80s Stars We Want Back!

Last Updated on April 16, 2024

Some of the biggest 80s movie stars are still entertaining us to this day: look at Risky Business lead Tom Cruise making over a billion dollars for Paramount Pictures with Top Gun: Maverick, Molly Ringwald starring in the TV series Feud, or her The Breakfast Club co-star Anthony Michael Hall showing up in the likes of The Dark Knight and Halloween Kills. But today, we’re going to be talking about some actors whose days of appearing in box office hits are behind them… but we hope they might be ahead of them as well. In previous articles, we have taken a look at stars of the past we would like to see make a comeback – and there are a lot of them! It was too hard to narrow it down to just a few, so now we’ve put together another list of 80s stars we want back, including a couple of Freddy victims, some 1980s beauties we miss, and a lady we’ve only seen twice on our screens.  

Michael Beck

It’s a sad tale of a promising acting career being kneecapped by bad luck… actually, by a bad movie. Playing the character Swan in the 1979 classic The Warriors, Michael Beck proved he had what it took to be a badass leading man. It looked like his career would be soaring onward and upward from there. But his momentum came to a screeching halt the following year when he had the misfortune of starring in the famously bad box office disappointment Xanadu. Who knew signing on to make a musical fantasy film with Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly could be such a tragic mistake? Beck has continued to act as the decades have gone by, working on titles like Battletruck, Megaforce, The Last Ninja, Chiller, Blackout, Houston Knights, and more, including episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger and Murder, She Wrote. His output has slowed down since the turn of the century, but he never received the career-reviving role he deserved, which would be something on the level of John Travolta getting cast in Pulp Fiction.

Mia Sara 

Mia Sara may have started her career on All My Children in 1983, but she really rose to fame with her first feature film role as the ethereal Lili in Legend in 1985. She followed this with a huge film, playing Sloane Peterson in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in 1986. She was quite busy through the 1980s and 1990s, only slowing down in the 2000s, and having her last credit in 2013. Simply put, we miss her, and we are certain we’re not the only ones. Her career has had a ton of variety from fantasy films to comedies to science fiction films to dramas, on the big and the small screen. From what can be found online, it looks like she’s been busy having a family and enjoying life. It looks like she’s in semi-retirement. As her youngest is an adult now, perhaps she may have a bit more time on her hands to get back to acting and come back to her fans. However, semi-retirement sounds great to be honest, especially if she’s enjoying it, so maybe we can keep hoping, but perhaps we should just return to her older films and enjoy them on repeat.  

Miko Hughes 

A mainstay of the convention circuit in the US, Miko Hughes is a favorite child actor of horror fans who started with Pet Sematary in 1989, so he’s only on the cusp of being a 1980s actor, but we’ll count him anyways. His horror film career launched him to stardom early on in a part that was both adorable and tragic. Later, he came back to horror Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, playing Heather Langenkamp’s son in the meta reality of the film. His part was quite central to Heather’s plight in the story, having some powerful scenes with Freddy as well. Between those two films, Hughes appeared in everything from Kindergarten Cop, Beverly Hills, 90210, Jack the Bear, and The Nanny to name but a few. Following New Nightmare, he kept busy with Full House, Apollo 13, Spawn, Mercury Rising, and plenty more. His career slowed down in the 2010s and he seemed only to go for the rare parts after 2007. He does have a few upcoming credits, but only one short film is in post-production. Everything else seems to be in pre-production or in development, with one film showing as in production as of now, but not much is available about it. This kid was everywhere and seemed to disappear for the most part, leaving behind a fairly big following, something clear from his popularity at conventions. 

Carrie Henn 

Better known as Rebecca, or Newt, the little girl found on LV-426 by the crew in Aliens, Henn has only done one more film in 2020, called Thunder Island. Why do we want her back? She has a ton of potential and a great personality. Her recent public appearances show that she still seems to be showbiz-minded, so why not get her back in front of the camera. She has said that she would love to be in a Quentin Tarantino film, something that could lead to a fun part for her and for the public. As she has been attending conventions for a few years now, she clearly has not been in hiding or shunning the spotlight, so why not bring her back for a feature film, something fun, maybe a science-fiction story, or something completely different.  

