably being Aunt Judy in the "Zenon" trilogy—Disney’s three-part television
film installment in the late 90s and early 2000s. Fulger hasn't appeared
in a mainstream production since a 2006 guest spot on the series "Without a Trace."
This is because she's shifted her focus from acting to tackling beauty standards.
In 2012, Fulger started a web series called "Speaking of Beauty."
This spun off into a book titled "Speaking of Beauty's Inner Beauty Journal." Fulger says,
“[It’s] a guide to help women recognize their individuality defined their beauty,
not their hair, makeup, and body size."
This in turn led to the 2016 YouTube series "The Hollywood Beauty Detective,"
and her current endeavor, True Beauty Discovery. It’s
a nonprofit that aims to celebrate the diverse beauty reflected in all of us.
Fulger explained what spurred this career development and passion for
speaking on women’s beauty in an interview with cleveland.com earlier this year. She shared,
"One of the things that I was always affected by when I was a kid is I wanted to look like
beautiful women in magazines and on TV. I didn't. I had buck teeth, braces and
glasses that were so thick that my eyes looked gigantic [...] It affected my career, because
as I became an actress and I started working, it was still the question of what do you look like?
I worked a lot and did wonderful projects, but yet there's always that 'not enough' feeling."
This inspired her to dive into beauty when she got older and had a kid of her own.
Phil Buckman has had something of a multi-hyphenate career. It's hard to
identify him with any one project. He's been around for a few decades, doing various jobs
across diverse realms in the entertainment industry. Some may remember him as Vic,
the zealously loyal intern from "Bob Patterson, "Jason Alexander's short-lived first shot at
a post-"Seinfeld" career. Others may just recognize him from a handful of other titles,
including guest appearances on shows like “Mom.” Buckham has been around the block.
Even so, most have likely heard Buckman's voice
somewhere. He spent years doing voiceover work, and he's done promos for Fox shows
like "The Orville." He also does vocal work in multiple video games.
Outside of voice acting and the occasional guest spot, Buckman is an accomplished rock bassist.
He spent a spell playing bass for industrial rock band Filter, and is currently the touring bassist
for Fuel. He's also a member of Petty Cash, a hard rocking cover band made up of touring musicians.
Staci Keanan spent her youth on three sitcoms. From 1987 to 1990, she starred on "My Two Dads"
as Nicole, the child with the titular double dad situation. From 1990 to 1991,
she starred on the long-forgotten TGIF sitcom "Going Places." She then got her biggest role yet,
as Dana Foster on "Step By Step." She played the wisecracking young woman for all seven seasons,
from 1991 to 1998. Unfortunately, she's acted sparsely since then.
She’s now practicing law. She got her J.D. at Southwestern Law School in 2013,
spent the next three years as Deputy District Attorney for the Riverside DA,
and joined the Los Angeles DA's Office in 2016. In 2021, she joined the faculty
of Southwestern Law School as an adjunct professor. Her faculty bio lists her many
legal accomplishments in detail, only adding this brief mention at the end:
"Before beginning her law career, Professor Sagorsky had a career in the
entertainment industry and worked as an actress on several primetime network television shows."
Aaron Michael Metchik played Steven Floyd Torkelson, the sports-minded brother of the
titular family in "The Torkelsons." Fans of the first season remember him clearly. Fans of the
second season never saw him after his character was retconned out after the show was retooled.
He popped up in various other shows as one of the seemingly endless child actors
the '90s threw at us before largely vanishing from our screens after Y2K.
He still makes his living in acting, though — but now, primarily as an acting coach.
Aaron's mother Robyn Metchik was an influential drama teacher in the Arroyo Grande area,
so it's only natural her son went on to become an actor. Aaron Metchik’s website
boasts many success stories, but there's one that looms above all else. In the mid 2000s,
his mother had a talented student in her drama class, one she realized had
a ton of potential. This happened to be a very, very familiar star named Zac Efron.
Heard of him? Robyn Metchik set him up with an agent, and Aaron became his private acting coach.
Melinda Mullins played Hilary Booth on "Remember WENN," the AMC show about the
goings-on of a radio station in the 1930s and '40s. Hilary, an aloof former stage actress,
played the female lead in many of the station's shows. The show has largely left the public
imagination despite the involvement of Rupert Holmes and being an early original work of a
now dominant TV channel. Mullins, also known for playing Andrea in "Dennis the Menace,"
hasn't been seen on screen since "Remember WENN" got cancelled in 1998.
