Question: What happened to Justine Bateman?
Nothing happened.
She’s still alive as of 2021.
What happened to her career?
Several things:
- She’s not a very good actor - While she was tolerable on Family Ties, her other forays into acting were met by indifference. Her skills never seem to have improved and she’s moved into more writing, directing, and social projects.
- Satisfaction bombed - That was the feature film that attempted to make “Justine Bateman, television actor” into “Justine Bateman, feature film star”. It didn’t work and except for the fact that it was Julia Robert’s first big feature film, it’s largely been forgotten.
- She returned to television, but wasn’t as successful as she was in Family Ties - Bateman has worked somewhat steadily in smaller roles since the series went off the air in 1989. However she has never returned in a successful series, she looks radically different than she did in her youth (See also #4)and there doesn’t seem to be a demand for her abilities.
- Time has not been kind to her - Bateman is actually five months older than me, but looks nearly a decade older than her calendar age. She seems to have issues with eating disorders as her weight has fluctuated and she’s appeared rather gaunt during several of her television appearances. If she looked similar to what she did in her youth, she probably still be sought out for roles. She doesn’t.
- Her brother doesn’t seem to be helping her out in more than a minor fashion - Bateman’s brother Jason has been far more successful than his sister however she only seems to have benefited from that with a role as a prostitute in a few episodes of the first incarnation of his series, Arrested Development. She hasn’t appeared in any of his feature films; nor has she been a part of his successful streaming series, Ozark. Basically her career REALLY could have used his help 25 years ago, and that doesn’t seem to have happened.
Justine Bateman (1985)
Justine Bateman (2020)