Gene Davis

Gene Davis racked up 31 screen acting credits over a period of 33 years, but he didn’t get many opportunities to shine in a prominent role. He was in the 1986 classic The Hitcher, but only stands out for the moment where he gets accidentally kicked in the head by C. Thomas Howell. He’s in the Van Damme / Lundgren mash-up Universal Soldier, but didn’t even get a character name. Just a rank: Lieutenant. It’s the 1983 Charles Bronson film 10 to Midnight where Davis had the chance to show his full potential, delivering an unforgettable performance as serial killer Warren Stacey. We needed to see Davis in more Stacey level roles over the years. He hasn’t been on screen since the 2010 TV movie After the Fall, but he he’s not entirely out of the industry, as he runs Rocking Horse Productions and executive produced the TV movie Enchanted Christmas in 2017. Maybe he’ll decide to make a comeback one of these days and give himself a role that lives up to the greatness of Warren Stacey.

Jsu Garcia 

Another face associated with the A Nightmare on Elm Street series, Garcia has had a solid career between 1982, when he first showed up the Fame television series, and 2011. Since then, he appeared in two Christmas movies and has 1 film pending post-production. Looking at his credits, the man had a varied career with lots of good parts of varying size in films such as Slaves of New York, Predator 2, Vampire in Brooklyn, Traffic, Collateral Damage, and Along Came Polly. His television career has seen him on The Facts of Life, Miami Vice, Babylon 5, JAG, CSI Miami, etc. The man has been all over the place, proving he is a solid choice for just about any part and then he was gone. Yes, he has one film coming soon, but that is nothing compared to his early career, and it would be great fun to get him back in films and television series. His biography details that can be found online are interesting to say the least, something that could probably be brought into parts of many kinds. 

Deborah Foreman 

THE Valley Girl, Foreman was a whole mood in this movie as well as in April Fool’s Day. She was everywhere for a while and then she vanished. Or so it seemed. Foreman’s career started in 1981 on The Grady Nutt Show, and she followed this with parts on Family Ties, MacGyver, The Marshal, and a few other television appearances. Her film career started with I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can, and included a bit of everything including Real Genius, Destroyer, Waxwork, Lobster Man from Mars, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, Lunatics: A Love Story, and a whole lot more. She seemed to go “poof” in 1995, only resurfacing in Beautiful Loser in 2008, a quick part in the Valley Girl remake in 2020, and a role in a recent film called The Demons Within. There hasn’t been all that much for Foreman in the last few years to say the least. This may have been by choice; we don’t really know. All we know is, we miss her and would love to see more of her.  

Deborah Goodrich

Speaking of Deborahs who were in April Fool’s Day, we would love to see Deborah Goodrich return to the screen. Making her screen debut as a dancer in the 1980s film Those Lips, Those Eyes, Goodrich racked up several credits throughout the 80s and into the early 90s, from appearances on TV shows like All My Children, The Edge of Night, The New Mike Hammer, Three’s a Crowd, Hotel, The A-Team, St. Elsewhere, 21 Jump Street, Alien Nation, and Beverly Hills 90210, to roles in the feature films Just One of the Guys, Survival Game, and Remote Control. Sadly, she hasn’t earned a single acting credit since the 1992 movie Out on a Limb, which is a shame because she had a great screen presence and a distinct voice we wish we could hear in more movies. In the years since she retired from the screen, Goodrich has worked behind-the-scenes in script development and restored and reopened the Avon Theater Film Center, an independent cinema in Stamford, Connecticut.

There are so many folks we would love to see back on our televisions and theater screens, there are so many opportunities these days with all the streaming platforms producing their own content at an unexpected speed that there has to be room to bring back more beloved stars, some more obvious than others, and to revive careers while also playing the nostalgia strings.