Child Stars Who Went On To Have Normal Jobs As Adults

The life of a child actor can be a Faustian bargain. On the one hand, these kids get to play make-believe for hours at a time, and if their parents don't mess things up, make enough money in the process to secure their futures. On the other, without the maturity to handle the spotlight and all its temptations appropriately, things can go very wrong, especially if their childhood cuteness doesn't translate into adult charisma as they age out of the parts that made them successful.

Sometimes fans just won't let child stars grow up. Sometimes, it's just baggage that needs to be overcome, like when Brie Larson's child actor experience made her hesitant to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They might realize that they never should have played the roles they did, especially if they're R-rated. Not every child actor wants to keep acting either. For those who decide that it's just not for them once they hit adulthood, the transition is easier, but it's occasionally fraught with its own difficulties too. Whether or not they care about continuing the work of their past, some still just can't shake the sense of entitlement that leads them into trouble.

Here are some of the most notable child actors who walked away from Hollywood, with varying degrees of success, into more conventional careers. (We've excluded those who became celebrities in other ways, like on reality TV or as pop singers.)

Everybody who has seen "The Last Starfighter" remembers star Lance Guest as Alex, the ace video game player who has to channel his skills into flying a real spaceship into battle (We're still waiting for the sequel). But whatever became of Chris Hebert, who played his younger, Playboy-obsessed brother Louis?

Hebert, whose full name is actually Christopher Robin Hebert, began his young career with Shakespeare, getting a small part in a local theater production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream, " which landed him an agent and TV commercial work. "The Last Starfighter" was his first theatrical feature, but he also memorably appeared in Tobe Hooper's "Invaders From Mars" remake. On TV, he played a younger Alex Keaton in the show's version of "A Christmas Carol," and was Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a TV miniseries about RFK Senior. 

When his acting career started to wane around high school, he opted to attend the USC Cinematic Arts school, where the study of film became more interesting to him than the production side. That wasn't his only interest, however, as he also studied at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. Combining faith and education, he and his wife Mary founded Evergreen Christian School, a homeschool co-op, in 2018. Both serve as administrators; Chris also teaches English and film history.

More of a chameleon than many of the other children on this list, Ross Malinger began acting at the age of six in "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Who's the Boss?" His TV credits are many, having appeared on "Roseanne," "Seinfeld," 'Suddenly Susan," "Touched by an Angel," Party of Five," and more. Perhaps his most notable TV part was in voice-over, as T.J. Detweiler in the animated series "Recess," at least until his voice broke, though he did return as an older TJ in the direct-to-video follow-up "Recess: All Growed Down."

Malinger is best known for movies, though. After roles in "Eve of Destruction" and "Kindergarten Cop," he scored his biggest role in "Sleepless in Seattle," playing the son of Tom Hanks' Sam Baldwin. As eight year-old Jonah, he plays matchmaker, first by calling into a radio program on behalf of his dad, then working behind the scenes to try to connect him with Meg Ryan's Annie. Malinger's final film role was in the Valerie Bertinelli TV movie "Personally Yours," also known as "Wilderness Love," in 2000.

Nowadays, he's the finance manager at Keyes Automotive Group. That's right — if you're in the L.A. area, you'll hear their earworm jingle, "Keyes Keyes Keyes, Keyes on Van Nuys!" Like the fictional "Karate Kid" Daniel LaRusso, he's gone from celebrity to car dealership. Per his LinkedIn page, Malinger is, "Highly skilled and knowledgeable in finance, leasing and direct lending. Also a specialist in Business Development and acquisition, including account management and retention."

Jonathan Gilbert, adopted brother of Melissa GIlbert and Sara Gilbert (the latter of "Roseanne" fame), didn't play his real-life sister's brother on "Little House on the Prairie." Rather, he played the brother of Melissa's onscreen antagonist Nellie Oleson (Alison Arngrim), the town's resident spoiled rich girl and bully. Melissa played good-girl protagonist Laura, while Jonathan was Willie Oleson, the less obnoxious but equally troublesome son of town gossip Harriet and her henpecked husband Nels, owner of the local store. It was a regular sight on the show to see Willie forced to stand in the corner for misbehaving in school. Extremely regular, in fact — along with Laura, Doc Baker, Reverend Alden, and Harriet and Nels — Willie was one of only six characters to consistently appear throughout the show's entire run.

After that, Gilbert disappeared, not just from acting, but from his sisters' lives altogether once he turned 18. In Melissa's autobiography, she mentions hearing that he's a stockbroker.

