Whatever Happened To Tremors Actress Finn Carter?

She starred opposite Kevin Bacon in a cult classic. Played opposite every prestige drama of the '90s. Had a daughter named after her father's Pulitzer Prize-winning legacy. Then vanished for fourteen years. When she resurfaced in 2019, she was homeless in Las Vegas, facing felony charges.

That should be the end of the story.

It isn't.

9th March 1960. Greenville, Mississippi.

Elizabeth Fearn Carter was born into journalism royalty.

They called her Finn.

Her father, Hodding Carter III, would become State Department spokesman during the Iran hostage crisis. Before that, he'd spend eighteen years at the family newspaper, winning the 1961 Society of Professional Journalists award for editorial writing. He died in 2023 at age 88.

Her grandfather, Hodding Carter Jr., won the 1946 Pulitzer Prize editing the Delta Democrat-Times. Crosses burned on his lawn for attacking Mississippi's segregationists. He never backed down.

That stubbornness ran in the family.

Finn inherited it. She just pointed it at Hollywood instead of civil rights.

Growing Up Carter

Not everyone grows up with history being written at the dinner table.

Her father Hodding Carter III served as State Department spokesman during the Iran hostage crisis. Every night on television, millions of Americans watched him brief the press about American hostages in Tehran. Before Washington, he'd won the 1961 Society of Professional Journalists award for editorial writing. After Washington, he'd win four Emmy Awards.

Her grandfather won a Pulitzer Prize.

Her brother W. Hodding Carter IV became a writer and adventurer.

Finn wanted none of it.

She didn't want to change the world. She wanted to disappear into characters. To entertain rather than provoke. To perform, not pontificate.

At sixteen, she enrolled at Walnut Hill School of Performing Arts outside Boston. Intensive conservatory training. She studied with the San Francisco Ballet Company, building the physicality that would serve her later in action roles.

She bounced between universities—Skidmore, then Tulane—studying theatre without finishing either.

The classroom bored her. She wanted to work.

Three Days in New York

1983: Age 23. Finn moved to New York City.

She landed her first job three days later.

"I got my first job three days after arriving in New York City. I thought, gee, this is easy."

It wasn't easy. She'd just been extraordinarily lucky.

As the World Turns. CBS soap opera. Three-year contract. She'd play Sierra Esteban Reyes Montgomery—wealthy, headstrong, perpetually tangled in affairs and family feuds.

Over 100 episodes between 1985 and 1988.

Standard soap work. But it paid well enough that she could pursue theatre. She joined the Circle Repertory Company—the Off-Broadway ensemble that had launched William Hurt, Jeff Daniels, Kathy Bates.

She created the role of Effie Herrington at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre in Terrence McNally's Up In Saratoga, directed by Jack O'Brien.

She appeared at the Pasadena Playhouse in Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues.

Critics noticed her range.

"Love stories are challenging to portray because you have to make the love real enough but not too real."

On the As the World Turns set, she met Steven Weber—another contract player, Queens-born, three years older. They married 14th November 1985.

He'd later become famous as Brian Hackett on Wings. In 1985, they were just two soap actors grinding through auditions.

The Script That Changed Everything

1989: The script landed.

Tremors—a horror-comedy about giant underground worms terrorising a Nevada town.

The concept was absurd. The dialogue crackled. The character Rhonda LeBeck—seismologist, smart, funny, nobody's victim—jumped off the page.

"I remember reading the script and thinking, 'This is crazy, but boy it's fun!'"

Director Ron Underwood cast her opposite Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward. Budget: $11 million. Location: California desert. Practical effects. Massive puppet creatures called Graboids.

One scene required Rhonda to strip out of her jeans in five seconds flat to escape a Graboid's tentacles.

Finn deliberately didn't rehearse it.

The panic you see on screen as she undresses in front of Kevin Bacon? That's real. That's an actress committed to truth even in absurdity.

Tremors (1990)

A cult phenomenon that spawned a six-film franchise.

Modest box office. Then home video exploded.

The film became a cult phenomenon. Six direct-to-video sequels. A television series. Endless cable reruns. Streaming immortality.

Entertainment Weekly: "The Slacker of monster movies: bemused, improvisatory, wilfully low-key."

That bemused quality? Finn's performance. She played Rhonda as a real person trapped in monster movie logic, perpetually surprised to still be alive.

"We had no idea Tremors would become such a cult phenomenon. I still get asked about it all the time."

It should have been a launchpad.

It became the high-water mark.

The Long Grind

Through the '90s and early 2000s, Finn worked constantly.

Never quite broke through.

China Beach: Four episodes as Nurse Linda Matlock Lanier during the show's final season.

Guest spots on everything: Murder, She Wrote, ER, Law & Order, NYPD Blue, Chicago Hope, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Outer Limits, Diagnosis Murder, Judging Amy, Strong Medicine.

Every prestige drama. Every procedural. Always the guest star. Never the lead.

1992: Led the action film Sweet Justice.

