One-Book Author

""Everybody has one good book in them""

- Old Adage

""I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again.""

- Harper Lee

Alice has just finished reading a book by Bob Campbell, written over 50 years ago, that she had randomly found at the library. It was an amazing read that really got Alice wondering what other books he has written. Excited, Alice goes on the internet to search for works by Campbell and she finds that in his entire lifetime, Campbell had never written any other books, although the one book that he did write was extremely popular.

This is called a One-Book Author, when a person produces one work in a specific field that becomes extremely popular but never forays into that field again. In the world of literature, the author might have a couple additional short stories or poems that were published, but no other novels. Compare One-Hit Wonder, where someone has produced several works but only one had managed to become popular.

May overlap with Author Existence Failure, where the author doesn't live long enough to compose another work (i.e.: works published posthumously), or Tough Act to Follow, where they're afraid they've peaked on their first attempt. The latter may also be a Reclusive Artist.

Anime and Manga

 * Tatsuya Nakazaki, the Japanese voice actor who voiced Akito Hayama in Kodomo no Omocha, only voiced that character and both Hajime and Shiro Ryojoji in Jubei-chan. Apart from those roles and some Japanese dubbing roles (he voiced young Simba in the first Japanese dub of The Lion King and he was the only voice actor that was replaced in the remasterized version of the dub) he retired from voice acting after that.

In-Work Examples

 * The premise of Finding Forrester involves Forrester being a One-Book Author.
 * Ditto for the plot of Wonder Boys.
 * The end of the film Croupier has the protagonist, a novelist and casino dealer, having completed and published his Roman à Clef, realize that it is probably better for him to quit while he's ahead and not write another novel.
 * Stone Reader is a Documentary about this trope following a dedicated reader who tracks down an obscure but brilliant One-Book Author and helps get his book republished.

One-Film Directors

 * The Night of the Hunter, directed by Charles Laughton. While the film is today considered a classic, it did terribly when it was first released. Subsequently, Laughton was never given the chance to direct another film.
 * Kotch was Jack Lemmon's sole film as a director.
 * Bill Murray has been working in movies for over forty years but Quick Change remains his sole directorial credit.
 * Short Cut to Hell (1957) was the only movie James Cagney ever directed.
 * One-Eyed Jacks is the only film directed by Marlon Brando (who also played the lead role).
 * Screenwriter and author Dalton Trumbo directed only one film, Johnny Got His Gun, an adaptation of his own novel.
 * Peter Lorre returned to Germany after World War Two and tried to reshape his career by writing, directing, and starring in Der Verlorene. The film was poorly received and he returned to Hollywood, resigned to taking whatever roles he was offered.
 * Writer Steve Gordon had a very weak heart, and died shortly after completing his first directorial effort, Arthur, in 1981.
 * The Brave is the only film that Johnny Depp has directed. Terrible reviews from American critics not only led him to leave directing but also refuse any offers for an American release of the film.
 * While certainly not a literal One-Book Author, Stephen King's sole directing credit is on Maximum Overdrive. As he considers the movie something of an Old Shame, this is likely to stay the case.

