Darla From Little Rascals Grew Up To Be Absolutely Stunning

Most of us remember 1994's The Little Rascals as a pivotal moment in our childhoods. The adaptation of the beloved Our Gang TV shorts was a major moment for its diminutive cast, too, most of whom were making their on-screen debut. Bug Hall, in particular, who played the lovable Alfalfa, has gone on to career success with consistent roles across the board. Several of his castmates, however, have faded into obscurity. 

What about Alfalfa's love interest, Darla? She's the focus of the entire story when you consider Alfalfa just wants to prove his love to her but can't manage it with his devious friends around. Also making her feature debut, actress Brittany Ashton Holmes certainly left an impression both on those watching and on Hollywood. She was poised for a huge career. Did Holmes hit the mainstream, or was she content to let that one great performance speak for her?

According to The Things, Brittany Ashton Holmes nabbed the role of Darla when she was just 5 years old. Her subsequent acting career was fitful, with a bit part in a 1995 episode of Ellen standing out, in which she played Julie, followed by a McDonald's commercial the same year, promoting the fast-food chain's Happy Meals. Holmes also featured on TV series Red Shoe Diaries that same year, as a child whose parents were about to divorce.

Holmes had a busy 1996, too, appearing in three TV movies: Death Benefit; Circuit Breaker; and sci-fi horror Humanoids from the Deep, a remake of the 1980 original and part of Roger Corman Presents' second season on Showtime. She then stepped back from acting entirely until 2014, when the Little Rascals star featured as "Townslady Britt" in TV short We Hate Paul Revere. At the time of this writing, she hasn't appeared in anything since.

According to Brittany Ashton Holmes' old MySpace page (remember MySpace?), taking a step back from acting was purposeful. She wrote, "I was [an] actress when I was little and did this movie called The Little Rascals. It's, like, really embarrassing to watch and I don't want to act anymore," (via Screen Rant). She reportedly retired formally at age 7 — though that 2014 role suggests something lured her back, if only momentarily — and completed high school like a normal kid.

There's a Twitter account tied to her name, which makes specific reference in the Twitter bio to the fact that Holmes is most well known for 1994's The Little Rascals. However, if it is indeed the former child star, she hasn't tweeted anything yet to the account. Elsewhere online, Holmes doesn't appear to have a presence which, again, may be by design.

According to E! News, Brittany Ashton Holmes is married and lives with her hubby in Los Angeles. There are plenty of reports floating around about her pursuing a political science degree but, considering how long they have been circulating, it seems likely Holmes has completed her studies and is maybe even working in her chosen field by now. As Movie Web notes, when Holmes was asked to take part in the 20th anniversary photo shoot for The Little Rascals, she was initially hesitant. 

"Like a lot of child actors, she was guarded, but after we spoke on the phone for a while, she trusted me," Brian Pocrass, founder of production company 22 Vision, who organized it, explained to HuffPost. He elaborated, "This wasn't about the tabloid. It was more about the film. It all stems from the fact that they just wanted to see each other."

AOL offers that Brittany Ashton Holmes loves traveling, too, although it's unclear where that info came from while, as per Daily Edge, she's working as a dog groomer these days. According to Vulture, Holmes expressed a desire to reunite with Bug Hall again someday on her MySpace page (alongside Orlando Bloom and "billie-joe," which either means the singer from Green Day or is a typo and she meant to reference Billy Joel).  

The former actress got her wish in 2014, when the cast came back together for the aforementioned anniversary photo shoot, during which they recreated iconic moments from The Little Rascals. The cast even recreated the film's iconic poster. Holmes might have been hesitant to do it at first, but she certainly got into the swing of things upon laying eyes on Alfalfa, Spanky, Waldo, Buckwheat, and the rest of the gang all grown up.

In a behind-the-scenes video from the reunion shoot, shared on the 22 Vision YouTube page, Brittany Ashton Holmes enthusiastically argues that "everybody still has that core rascal inside of them" after Hall, standing next to her in a throwback to their onscreen relationship of Darla and Alfalfa, admitted "it feels like no time has passed" since they shot the movie. Dressed up in a fashionably prim outfit of which Darla herself would be proud, and rocking some funky streaks in her hair, the then-25-year-old actress remained glassy-eyed about her experience on The Little Rascals. 

She noted simply, "The whole movie was a dream." The general feeling throughout the shoot is of old friends reconnecting after years apart, as though nothing has changed, because their first film experience was so wonderful. Perhaps, then, Holmes simply had such a great time during her first acting job that it spoiled her for life. And who could blame her?