1996: Supporting role in Rob Reiner's Ghosts of Mississippi alongside Alec Baldwin and Whoopi Goldberg.

1997: Series regular on Fox sitcom Secret Service Guy. Cancelled after one season.

Television movies: Dream Breakers, Love in Another Town, Missing Pieces, Taking Back Our Town, The Pennsylvania Miners' Story.

Steady work. Good credits. Respectable career.

But the scripts got smaller. The roles got thinner. The calls came less frequently.

Meanwhile, her marriage collapsed.

She and Steven Weber divorced in 1994 after nine years. He'd become a star on Wings. She was hustling for guest spots. No bitterness. Just two careers moving opposite directions.

In 1997, she married James Woodruff, a lawyer. Two daughters followed: Carter (born 1997) and Josephine (born 2000), plus a stepdaughter.

She was forty. Building a family. Maintaining a career. Hollywood stops calling actresses at forty.

"I struggled for a long time to find a balance in life. For a while there, acting took a back seat out of necessity."

Her final screen role: 2005's Halfway Decent, a low-budget indie co-starring Ernie Hudson.

Then nothing.

The calls stopped.

Finn Carter disappeared.

Fourteen Years Gone

2005 to 2019. Fourteen years.

No social media. No convention appearances. No interviews. No sightings.

Fans wondered. Co-stars lost touch. IMDb went silent.

In 2007, she and James Woodruff divorced after ten years.

Public records show movement around California. That's it. Friends from the industry describe those years as "difficult" and "private" but won't elaborate.

Then July 2019.

Las Vegas

30th July 2019. Finn was arrested in Las Vegas.

Multiple felonies: possession of a stolen vehicle, unauthorised use of credit cards (14 counts).

Court transcripts: "homeless and unemployed" at the time of arrest. (See Video of Courtroom here)

The woman who'd starred opposite Kevin Bacon. Who'd appeared in 40+ television shows. Who came from Pulitzer Prize journalism royalty.

Living on the streets of Las Vegas. Broke. Desperate.

In 2021, she pleaded guilty to lesser charges. Probation.

For most celebrities, that's the end. The tragic final chapter. Another cautionary tale about Hollywood's brutality toward ageing actresses.

That's not where this story ends.

The Comeback Nobody Expected

Sometime between 2021 and 2024, something shifted.

Details remain private. Rightfully so.

But Finn Carter began rebuilding.

Not her career. Something smaller. A relationship with fans who'd never forgotten Rhonda LeBeck.

2024: First public appearance in nearly two decades. A horror convention. Then another.

By 2025, she'd signed with Priority Appearances—a talent agency specialising in cult film actors. The convention circuit. Instagram (@starvingdilettante): 1,596 followers.

She was recently on The Locher Room Podcast:

Previous and upcoming appearances:

• May 2025: Niagara Falls Comic Con
• August 2–3, 2025: Mid-Hudson Comic Con
• September 6, 2025: Terror Con (appeared in costume as Rhonda LeBeck)
• November 8–9, 2025: Memphis Monster Con
• January 25, 2026: Pasadena Comic Convention and Toy Show (Tremors reunion panel)
• April 2026: For the Love of Horror convention

Autographs. Photo ops. Panel discussions. Telling stories about Kevin Bacon and those massive puppet Graboids. Meeting people who remember.

Not Hollywood. But honest work.

Survival

Tremors endures. Six sequels, a television series, endless streaming. Film school case studies. The Graboids became iconic movie monsters. Kevin Bacon still gets asked about it.

And for ninety-six minutes in 1990, Finn Carter played a geologist who was smarter than the men around her, braver than she knew, funny even facing death from below.

That performance survives. Millions have watched it. Millions more will discover it.

The rest exists in fragments. Soap operas. Guest spots. Two marriages. Two daughters. Fourteen missing years. Las Vegas arrest. Probation.

The entertainment industry chewed her up.

She survived.

Born into journalism royalty. Raised by a State Department spokesman and the shadow of a Pulitzer Prize. The actress who held her own against Kevin Bacon and giant underground worms.

Then disappeared. Hit bottom. Homeless in Vegas. Facing felonies.

Made it through. Rebuilt. Came back.

Not everyone gets redemption. But here's Finn Carter at sixty-five, standing at convention tables, smiling for cameras, signing photographs of a character she played when Ronald Reagan was president.

Meeting fans who remember when she was young and the world seemed full of possibility.

That's not nothing.

That's survival.

That's hope.

Author's Note:

This article respects Finn Carter's privacy regarding the circumstances of her missing years beyond publicly documented information. The focus remains on her professional work, documented public appearances, and the remarkable fact of her return to engaging with fans who never forgot her performance in Tremors.

Quotes attributed to Carter come from various sources including convention appearances, fan event recordings (such as the 2016 TremorsFest and 2025 podcast appearances), IMDb biographical entries, and public interviews. Where specific sourcing isn't available, statements reflect widely reported information from multiple entertainment databases and fan community records.

What matters: she survived. She rebuilt. She's here.

Article Updated December 2025