One-Film Actors

 * Fernando Ramos da Silva was a young street urchin who starred in the Brazilian crime classic Pixote in 1981. Da Silva, who played the title role, couldn't break out as an actor due to his illiteracy. He later returned to a life of crime before being killed in a shootout with police at the age of 17.
 * Carrie Henn won a Saturn Award for playing Newt in Aliens, but except for one voice role in 2020 ("Union Worker" in Thunder Island) never acted again.
 * Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory has roles played by two One-Film Actors:
 * Child actor Peter Ostrum was offered a lucrative multi-picture film deal after playing Charlie Bucket in the 1971 movie, but found film acting to be too much hard work, and took the option to go to college instead and work as a farm animal veterinarian in upper New York state, which he is to this day. He only returns to the public eye to do local school assemblies on his life and career, or on rare occasions for Wonka-related events (though he assisted in the commentary of the 25th anniversary DVD). Charlie Bucket is his only film role.
 * Michael Bollner, who played Augustus Gloop, never acted again after this movie. He was cast because he was a native of Munich, where the movie was shot and where he still lives to this day, and had to be taught his lines phonetically. Like Ostrum, he went to school and became a professional (he runs a tax accounting firm) and has only been seen in Willy Wonka-related material since.
 * Kelly Reno, the star of The Black Stallion, was set to make a good transition into adult acting when he was badly disfigured in a car accident. By the time he was out of recovery, all his offers had dried up and he never got any others.
 * Singer Doug Stone never did any acting outside a primary role in Gordy. Even though a stroke brought his hitmaking to a screeching halt soon afterward, he continues to record sporadically to this day.
 * Paperhouse was the only major film role of lead actress Charlotte Burke.
 * Charmian Carr's first (and largest) acting role was as Liesl von Trapp in the film adaptation of The Sound of Music. She then starred in the one-time television production of Evening Primrose, but left the business to raise her children.
 * 1981's The Legend of The Lone Ranger proved to be not only a Franchise Killer, but also destroyed the career of its star, Klinton Spilsbury, who was making his film debut. He hasn't done another film since.
 * Although he'd appeared in various commercials, Russian actor Vladimir Garin died in a diving accident after shooting had completed for his first feature film, The Return
 * English actress Hatty Jones' sole starring role was in the 1998 feature-length adaptation of the Ludwig Bemelmans children's picture book series Madeline as the title character, though she hasn't given up on acting and has dabbled into writing and producing her own films along with fellow actress Amani Zardoe.
 * Olympic skater Carol Heiss' only starring role was in Snow White and The Three Stooges, clearly made to capitalize on the success of fellow ice skater Sonja Henie's film career.

One-Film Screenwriters

 * Screenwriter Diane Thomas was discovered by Michael Douglas, wrote Romancing the Stone and then died before she could do another film. There's now a Diane Thomas Screenwriting Award.
 * Eagle vs. Shark (which is probably best known as "that movie Jemaine Clement did before Flight of the Conchords") is to date, the only film written by Loren Horsley (although it's not the only one she acted in, it is the only one she starred in.)
 * Los Angeles deputy district attorney Lou Holtz Jr. wrote a screenplay called The Cable Guy, and through various connections it wound up in the hands of Chris Farley, then later Jim Carrey. Once Carrey and director Ben Stiller took on the project they brought in Judd Apatow to do a major rewrite. After the film was finished Apatow appealed to the Writer's Guild for a screenplay credit, but they said no (he wound up being credited as producer), so Holtz is the sole credited writer. The film was a notorious flop. Holtz went back to being a DA and The Cable Guy is still his only screen credit.

One-Film Producers

 * An insurance manager (and eventual fertilizer salesman) named Hal Warren got involved in a bet with screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, in which Warren wagered that he would make a horror film on a shoestring budget. The rest is history.
 * Yoshifumi Kondo died shortly after making his only movie, Whisper of the Heart for Studio Ghibli.

