Pulling off a successful vanishing act is an unusual and difficult task - especially if you're a public figure of any variety. You'd think it would be impossible for a noteworthy celebrity to seemingly disappear into thin air -- but, as these missing celebrities have proven, anything can happen. If there's one thing to be learned from these missing celebs, it's that no one is too talented, popular, or successful to completely fall off the grid. Here's a look at some of the most mysterious cases of missing celebrities.
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00:00Pulling off a successful vanishing act is an unusual and difficult task, especially
00:05if you're a public figure of any variety.
00:07You'd think it would be impossible for a noteworthy celebrity to seemingly disappear into thin
00:12air, but as these missing celebrities have proven, anything can happen.
00:16If there's one thing to be learned from these missing celebs, it's that no one is too talented,
00:20popular, or successful to completely fall off the grid.
00:23Here's a look at some of the most mysterious cases of missing celebrities.
00:28If Lord Byron, Sid Vicious, and a moody teenager procreated, their spawn would probably look
00:33and act a whole lot like Manic Street Preacher's rhythm guitarist and lyricist Richie Edwards,
00:38a mid-'90s British rock idol.
00:41Edwards was handsome, moody, and dreamy, with a talent for writing lyrics about depression
00:46and an even bigger talent for disturbing publicity stunts.
00:49When a journalist with a music magazine implied his band's posturing was insincere, Edwards
00:54grabbed a razor blade and carved four real into his own arm.
00:59When he first went missing, in February 1995, it could have been just another chapter in
01:03his twin stories of self-destruction and self-promotion.
01:06However, things took a turn for the worse when it quickly became apparent that the young
01:10poet was gone for good.
01:12After he disappeared from his hotel room, Edwards' car was later found abandoned near
01:16the Severn Bridge.
01:18Edwards was declared legally dead in 2008, but his body has never been found.
01:23A 1950s musician, Connie Converis is now considered the first modern singer-songwriter, crooning
01:29intimate, lyrical ballads suffused with melancholy at a time well before Bob Dylan had made his
01:33mark.
01:34However, her contemporaries were not aware of how groundbreaking Connie was, and in 1961,
01:40she quit music altogether, virtually unknown and convinced she was a failure.
01:45In 1974, Converis wrote to her friends that she was going to make a fresh start, loaded
01:49up her car, and drove off into the sunset, never to be heard from again.
01:54No trace of her has ever surfaced, and it's generally thought Converis fell victim to
01:58suicide.
01:59Even sadder, Converis rose to popularity in 2009 when a handful of her songs were released
02:04on an album called How Sad, How Lovely.
02:07Unfortunately, Converis saw none of this success.
02:11If Jim Sullivan's name isn't ringing any bells, that's because he's the definition of a cult
02:15artist.
02:16A rock rocker who was part of the L.A. scene in the 60s and early 70s, Sullivan cut just
02:21two records before disappearing.
02:23In March 1975, Sullivan was heading to Nashville for what was meant to be his big break.
02:28His car was found abandoned in the desert outside Santa Rosa, New Mexico.
02:32His wallet, clothes, and guitar were all found in a nearby motel, but there was no trace
02:36of Sullivan himself.
02:38According to a friend, Sullivan would have never left his guitar behind if he planned
02:42to vanish.
02:43Appropriately, for a dude who released a record called UFO, which featured lyrics about driving
02:48into the desert and being abducted by aliens, one of the more prominent theories is that
02:52he was, you guessed it, abducted by aliens.
02:56In the year 2000, Rico Harris was on top of the world.
02:59He was playing basketball for the world-famous Harlem Globetrotters, and before that, he'd
03:03been a top 100 college basketball recruit.
03:05But drinking kept him from reaching his potential, and he wound up out of basketball and began
03:09working as a security guard in L.A.
03:11The final blow came in 2014 when he was fired for drunkenness.
03:15He left his mom's Los Angeles home to drive to Seattle and stay with his girlfriend, but
03:19his car was later found abandoned outside Sacramento.
03:23Sources close to Harris confirmed he was known for disappearing for days on end, but this
03:27time he was in a weird mental state.
03:29A backpack and phone were found on the roadside, but Rico Harris was nowhere to be found.
03:34Days after Harris vanished, people were phoning in sightings of a giant person walking alongside
03:38State Route 16.
03:40Footprints were found in the sand, but there was no sign of Harris.
03:43The L.A. Times suggests he was probably picked up as a hitchhiker.
03:46After that?
03:47Who knows?
03:48Jim Thompson is arguably the most famous American to have ever lived in Thailand.
03:53A former agent for the Office of Strategic Services, Thompson moved to Thailand at the
03:58end of World War II.
03:59He set up a silk business, single-handedly turning Thai silk into a global commodity,
04:04and was known to be a socialite, throwing huge parties for Bangkok's rich.
04:08In 1967, Thompson left Bangkok for a hiking trip in Malaysia.
04:12He set up camp in a bungalow, went on an afternoon walk, and never came back.
04:16Though Thompson was a soldier with field experience and the wherewithal to survive in the wilderness,
04:21he'd also made many enemies throughout his illustrious career, from competing businesses
04:25to the CIA, any one of whom would benefit from his disappearing.
04:29It's almost like a real-life game of Clue.
04:31Canadian band Loverboy was one of the biggest rock bands of the early 80s, with hard-charging
04:36hits like Hot Girls in Love and Working for the Weekend.
04:38Scott Smith was a founding member, staying with the group all the way until his mysterious
04:42and frightening disappearance at sea on November 30, 2000.
04:46After playing with his band in Vancouver, Smith and his friends set out for Mexico on
04:49a 37-foot sailboat.
04:51As they sailed down the coast and neared San Francisco, the weather got rough.
04:55A 20-foot wave knocked Smith off the deck of the vessel and into the water.
05:00Coast Guard helicopters arrived within 20 minutes and dispatched two search boats, which
05:04scoured a 133-square-mile area to no avail.
05:08Smith's remains have never surfaced.
05:11Prepare to feel like an underachiever
05:13Barbara Newhall Follett was a jazz-age writing prodigy who published her first novel at age
05:1812.
05:19That novel was The House Without Windows, a mega-complex work that won rave reviews
05:24in The New York Times.
05:25Everyone who read the book agreed Follett was going to be the next great American writer.
05:30But after putting out just two novels, Follett was forced to give up writing when her father
05:34suddenly ran off with a younger woman, leaving Follett and her mother penniless.
05:38By age 16, Follett was working as a typist and fending for herself.
05:43She never wrote again.
05:44In 1939, at just 26 years old, Follett had an argument with her husband and left the
05:48house.
05:49She never returned, and no trace of her was ever found.
05:52Her husband barely bothered to look for her, and her mother reportedly didn't discover
05:56her daughter was missing until 1952.
05:59Even stranger is the fact that the press wasn't alerted until 1966.
06:03By then, they were probably asking, Barbara who?