After the show's cancellation, Mullins was mulling retirement when she met fellow actor Joshua Bryant
at a film festival. The two fell in love, retired together, and went to live in the New Mexico
desert. They largely keep to themselves and their horses, but still take part in local theater.
Grizz, played by and named after Grizz Chapman, was the most physically imposing
of Tracy's entourage in "30 Rock" — and the most sensitive. "30 Rock" was Chapman's first
credited acting role on screen, and remains his most prominent. He's appeared in a couple dozen
shows and movies since, almost always in a bouncer or bodyguard-type role. Besides the
possibility of typecasting and limited roles for anyone over seven feet tall,
Chapman hasn't had too many roles lately because he has other business endeavors.
Chapman co-owns Bronx-based comic shop The Lair, and frequents comic cons as both a vendor
and a fan. He also hosts the UndaDog podcast, where he interviews musicians,
actors, and various other personalities. Guests include Jon Hamm, Adam Richman,
and former "30 Rock" co-star Scott Adsit. Chapman also has a Cameo account. So, if you miss seeing
him on your screen, you can pay him $30 and he'll address you personally to get your fix.
“You’re the best.”
John Lutz played J.D. Lutz, the biggest loser in the room of losers that was the
TGS writing staff on "30 Rock." A huge dork despised by everyone around him,
Lutz was often a victim of the Pranksmen and the source of Liz and Jack's frequent ire.
The real Lutz is far more liked, but he does use "unpopular dweeb" as part of his comic persona.
Outside "Mapleworth Murders," a show he co-wrote and starred in for Quibi, he hasn't been in much
since. But fans of late night television have still seen him fairly often post-"30 Rock."
Lutz was always more of a writer than an actor, and as such returned to that world after "30
Rock" wrapped. He almost immediately joined the inaugural writing staff of "Late Night with Seth
Meyers" and remains there to this day. He also plays versions of himself, like in a "Late Night"
bit where he is sent a green screen for Zoom but instead uses a picture of his own living room. One
of his most common recurring bits is the "Leave Him Alone Guy," an audience member who sticks
up for the oft-despicable public figures Meyers mocks and offers himself as an alternative target.
“Leave him alone!”
Leila Kenzle played Fran Devanow , the '90s sitcom mandated Neurotic
Best Friend on "Mad About You." Proximity to Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser on a popular
sitcom should have guaranteed something of a career after the series wrapped,
but show business in that era wasn't suited for her. She told the New York Post in 2007,
"I was 37 and the idea of having to parade myself in front of 27-year-old
executives began to feel a bit silly. I wanted to be treated like a grown-up."
And so, she changed careers. Kenzle did the odd guest spot here and there,
all while attending Antioch University. She graduated with a Masters in Psychology in 2002,
and now works as a therapist in Los Angeles.
Of course, her old show is still in syndication, which can cause issues. She shared,
"If patients recognize me right away,
it takes some time to figure out who they're meeting — me or Fran."
She is so very involved in her practice that
Kenzle didn't even return for the "Mad About You" revival in 2019.
Johnny Kastl played Dr. Doug Murphy on "Scrubs." Playing a fatally inept doctor
turned successful pathologist proved somewhat prescient about his personal
life — specifically the part about a career change. After "Scrubs" wrapped, he appeared
on a half dozen episodes of the Patrick Swayze vehicle "The Beast" before retiring from acting.
He hasn't had another screen credit since, because he's gone into law.
Not long after leaving "The Beast," Kastl enrolled at the University of Iowa College of Law.
Starting around 2010, when he was a 2L, he clerked at the U.S. Attorney's
Office for the Northern District of Iowa. He later spent time practicing
law at various firms and companies before co-founding Acorn Finance,
where he serves as VP of Business Development. In 2019, Kastl told the Chicago Tribune,
"Law was always the end goal. When 'Scrubs' was winding down, we had reached a point
where we wanted to have kids and it seemed like the right time for the exit strategy."
When asked if he ever saw himself acting again, he said that, if so, it wouldn’t be immediately,
but eventually there’s a possibility. He spent some time on the Victory Gardens
Theater board of directors, never fully leaving show business behind.
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