Literature

 * Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell was her only novel. It is, however, quite the Doorstopper.
 * Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (she died of tuberculosis a year after publishing the book)
 * Although she did write several poems that were published after her death.
 * Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (his only novel; he did write several famous plays, poems and short stories)
 * Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (she also, of course, wrote many poems, and at least part of the reason she never wrote another novel was that, well, she committed suicide shortly after The Bell Jar was published.)
 * Edgar Allan Poe left behind a large collection of poetry and short stories despite dying at the age of 40, but The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket was his only novel.
 * Anna Sewell, Black Beauty; she died shortly after the book was published.
 * Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago. (Pasternak was primarily a poet, though, and in Russia is mainly remembered as one.)
 * Chris Fuhrman, who died from cancer as he was finishing his sole book, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys.
 * Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
 * Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (he tried to write a second book, Juneteenth - it was over 2,000 pages long and was still not considered finished. Greatly abridged versions are sometimes published)
 * Leonard Gardner, Fat City
 * Stephen Gately of Boyzone fame, The Tree of Seasons. He finished the ending on the day that he died.
 * Giuseppe di Lampedusa, Leopard.
 * Cyril Connolly, The Rock Pool.
 * The Fathers (by Allen Tate).
 * John Okada, No-No Boy.
 * The Book of Margery Kempe, written by (who else?) Margery Kempe.
 * John Kennedy Toole was this for a while, because he committed suicide before A Confederacy of Dunces was even published. After his mother died in 1989, however, publishers released his sole piece of juvenilia, The Neon Bible, a novel Toole wrote when he was 15. Oddly enough, despite A Confederacy of Dunces being far better known and acclaimed, The Neon Bible has had a film adaptation, whereas plans to adapt the former languished in Development Hell for years until (apparently) finally being abandoned.
 * Tom Stoppard, wrote the decidedly peculiar novel Lord Maquist and Mr. Moon the same year he wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and proceeded to only write plays/screenplays from then on.
 * Aleksandr Griboyedov and the play "Woe from Wit".
 * Ross Lockridge spent the better part of a decade writing the Doorstopper Raintree County, which was sort of an attempt to cross Gone with the Wind and Ulysses. It was published to mostly good reviews and sales in 1948, but depression, writer's block and possibly a bad review in The New Yorker drove him to suicide a few months after it was published. A decade later the novel was adapted into an epic film.
 * Given the impact that Juan Rulfo had on Latin American literature and the genre of Magical Realism, its amazing that he wrote only two rather short books - El Llano en Llamas (The Burning Plain) (a short story anthology), and Pedro Paramo.
 * Save Me The Waltz, Zelda Fitzgerald. (Only novel, although her complete works, including the play, short stories, and magazine articles she wrote still only fill a medium sized paperback.)
 * Austin Tappan Wright's utopian novel Islandia. He worked on the project for years strictly as a hobby; a heavily-condensed version was published after his death in an automobile accident.
 * Fictional example: In the Teenage Worrier series, Letty's father is the author of a widely acclaimed novel called "Moving On", but since his daughter's birth it has taken him almost sixteen years to finish his next work (and, it is implied, he probably never will.)
 * The Teenage Worrier example is similar to the father in I Capture the Castle, but at the end we learn the father in that book has begun creating another work.
 * A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller Jr. After the book's publication in 1960, Miller isolated himself for 40 years and never wrote another book, though at the time of his suicide he was at work on his second novel, which had to be finished by a ghost writer and posthumously published.
 * Portuguese poet Cesário Verde only had one book published. This is because his poems read as modern ones and 19th century romantic society simply didn't like it.
 * M.L. Humphreys. Some people believe that this was the pseudonym of a more-prolific author, but - in lieu of any hard evidence to support this - he (or she) fits under here. His/her only written work was a short story called "The Floor Above", mainly remembered today because it was one of H.P. Lovecraft's favorite horror stories.
 * Until the publication of Go Set a Watchman in 2015, Harper Lee was the archetypal American example, known for decades only for her novel To Kill a Mockingbird. (And in a bizarre twist, since Go Set a Watchman turned out to be an earlier, abandoned attempt at the story that became Mockingbird, she still is.)

Live Action TV

 * Fictional example, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: One possible future for Jake Sisko has him write Anslem as his sole novel. (He also writes an anthology of short stories, though that is his only other literary work). In fact the way we find out about this is exactly as given in the example at top.
 * Another fictional example, this time on Frasier, in which an author whose only work (that he hates to talk about) was a landmark success befriends Martin. Niles and Frasier discover a manuscript for his planned second novel. When the author catches them reading it, he asks for their opinion. However, while praising it, they unintentionally make him realise he ripped off Dante's Divine Comedy and throws the manuscript into the fire.
 * Original Wheel of Fortune letter-turner Susan Stafford, who left the show in October 1982, didn't really do anything much afterward. Her more famous replacement, Vanna White, also met this criteria at the time (unless being a contestant on The Price Is Right in June 1980 counts), but White's fame got her a few more television roles that now make her an aversion.
 * Speaking of Wheel, former San Diego Chargers place kicker Rolf Benirschke hosted the daytime version from January 10 to June 30, 1989. He hasn't done too much on TV since, although he doesn't seem ashamed of the fact he did Wheel.
 * Again contingent on whether or not "contestant" counts as a role, the only on-camera role for Mike Reilly was hosting the short-lived 1990 game show adaptation of Monopoly. Series creator Merv Griffin chose Reilly after he was a Jeopardy! contestant.

Newspaper Comics

 * Bill Watterson. Aside from a few preceding political/college cartoons, Calvin and Hobbes is the only thing he has done, ever. After he retired his comic strip in 1995 after a ten-year run, he released no other work, despite writing a few essays on sporadic special occasions. The only really notable thing he's done since retiring is to write the introduction to the first Cul De Sac collection.
 * As of the middle 2010s, though, he's started doing once-a-year collaborations with Berke Breathed that cross over Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County.
 * Gary Larson likewise. He did write a proto-Far Side comic which essentially became The Far Side. After it finished its run, he retired and hasn't done much else except for a children's book.