In 2024, for the show's 50th anniversary convention, he finally reappeared, reuniting with fellow cast members for the first time in decades. He also confirmed the stockbroker story, telling USA Today, "I had a whole spiritual journey for maybe 20 years, I've worked in finance on Wall Street, lived in Manhattan for a long time." In a line so pithy Michael Landon could have written it, he added, "I spent the whole time after 'Little House' trying to figure out how to live. What I really didn't realize was that I was already home."

Peter Ostrum's acting career was one hell of a mic drop. He got the lead role in his first film, which went on to become a family classic, and then he never made another. For years, he wouldn't even talk about it, and he even pretended his brother starred in it instead. "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" is such a beloved movie, though, that he couldn't remain immune to its charms forever, and the one-time actor ultimately embraced his past as Charlie Bucket, speaking to students in his current hometown of Lowville, New York, about it — but just once a year on the last day of school.

Ostrum landed the role of Charlie when talent agents spotted the sixth-grader at the Cleveland Playhouse children's theater. Following the film, he turned down a three-picture deal, instead becoming enamored of the passion displayed by the veterinarian who treated his family's horse. As he told the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, "Someone making a living from something he enjoyed so much really sparked my interest." He attended veterinary school at Cornell, graduating with a doctorate in 1984. As a vet, Ostrum mostly worked with cows, settling near Lowville, a village known primarily for its Kraft cream cheese factory. He retired in 2023.

In 2021, he told People, "You can't kill the Willy Wonka story. So all of it is good. It's a great story." (However, we do suggest a correct order to watch every Willy Wonka movie.)

Joey Cramer, whose full name is Deleriyes Joe August Fisher Cramer, is best known for his lead role as David Freeman in "Flight of the Navigator," a kid who mysteriously disappears and doesn't age for eight years. It turns out that he was abducted by an alien spaceship, whose navigational robot still needs the star maps it implanted in David's head. When it scans him, it also acquires the kid's exhaustive pop culture knowledge, and it begins talking like Pee-wee Herman, who did the voice under the pseudonym "Paul Mall." For Disney, it's pretty darkly whimsical. Freeman's other acting credits include "The Clan of the Cave Bear" and two episodes of "Murder, She Wrote."

After his acting career dried up, he got a normal job working at a sporting goods store. That wasn't the end of the story, though. After battles with addiction, he briefly became a bank robber, having previously been convicted of forgery.

Now sober, he's the subject of a documentary entitled "Life After the Navigator," and he appears regularly at pop culture conventions to meet fans new and old, who can follow him on Instagram to see where he'll appear next.

By most accounts, working on the set of "ALF" was a miserable experience for the actors. Use of a puppet as the main character meant creating a set with false floors full of trapdoors and treacherous open spaces and long takes under hot lights trying to get the puppetry right. Theater-trained Max Wright felt the role beneath his talents, Anne Schedeen bemoaned the "difficult personalities" of the adults involved, and Andrea Elson developed bulimia. It was so bad that when a TV movie finally resolved the series' cliffhanger, none of the original cast would return. Young Benji Gregory, however, seemed to have the most fun, as he recalled, "climbing under the stage and messing around with the staff." However, aside from voice-over work on what he called "a lot of stupid cartoons," he definitely did not want to act again regularly, though he did study film at the Academy of Art College.

Afterward, he joined the U.S. Navy, for which those long shooting days under tough conditions might have helped him prepare. After two years as an aerographer's mate, he got an honorable medical discharge; according to his sister Rebecca, he also had bipolar disorder, depression, and chronic insomnia.

Sadly, neither escaping from child stardom nor military training would lead him to a long and happy life. At the age of 46, he was found dead in his car, along with his service dog, in a bank parking lot, from a combination of extreme heat and liver failure.

Contrary to a popular '90s rumor, the actor who played Kevin Arnold's best friend Paul on "The Wonder Years" did not go on to forge a shock-rock career under the name of Marilyn Manson. Nor did he have two ribs surgically removed so he could, er, gratify himself. In this case, truth turns out to be somewhat more banal than fiction. How could it not, when that's the fiction?

Manson's real name is Brian Warner; Paul's is Josh Saviano, and his acting career started when he got a speaking part in an Aim toothpaste commercial. Five years on "The Wonder Years" was pretty much it for his career, though he appeared in an Oldsmobile commercial on the strength of his name. His other credits? The Louie Anderson comedy "The Wrong Guys," TV movie "Camp Cucamonga" (alongside John Ratzenebrger and a very young Jennifer Aniston), and an episode of "The Ray Bradbury Theater."

