WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO: Michelle Meyrink

Recently I watched 1988’s PERMANENT RECORD again. The teen suicide drama was always one of the better, most serious teen films of the 1980’s.

In looking over the cast, I got to wonder what a couple of the cast members were up to lately. I knew that Keanu Reeves went on to stardom, and Michelle Meyrink was one of the quirkier actresses of the era, so I didn’t think they were “What Ever Happened To” subjects.

But then I noticed something.

PERMANENT RECORD was Michelle’s last film! Is that true? I could have sworn she was still around. No, it was 20 years ago, and she has had no credits since.

Michelle began her career playing Diane Lane’s friend in Francis Ford Coppola’s THE OUTSIDERS. A very popular film in the decade at least among younger viewers (although Coppola ruined it in the new DVD release).


Her next film would have a more important impact on her career. It was VALLEY GIRL. The Deborah Foreman (profiled here) / Nicolas Cage film was and still is a cult classic. Michelle played one of Deborah’s friends. But most importantly, it was directed by Martha Coolidge, who would continue to use Michelle for the rest of the decade.


In 1984 she starred in still another cult classic, REVENGE OF THE NERDS. She played one of the Omega Mus, who breaks out the accordion at the fraternity party.


The same year, she starred in another Martha Coolidge film, THE JOY OF SEX. This was a troubled production, original intended to be a National Lampoon film and starring John Belushi. It wasn’t well received by critics.

She even did some TV, starring in an episode of FAMILY TIES.

1985 brought her probably her best role, in another Coolidge film, REAL GENIUS. She played Jordon, the insomniac. In one of the films funniest scenes, she follows the star of the film into a bathroom and is so busy talking it is only late into the conversation that she realizes he is standing at the urinal.



There were a few more films, the Disney film ONE MAGIC CHRISTMAS, a little seen comedy NICE GIRLS DON’T EXPLODE and finally PERMANENT RECORD in 1988 where she played Keanu Reeves girlfriend.

And, to my surprise, that was it!



So, what ever happened to her?

Michelle seemed to not take to the Hollywood life. She took a brief hiatus, visited with family in the Dominican Republic before deciding to make the break with Hollywood permanent.

She moved back to Canada. There she got involved in Zen Buddhism. Today, she lives in a shed on Bowen Island with her husband and three children.

In an interview from a few years back with the North Bay News in Vancouver (that seems to be offline but was reproduced on the IMDB), she talked about her life and why she made such a drastic change.

"I went into my 20s feeling excited about life,I wanted to get somewhere, get something. My goal was the movies - I wanted that success. I remember being in L.A. and thinking 'this is so boring, It was like, I needed a more real experience. (on discovering Buddhism) Finally something struck me as being real, It was a touch of truth."

Much like Deborah Foreman, who left acting and is now a yoga instructor, Michelle thought the whole spiritual aspect of her life was more important than anything she did in Hollywood. So, that has been where she has been focusing her life.

I guess because her roles in the 80’s were so memorable, she never really disappeared, at least in my mind.

Thanks to Edward Copeland on Film for the REAL GENIUS images.