Music

 * Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols. By the time the album came out, the band was already falling apart.
 * No Gods, No Managers was the only album by the punk band Choking Victim, which disbanded the same day the album was recorded.
 * Give Up by The Postal Service. Even though they have done remixes and a John Lennon cover since then, it is unlikely that Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello will ever get together to do another Postal Service album again.
 * Sixties experimental rock band The United States Of America broke up after their self-titled debut, which sold poorly but was later Vindicated by History.
 * Skip Spence, whose album Oar was released in 1969. He was a prominent member of the psychedelic band Moby Grape who turned out to be the American equivalent of Syd Barrett. He weirded out his bandmates by indulging in LSD and attacking someone with a fire axe. He got institutionalized, recorded Oar, and dropped out of the public life until his death in 1999.
 * The Fitness's Call Me For Together. They have never produced anything more.
 * Chris Bell, founding member of 1970s power pop legends Big Star, released one single in his lifetime, "I Am the Cosmos" with "You and Your Sister" as its B-side. Bell was poised to develop a solo career when his life was cut short by a tragic car accident in 1978. The single, along with the work of Big Star, developed a cult following in the 1980s and there was enough demand for a release of a complete discography of Bell's solo work in 1992, also called I Am The Cosmos. The album consists of the aforementioned single along with unreleased songs and demos.
 * Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, released in 1998, is the sole album by New Radicals, containing the hit "You Get What You Give." Lead singer Gregg Alexander, a singer-songwriter known for his mixture of catchiness and cynicism, released two albums before forming the New Radicals. He split up the band as he was gaining fame, becoming a professional songwriter for other artists, his most notable song being "Game of Love" for Santana and Michelle Branch.
 * This is an interesting example because New Radicals kept changing lineup, the only members consistent throughout the whole time were Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois. Danielle released two solo albums featuring Gregg Alexander as co-writer and guest performer on almost every track, meaning that they are technically also New Radicals albums. Rick Nowels co-wrote most New Radicals songs, however, despite not actually being a member of the band, so take from that what you will.
 * Minuteflag, a supergroup composed of LA punk legends The Minutemen and Black Flag, released one self-titled EP of mostly instrumental tunes. They made a pact to release the collaboration as soon as one of the bands broke up. Sadly, it was released after Minutemen broke up due to the tragic death of leader D. Boon. The EP, released in 1986, remains out of print.
 * The Glove, a supergroup consisting of The Cure singer Robert Smith, Siouxsie and the Banshees bassist Steve Severin, and singer Jeannete Landray, released one album, Blue Sunshine.
 * Another short-lived Cure side-project was Cult Hero, consisting of the members of The Cure c. 1979, various members of Smith's family, a couple members of local bands (including future Cure members Matthieu Hartley and Simon Gallup and former member Porl Thompson (he'd later rejoin the band)) and Smith's postman, Frank Bell on vocals. The group was supposedly formed see how well Gallup would gel with the other members of The Cure. After one single, 1979's "I'm A Cult Hero"/"I Dig You", Cult Hero disbanded and never recorded a thing again.
 * Seattle band Mother Love Bone released one EP and one LP, later compiled to one album. The band, destined to help lead the up-and-coming grunge movement of the 1990s, fizzled after singer Andrew Wood fatally overdosed in 1990. After Wood died, Soundgarden members Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron, who were good friends with Andrew Wood, partnered with singer Eddie Vedder and MLB members Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard to release one self-titled album as Temple of the Dog as a tribute to Wood, featuring hits such as "Hunger Strike" and "Say Hello 2 Heaven." As the album was being recorded and released, Ament, Gossard, and Vedder formed their own band, Pearl Jam, and Temple of the Dog broke up, with both respective bands skyrocketing to success on their own. After the success of Mother Love Bone and Temple of the Dog, Wood's earlier band, Malfunkshun, had all its songs compiled to one posthumous release, Return to Olympus.
 * Splendora, an all-girl 90s grunge group notable for singing the theme song to Daria, only ever produced one album, In the Grass. They did later reunite to create songs for the two Daria TV Movies, "Turn the Sun Down" and "College Try".
 * Above, the lone album by grunge supergroup Mad Season. The band's singer was Alice in Chains' Layne Staley, and his 2002 death ended any chance of a second album.
 * Ashley Jade's Dreaming album. It is unlikely she will ever return to the spotlight.
 * Forest For The Trees' self-titled album, which itself was a Troubled Production that almost never saw the light of day due to Carl Stephenson having a nervous breakdown. There is the somewhat hard to find EP Sounds Of Wet Paint, which combined remixes with a few outtakes from the debut, and a second album was reportedly finished but never released.
