Who are some primetime stars from successful series that couldn't follow through with their subsequent efforts?

Who managed several hits over the years?

Who kept plugging away and managed mini comebacks along the way?

Let's examine the trajectory of some of TV's most well known stars.

James Arness.

After a 20 year run on Gunsmoke, he came back a few seasons later with How the West was Won. It was a sort of mini series and did well. But in 1981 he was lured back to NBC for McClain's Law and it bombed against Dallas before being shuffled around to no ratings improvement. That was it for Jim.

Angie Dickinson

Policewoman was a 4 season hit but her alone series follow up Cassie& Co was a dud.

Who can you add to the list?

Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper can be co-queens of this thread.

42 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper can be co-queens of this thread.

Ironically, just about every other cast member from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" managed to land on at least one other hit series EXCEPT Mary herself.

There was Valerie Harper, of course, with "Rhoda." ("Valerie" would've been a hit, too, had she and her husband not fallen out with Team Miller/Boyett).

And there was Betty White with "The Golden Girls" and "Hot in Cleveland." (I don't count "Mama's Family," since NBC cancelled it after two seasons and she never became a regular on the syndicated version. And speaking of GG and "Mama," isn't it ironic that Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan's two defining roles on TV were on the same two series? I'm talking, of course, about "Maude" and GG. Anyways.)

But there also was Ed Asner ("Lou Grant"), Cloris Leachman ("The Facts of Life" - to a certain extent), Georgia Engel (recurring gigs on "Coach," "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Cleveland"), Gavin McLeod ("The Love Boat"), Ted Knight ("Too Close for Comfort") and even John Amos ("Good Times").

Mary, however, was just too strongly identified with Mary Richards and Laura Petrie to really break out on another show. (Totally off-subject, but why no one ever thought to reunite Mary and other "Dick Van Dyke Show" cast members on an episode of DVD's later series, "Diagnosis: Murder," is beyond me).

Conversely, it seems like Bob Newhart was the only cast member from "The Bob Newhart Show" to land another, long-running gig (on "Newhart"). Well, Marcia Wallace, too, if you count her work on "The Simpsons," lol.

Two other actors who kept plugging away until they landed another hit series: Tom Selleck ("Blue Bloods," which finally went off the air - and risked giving every 80-year-old who watched the show a coronary in the process) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (first, "The New Adventures of Old Christine;" then, "Veep"), who might not have broken the so-called "Seinfeld curse," but who's definitely been the most successful since that show ended.

Finally, out of all the actors who appeared regularly on "Cheers" throughout its' 11-year run, it seems like Ted Danson has been the only one to land other, successful TV gigs that didn't involve reviving his "Cheers" regular (the total opposite of Kelsey Grammer, who struggled even with the recent "Frasier" revival). Which is a miracle, because his first post-"Cheers" show, "Ink," did not look promising at all, lol. But he eventually landed "Becker," followed by his run on "C.S.I.," then "The Good Place," and now, "A Man on the Inside."

Edited 25 minutes ago25 min by Khan

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

James Arness.

After a 20 year run on Gunsmoke, he came back a few seasons later with How the West was Won. It was a sort of mini series and did well. But in 1981 he was lured back to NBC for McClain's Law and it bombed against Dallas before being shuffled around to no ratings improvement. That was it for Jim.

The character of Marshal Dillon cast one of the biggest shadows on TV.  There was no way Jim Arness was going to get out from under him after playing him for two decades.

Andy Griffith really lucked out with "Matlock" after several, post-"Andy Griffith Show" misses, but it could be argued that Ben Matlock was really just an older, crankier version of Sheriff Andy Taylor.  (Same went for Dick Van Dyke, who played Dr. Mark Sloan on "Diagnosis: Murder" more-or-less as Rob Petrie with a medical license).

Similarly, you might argue that Carroll O'Connor's two characters, Archie Bunker and Chief Bill Gillespie, were two sides of the same coin, with the only difference being that "In the Heat of the Night" soft-pedaled Gillespie's bigotry in the early seasons until his interracial relationship with Harriet DeLong eliminated that entirely.