Saviano went on to attend college at Yale and pass the New York bar, becoming a lawyer, practicing corporate law at the firm of Morrison Cohen. More recently, he's become a brand consultant, describing himself on Twitter/X as a "strategic advisor to influencers and brands." He's also a huge hockey fan, which is mostly what he Tweets about. He briefly returned to acting as an adult in the 2010s, to play an attorney similar to himself on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

The name of Tiffany Brissette may not be familiar to TV fans, but far more know her by the name of her most familiar character, the robot girl V.I.C.I. (Voice Input Child Identicant) on the sitcom "Small Wonder." The creation of inventor Ted Lawson (Dick Christie), the character was designed ostensibly to help handicapped children, but she was placed in the Lawsons' home so she could adapt and function more like a human being. Despite a signature robotic monotone, she managed to fool enough of the people enough of the time, though many storylines involved the jeopardy of her secret being discovered. Three seasons in, Lawson upgraded her to look slightly older in order to accommodate Brissette's changing appearance.

Brissette began acting with a small role in "Heart Like a Wheel," the biopic of female drag racer Shirley Muldowney. Her career lasted nine years, concluding with roles on "Equal Justice" and "Parker Lewis Can't Lose." After acting, she graduated from Westmont College with a BA in psychology, then moved to Colorado where she became first a nanny and then a registered nurse. She's still listed as one on her LinkedIn page, though it's so sparse it could easily have been fan created.

In 2012, she told Page Six that she left acting for the sake of her sanity, adding, "Moving forward and exploring life kept me normal. It was a fabulous run, but I was ready for what's next." 

As a newcomer to acting, Alex Vincent beat out many aspiring hopefuls for the role of Andy Barclay in the original "Child's Play," in part because he charmingly refused to say the word "b***h" in front of his mother, thus epitomizing the innocence the character needed to have. Five years later, after making "My Family Treasure" with Dee Wallace, he was done with acting, at least for the time being. Even the "Child's Play" franchise seemed to no longer need him, as they had aged the character up for the third movie, so he could be at military school.

Though he has returned to the franchise in the recent "Chucky" TV series to portray Andy as an adult, that's not what he does most of the time these days. Vincent is the owner and operator of A/V Productions recording studios, providing professional sound services for musicians and filmmakers. In a 2017 interview, he explained, "I spent most of my childhood working on scenes for auditions and film, so I didn't spend as much time learning instruments as I wish I had. Learning how to make others sound there [sic] very best was the next best thing."

In what may seem like a more radical departure from the sweet little boy who refused to swear, he's also now a marijuana entrepreneur who occasionally puts Chucky-related tributes into his product.

"The Partridge Family" ran for four seasons and made cast members like David Cassidy and Danny Bonaduce into household names. Less popular, however, was Jeremy Gelbwaks, who played youngest brother Chris (above right), and was replaced after one season by Brian Forster. According to Cassidy, Gelbwaks had personality conflicts with everyone on the set. Shirley Jones put it more kindly, saying he wasn't happy acting, as it was his parents' choice rather than his. When his parents moved out of state, the show recast. Allegedly, not one fan letter complained about the change.

Gelbwaks swiftly applied his talents elsewhere, as he went on to study molecular biophysics at UC Berkeley and business at Columbia. Working with computers for a while, in the tradition of his father, who taught computer science, he developed interactive programs for crane operators, and led projects involving oil and gas industries at the military. Switching to management consultation, he has worked at Fortier and Associates since 2004 and also as a music business manager in New Orleans.

"The Goonies" didn't exactly dole out nicknames on an equitable basis. Michael got to be "Mikey," Brandon was "Brand," Andrea was "Andy"... and then Richard was "Data," Clark was "Mouth," and Lawrence was "Chunk." It's not exactly cool to single out your dorkiest friends for their signature characteristics, Michael. Naturally, as was no doubt planned, we all remember Chunk for being the plus-sized one, and doing his hide-under-the-floor embarrassing Truffle Shuffle dance, which, if you look closely, reveals the chicken pox that actor Jeff Cohen was trying to hide from everyone else, per the DVD commentary. That moment also came with a lot of unseen pain due to its casual fatphobia.

Perhaps the weight jokes encouraged Cohen to slim down — these days he's looking trim as a lawyer, of the Cohen & Gardner firm in Beverly Hills. Thanks to an education paid for by "Goonies" director Richard Donner, who also gave him crew jobs after his acting career floundered, he has prospered in his new role, even helping fellow "Goonies" star Ke Huy Quan negotiate the deal that helped return the one-time "Data" to acting.