 * The Eurodance/trance duo Trouser Enthusiasts produced countless remixes, but "Sweet Release" was their only original production, after which they disbanded.
 * Jumalatar only produced two EP's, Are We Thinking the Same Thing and Frenzy, before parting ways.
 * Singer-songwriter Willis Alan Ramsey released his debut album in 1972, and has never released anything else, even though he's still an active performer with a cult following. Supposedly whenever anyone asks him why he hasn't released another album he says "What was wrong with the first one?" One of the songs on the album was "Muskrat Love" (originally called "Muskrat Candlelight"). Luckily for Ramsey, it was Covered Up and became a big hit, so he can collect royalty money while the rest of the world thinks of this Old Shame as a Captain & Tennille song.
 * Carole King's band The City released one album, Now That Everything's Been Said (1968), before they broke up and she embarked on a solo career.
 * Eric Clapton led two supergroups after the breakup of his band Cream. The first, Blind Faith, released one self-titled album with six songs in it. After Blind Faith fell apart, Clapton led Derek and the Dominoes, recording Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. Though the album and especially the title track are now considered classics, on its initial release the critical and commercial reaction was moderate at best; a year later, Duane Allman (not an official member of the band but an important contributor to Layla; most notably, he helped to create the famous opening guitar riff from the title track) died in a motorcycle accident, exacerbating Clapton's substance abuse issues, and Derek and the Dominoes subsequently dissolved during an attempt to record a second album.
 * Scottish band Life Without Buildings released one album, 'Any Other City', before breaking up.
 * The 1998 Band Minus the Face reformation of 2 Unlimited only did one album, II.
 * The band Reunion released one song, "Life is a Rock (but the Radio Rolled Me)," and absolutely nothing else.
 * Guitar Romantic is the sole album by critically acclaimed Power Pop revivalists The Exploding Hearts. Three-fourths of the band died in a tour van accident a few months after its release, effectively ending the band.
 * Grace is the lone studio album by Jeff Buckley before his death. He was recording a second, My Sweetheart The Drunk, but he drowned in the Mississippi River before the recording sessions had even reached the halfway point. The unfinished material did get released as Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk, however.
 * "Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight", the sole single of Dominatrix.
 * Another one single band would be The Normal (who were really a solo project by Daniel Miller) - not counting an improvised live collaboration with Robert Rental, the only release was the single T.V.O.D. \ Warm Leatherette. Miller has had other musical projects, but is now mainly a Record Producer. The lone single was pretty influential to such genres as New Wave, Post Punk and electroclash - "Warm Leatherette" in particular gets covered a lot.
 * After a turbulent career filled with constant recording and re-recording of their debut album, scrapping sessions with famous producers like Mike Hedges, John Leckie and John Porter before settling on Steve Lillywhite, The La's managed to produce one Self-Titled Album before collapsing due to Lee Mavers' insane perfectionism.
 * The band Lincoln released a Self-Titled Album in 1997 and became an opening act for They Might Be Giants. After they broke up in 1998 without releasing a follow-up, guitarist Dan Miller and bassist Danny Weinkauf joined TMBG's backing band and have been there ever since.
 * Early 90s Britpop band Starclub had a Top 10 US alt-rock radio hit, "Hard To Get", but broke up after only one album.
 * 1970s power-pop trio The Nerves released one four-song EP and broke up shortly after. Blondie released their own cover version of "Hanging on the Telephone," and two of the members founded the Plimsouls, scoring an 80s hit with "A Million Miles Away."
 * A banker named Stuart Gorrell wrote the lyrics for his old college buddy Hoagy Carmichael's song "Georgia on My Mind". It was his only songwriting credit. The royalty money Gorrell earned for "Georgia" was enough to put his daughter through college.
 * The widely-covered "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I" (most famously done by Elvis Presley) is literally the only song ever written by its writer, Bill Trader.
 * The Oak Ridge Boys' "Gonna Take a Lot of River" was not the only song written by John Kurhajetz (ASCAP lists four other works), but it was the only one anyone recorded.
 * Colossal Youth was the sole release by influential minimalist Post Punk trio Young Marble Giants.
 * The Grand Pecking Order by Oysterhead, the short-lived Supergroup of Trey Anastasio, Les Claypool and Stewart Copeland.
 * Another supergroup who only managed one album was Zwan, who released their sole album, Mary Star of the Sea in 2003 and broke up later that year.
 * The International Submarine Band released their debut Safe at Home, generally considered the first country rock album, in 1968. They broke up a few months later after leader Gram Parsons left to join The Byrds.
