12 Stars Who Walked Away From Hollywood at the Height of Their Fame
7. Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz was one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, starring in There’s Something About Mary, Charlie’s Angels and the Shrek films.
After Annie (2014), she stepped away to focus on her family and her health, and later co-founded the wine brand Avaline. More than a decade later, she returned to the screen in the Netflix action comedy Back in Action (2025) with Jamie Foxx.
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8. Phoebe Cates
Phoebe Cates became an ’80s icon with Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Gremlins. She married actor Kevin Kline in 1989.
By the mid-1990s she had largely stopped acting to raise their two children. In 2005 she opened Blue Tree, a boutique on Madison Avenue in New York.