10 Actors Who Peaked Way Too Soon

Orson Welles had an astonishing career. His theatrical exploits are impressive alone; he terrified the nation with his War Of The Worlds radio broadcast; he left more great projects unfinished than most people have good ideas their entire life. While his final years were inauspicious, he appeared in great films until close to the end of his time.

Still: he started his career off with Citizen Kane. His directorial debut, as well as his first on screen movie appearance, was the widely accepted greatest film of all time.

His performance in Kane isn’t always the most appreciated element of the movie, but it’s brilliant - here he is, twenty-five years old, playing out the life of a man with towering confidence.

Perhaps his greatest on screen role, The Third Man’s Harry Lime, came just eight years later. Things dwindled from there, slowly at first, then gaining speed, until he was voicing a Transformer in the forgettable 1986 movie. An inauspicious end to the career of one of cinema's - indeed the American arts’ - most revered figures. Still, what a career.