 * R&B duo Damian Dame is a tragic example. Damian Dame, a duo consisting of "Damian" Broadus and "de Dame" Debra Jean Hurd, released their self-titled debut on LaFace Records in 1991. On June 27, 1994, before the two would work on a second album, "deah Dame" was killed in a moped accident. Damian would perish from colon cancer exactly two years later.
 * The California Ska Punk band Suburban Rhythm, who were a major influence on subsequent popular groups in the Orange County scene such as Sublime, No Doubt and Reel Big Fish, only had one album, a compilation which was released three years after they broke up.
 * It's hard to tell whether Rob Dougan is one of these or not, considering that he appears to be a rather slow worker anyway. It took him seven years from the release of the single "Clubbed To Death" in 1995 to complete and release the accompanying full-length album Furious Angels. The album came out in 2002, in 2003 he contributed one new track to the soundtrack of The Matrix Reloaded and did the string arrangement for a Sugababes single. There has been nothing heard from him since up to mid-2011, and given that he could probably retire on the royalties from "Clubbed To Death" alone, it's easy to suspect that he's chosen to do exactly that.
 * Australian electronica duo the Avalanches released their debut album Since I Left You in 2000 (with UK and North American releases the following year) to massive acclaim. As of 2011 a followup has yet to materialize.
 * "Music Sounds Better With You" by Stardust, a one-shot project from Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk fame. It was never intended to have a following single, indeed this "dream team" of French electronic wizards never worked together again.
 * Rapeman was a noise-rock supergroup active for a very brief time in the late 1980s. Its members were Steve Albini (Big Black, and later Shellac), David Wm. Sims (Scratch Acid) and Rey Washam (big Boys and Scratch Acid). Their complete discography consists of their lone LP Two Nuns and a Pack Mule, an EP called Budd (included in full on the CD reissue of Two Nuns) and two 7'' singles.
 * The Golden Year is the only album released by British electronic rock band Ou Est Le Swimming Pool. The band folded shortly after its release due to the suicide of their lead singer Charles Haddon who killed himself jumping from a mast at the 2010 Pukkelpop Festival earlier in the year.
 * The closure of DreamWorks Records in 2005 killed two Country Music bands after only one album: Hot Apple Pie (founded by former Little Texas singer Brady Seals) and Hanna-McEuen. Both of them disbanded immediately after the label went under.
 * Lauryn Hill only released 2 albums, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and MTV Unplugged 2.0, and the latter was a live recording. Only her first album received overall acclaim, and after that album, she had a Creator Breakdown and left the public eye.
 * The German Industrial group Microchip League (MCL) only produced one studio album, Code Numbers, although in 2009, more than two decades later, they released a compilation of previously unreleased tracks, titled Raw Tapes.
 * Country music singer Cyndi Thomson zig-zagged this trope. She quit after her first album for Capitol Records because she didn't think she could handle the pressure of a second album, but contributed to two multi-artist albums and wrote Gary Allan's Top 10 hit "Life Ain't Always Beautiful". She briefly returned to Capitol but never released anything.
 * A more direct country music example is The Buffalo Club, which included then-former Restless Heart drummer John Dittrich. They were active only for one album in 1997, and split up by year's end just before their label (Rising Tide Records) closed. Dittrich rejoined Restless Heart a year later.
 * Cellsite System, a Portland, Oregon based trance project, apparently only made one album, Between Frequencies. The website is long gone, so good luck finding the album.
 * "Pump Up the Volume" was a worldwide top 10 smash in 1987, and a major influence on later examples of sampling in pop music (as well as electronic music as a whole). It was also the only song ever released by M|A|R|R|S, a collaboration between two artists on the independent record label 4AD (Dream Pop duo AR Kane and reggae group Colourbox).
 * "Carte Blanche", plus its B-side "Drafting", was the only original material by Veracocha, a one-off collaboration between Ferry Corsten and Vincent de Moor, although they did at least one remix (Ayla - Ayla).
 * Brazilian satirical band Mamonas Assassinas recorded only one album (which is one of the best-selling of all time in the country, mind you) before dying in a plane crash.
 * Another Country Music example is Caitlin & Will. They won the first season of CMT's singing competition Can You Duet, released one single and an EP, and broke up once the single fell from the charts.
 * Lies appears to be all we'll hear from the Synth Pop duo Heartbreak, although Ali Renault has a solo album, and Muravchik, under the alias Anthonio, released an Answer Song single to Annie(Anne Lilia Berge-Strand)'s "Anthonio" titled "Annie".
 * The psychedelica band Uriel only recorded and released one album—a self-titled album that was named while the band was using an alias, no less! The album, Arzachel, was released in 1969 and became a long sought-after collector's item for psychedelica enthusiasts; its sole (legal) re-release in 2007 sold out almost immediately.

