Emilio Estevez was once listed among Hollywood's most popular actors.
Born into a screen-savvy family that included Martin and Charlie Sheen and raised among
other rising stars, Estevez was part of the "Brat Pack," a young crowd of A-list actors
that graced the screen in a string of hit films during the '80s and early '90s.
In recent years, however, Estevez has seemingly slipped off the pop culture radar.
Here's how it happened.
The Outsider
Estevez starred in some of the most beloved flicks of the mid-'80s, and even though the
popularity of those pics has lasted for generations, he's been resistant to rejoining his former
castmates for the celebratory cast reunions that have taken place over the years.
According to fellow Breakfast Club alum Molly Ringwald, he's the only one who doesn't keep
in touch with the others, even when there aren't any cameras around.
She told Australia's The Morning Show:
"The only person I don't really see is Emilio Estevez.
He really won't have anything to do with anything having to do with this movie…
He's just like, 'That's the past, and that's not really what I want to do.'"
As for why he refuses to get nostalgic with the rest of the pack, it's hard to say.
He's certainly shown some social media support for another fan favorite, The Mighty Ducks,
by live-tweeting a crucial match-up involving the Anaheim Ducks with some familiar "quack,
quack" terminology.
"We're the Ducks!"
"The Mighty Ducks!"
Man at Work
Like a lot of Hollywood stars, Estevez has invested in side businesses to keep himself
busy when he's not working on films.
In his case, he quietly owned a vineyard in Malibu making Pinot Noir and other vintages
for several years with his former fiancée, Sonja Magdevski.
As he told The Hollywood Reporter, he and Magdevski initially bonded over making wine
together.
He explained:
"On our first date, I dug the holes and she planted the vines.
There was never any grandiose plan to start a winery."
Things escalated from there, and they established Casa Dumetz Wines in 2004, complete with a
Los Alamos tasting room and appearances at high-profile food and wine festivals.
The couple ran the business for over a decade before their split, and he eventually sold
the vineyard in 2016.
The Wars at Home
There's no doubt that Charlie Sheen has emerged as the more well-known of the Sheen/Estevez
children, but these days he's more infamous than famous.
Sheen has very publicly struggled with issues of addiction, relationship woes, and financial
crises, and Estevez has said that he believes his duty is to provide a healthy lifestyle
example for his problem-plagued sibling.
He told The Sunday Times in 2011:
"All I can do for Charlie, and I can't live his life for him, is to try to be an example.
But really, I was a pretty poor one.
As a kid, I was smart enough to be surreptitious about all my misbehavior, or at least stealthy.
But it means that my opinions carry little weight with Charlie."
That's not the only crisis Emilio's been dealing with on the homefront.
In an open letter to fans of his film The Way in 2015, Estevez revealed that he and
his family had banded together to support his father Martin Sheen through the quadruple
bypass surgery to repair his heart.
That was only a month after Charlie Sheen revealed that he had been diagnosed with HIV,
and according to Martin Sheen, the family came together to support the actor's decision
to reveal his struggle with the disease.
The Mighty Duck
Although both Charlie and Martin Sheen got their second career winds on the small screen
— starring in The West Wing and Two and a Half Men, respectively — Estevez has shied
away from television, even at a time when it's arguably at a golden era for actors of
his ilk.
Estevez did come in for single-episode guest stints on each of those series, but most of
his TV-related work has been behind the lens, directing several episodes of shows like CSI:
NY and Numbers.
The New Way
Estevez has also written and directed several of his own feature films, including the 1990
action-comedy caper pic Men at Work, which featured himself alongside his brother.
His crowning achievement came in 2006 with his Golden Globe-nominated historical biopic
Bobby, about the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy — an event which Estevez
considered to be of grave importance to American history.
His most recent effort, the aforementioned The Way from 2010, featured Estevez alongside
his father, who starred as a grieving parent on a spiritual adventure in France while retrieving
his son's ashes.
He's also been working to make Cincinnati, Ohio a new hotspot for Hollywood movies.
In 2016, Estevez made a rare appearance at the Sundance Film Festival to speak to members
of the Cincinnati Film Commission about his hopes to bolster the city's film industry
opportunities as a nod to his father's upbringing in nearby Dayton, Ohio.
Estevez himself has put his money where his mouth is on this issue, as he shot his as-yet-unreleased
pic Johnny Longshot in the city.
Stakeout
Estevez has found his name and face on the cover of many a tabloid over the years, particularly
when it came to the dissolutions of his relationships with ex-fiancée Demi Moore and his former
wife, pop starlet Paula Abdul.
Considering the crowd he kept company with — and the wild antics of his brother, no
doubt — Estevez said he faced allegations in the court of public opinion that he was
a "partier and a womanizer," but that it just wasn't true.
After suffering the spotlight, Estevez has lost interest in maintaining his celebrity
— or even knowing who the paparazzi are following now.
Even so, he's admitted to looking himself up online and regretting it almost instantly.
As he told The Guardian:
"When journalists think that actors don't read what is written about them, they are
mistaken.
I would put my name in a Google site and see what came up and often it was very hurtful.
Hollywood is guilty of turning out s***.
I've turned it out myself, but what the journalists don't do is to take a moment to think that
maybe this actor has got a family and he has got to feed them."
No wonder he's been so shy lately …
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