“Part of me still believes that my best days are ahead of me. I see it happen all the time to people. I have a lovely wife, I have lovely children. They get you through a lot of it. But it really, it is devastating to have gone up to bat and hit a grand slam, and hit doubles and triples from that point on. None of it’s good enough. So, I can’t remember who said it, but I just recently heard somebody say, ‘I started at the top and worked my way down.’ Sad but true.”

John Schneider told VOA he thinks the actor James Dean got it right: die young and when you are most-famous. The actor died in a car crash in 1955 at the age of 24. Mr. Schneider said that if Dean and the actress Marilyn Monroe had lived, they would probably be making appearances at fan conventions like he does.

Fame 101

Maggie Jessup and her husband Jay operate a business called Platform Strategy. It helps people become and stay well-known. Maggie and Jay Jessup wrote a book called “Fame 101.” She says actors can avoid losing their fame by being willing to accept different parts -- and by not letting others to define them.

“The ones that seem to get pigeonholed are the ones that are so convincing in one character that you can’t possibly see them in another. They bring themselves into it instead of become the character. What you need to do is choose a role that is so polar opposite from the one that you’re known as and do it convincingly and then people will look at you as an actor.”