Video Games

 * Yoshiki Kurin has only one role in her voice actor credits: Yumi Saotome, one of the main heroines of the wildly successful (in Japan) Dating Sim Tokimeki Memorial. She now works as a fashion designer.
 * Kanako Okada, the odd-woman-out of the All-Star Cast of Mitsumete Knight (a Spiritual Successor of Tokimeki Memorial), has voiced Hanna Shawski, one of the main heroines of that franchise, and no other role afterwards.
 * Many of the Japanese VAs of the Kingdom Hearts series (especially, those from the Japanese Disney dubs) have never worked in other works (anime, games and otherwise) besides those games or they only did foreign dubs but not Anime or anything locally created:
 * Some of the more Egregious examples are Riko Hanamura (Japanese VA for Nala) who only does foreign dubs, but not anime or Japanese games. Takashi Aoyagi (Mickey Mouse), Risa Uchida (Kairi),Iku Nakahara (Namine) and Mayumi Suzuki (Mulan) are practicaly typecasted as those characters, and in the case of Ms. Suzuki, she is typecasted as the eternal Japanese voice of Disney heroines, and nothing else.
 * L.A. Noire was the first and last work of Team Bondi, whose Troubled Production ultimately bankrupted the company.
 * Four Leaf Studio, the group of people behind Katawa Shoujo, was created specifically just for this one game and will not be making any other projects. Justified since it's a collaborative effort by people from all over the world and it has been 5 years in the making.
 * The only thing people know for a fact about Kikiyama is that (s)he was the creator of Yume Nikki.
 * Scott Hill's sole acting credit was Johnny Klebitz in Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned (barring minor appearances in the GTA IV proper and in The Ballad of Gay Tony), though he reprised the role of Johnny as a cameo in Grand Theft Auto V.
 * Ditto with British-American reggae singer Coolie Ranx, whose sole acting credit was Niko Bellic's close friend and accomplice Little Jacob in Grand Theft Auto IV, as well as the late reggae singer Seeborn (birth name Terry Marshall) who voiced Jacob's mentor Real Badman.

Western Animation

 * Voice actor Thom Huge voiced Jon Arbuckle in the animated specials based on Garfield and Garfield and Friends (where he also voiced Roy the rooster and various other characters). To this day, those are his only credits in any medium.
 * Huge was Jim Davis's associate at Paws Inc. who got roped into the role, rather than actually being a professional actor.
 * Several actors from Daria have never done other acting, due to actually being people working behind the scenes who got roped into voice-acting, as opposed to professional voice-actors. For instance, Tracy Grandstaff, who voiced the main character on Daria as well as on Beavis and Butthead, was a writer for various MTV programs.
 * Michael Wallis' only voice acting role (or acting credit of any kind for that matter) is as the the Sheriff of Radiator Springs in Cars, its sequel and other spin-off media. That said, Wallis is also a renowned journalist and historian.
 * Aside from a handful of brief cameos on a couple television shows, Sarah Vowell's only acting role is as Violet in The Incredibles and Incredibles 2. Like Wallis, she's better known a writer and essayist (most famous for her appearances on This American Life) instead of a professional actor.
 * Barring uncredited cameo roles in The Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life, Adriana Caselotti's only major acting role was Snow White in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Word has it that she was contractually forbidden by Disney to play another role or make a public appearance to give the illusion of Snow White as a real character. She did however absolutely loved the role and openly embraced the reputation the film gave her later in life.

Other

 * Edmund Gettier was a philosopher looking for tenure at Wayne State University. To help with this he was encouraged to publish any ideas he had. He published a three-page paper called Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? which completely changed epistemology (the study of knowledge) by showing that apparently, no it wasn't contrary to everything since Plato. He never touched epistemology again, and in fact has published nothing else.