Unheralded Actors Who Deserve Our Admiration

[jamesjazzguitar]

Steven Geray;    This actor is in many fine films, in all kinds of genres, and I always find him interesting;

Films like  The Mask of Dimitrios,  Deadline at Dawn,   The Conspirators, Spellbound, Cornered, The Unfaithful,  Gunfighters, The Dark Past,  A Lady Without Passport,  In a Lonely Place,  Women on the Run,  All About Eve,   Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,   and Affairs in Trinidad. 

His most well known role was as Uncle Pio in Gilda and his only starring role So Dark the Night (a first rate crime\noir film).

 

[TomJH]

Tom D'Andrea

He had a character actor everyman face, his peak years in the movies when he was under contract at Warner Brothers during the '40s, appearing in, among other films, Pride of the Marines, Humoresque (as Garfield's brother) and Silver River. Later he would do some television work, including The Life of Riley.

D'Andrea had a laconic, laid back dialogue delivery style which did him well if he was given a good scene. He could play comedy, as well as drama.

For my money the highlight of his career at Warners was when he played the talkative cab driver who takes Bogart to a plastic surgeon in Dark Passage. He was so good in this part that I have to wonder why the studio didn't do more with him afterward.

His anecdote to Bogart of the man who got into his cab with two gold fish in a bowl, and their "slippity slop" ride up and down the hills of Frisco remains a marvelously amusing demonstration of the actor's adroit conversational style. It's a shame he couldn't have had other scenes given to him with writing as good as this.

[jamesjazzguitar]

33 minutes ago, TomJH said:

Tom D'Andrea

He had a character actor everyman face, his peak years in the movies when he was under contract at Warner Brothers during the '40s, appearing in, among other films, Pride of the Marines, Humoresque (as Garfield's brother) and Silver River. Later he would do some television work, including The Life of Riley.

D'Andrea had a laconic, laid back dialogue delivery style which did him well if he was given a good scene. He could play comedy, as well as drama.

For my money the highlight of his career at Warners was when he played the talkative cab driver who takes Bogart to a plastic surgeon in Dark Passage. He was so good in this part that I have to wonder why the studio didn't do more with him afterward.

His anecdote to Bogart of the man who got into his cab with two gold fish in a bowl, and their "slippity slop" ride up and down the hills of Frisco remains a marvelously amusing demonstration of the actor's adroit conversational style. It's a shame he couldn't have had other scenes given to him with writing as good as this.

Great selection;   TCM recently featured Tom in Flaxy Martin and Tension.

 

[speedracer5]

7 hours ago, ChristineHoard said:

GREAT POSTER ART!

I think mine is this one:

I want to get a copy of The Brain That Wouldn't Die, but I haven't found it in the stores yet.  

[speedracer5]

12 minutes ago, jamesjazzguitar said:

Great selection;   TCM recently featured Tom in Flaxy Martin and Tension.

 

I concur.  I never thought much of Tom D'Andrea, except that I knew he was the cab driver in Dark Passage.  I think he also plays Jack Gordon, Flynn's friend, in Never Say Goodbye.  It seems like ever since I watched Dark Passage on Noir Alley awhile back, D'Andrea has been popping up in everything I've watched since! I really like him.  It seems that his filmography is a bit sparse, but he's a good actor.  

[Dargo]

Okay, here's my offering...

Sonny Tufts

AND, if for no other reason than that the sheer mention of his name would become somewhat of a punchline during the 1960s and '70s, and especially on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

(...and so what say we keep the name "Sonny Tufts" alive in our collective memory here, folks?!)

 

[Sepiatone]

20 hours ago, CaveGirl said:

I'm waiting with bated breath, Sepia...

Well, thanks for the belief in me, but I guess all I can come up with for now is EMILE MEYER, who played the abrasive and somewhat frightening cop LT. KELLO in SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS.  Some might too, consider him in the "character actors" list, but he's usually cast as the same type( except in PATHS OF GLORY), so.....

But I had to chuckle at your comment up there.  All due to some long forgotten( title-wise anyway) BOWERY BOYS movie in which "flubberty-tongued" Slip Mahoney, once setting up a meeting for a date with a quite attractive Miss, agrees to meet her at some certain corner at a certain time, and tells her, "I'll be waiting with bait breath" !   

Sepiatone

[TopBilled]

8 hours ago, Dargo said:

Okay, here's my offering...

Sonny Tufts

AND, if for no other reason than that the sheer mention of his name would become somewhat of a punchline during the 1960s and '70s, and especially on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

(...and so what say we keep the name "Sonny Tufts" alive in our collective memory here, folks?!)

A few days ago I watched the 1945 Paramount morale booster BRING ON THE GIRLS. Tufts is second-billed under Veronica Lake, though third-billed Eddie Bracken really plays the main character. Tufts doesn't seem to apply much effort in the role, but there is a scene early in the picture where he sits down at a piano and sings. He was quite good. It's his actual voice, no dubbing. So he did have talent.

[cigarjoe]

On 8/25/2018 at 11:41 PM, Dargo said:

Okay, here's my offering...

Sonny Tufts

AND, if for no other reason than that the sheer mention of his name would become somewhat of a punchline during the 1960s and '70s, and especially on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

(...and so what say we keep the name "Sonny Tufts" alive in our collective memory here, folks?!)

 

He's great as the villain and very impressive in The Crooked Way 

[CaveGirl]

On 8/25/2018 at 11:41 PM, Dargo said:

Okay, here's my offering...

Sonny Tufts

AND, if for no other reason than that the sheer mention of his name would become somewhat of a punchline during the 1960s and '70s, and especially on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, and on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.

(...and so what say we keep the name "Sonny Tufts" alive in our collective memory here, folks?!)

 

Dargo, don't you think Sonny Tufts and Forrest Tucker should have played brothers in films?
 

They look a lot alike, and seemed to get similar parts, but only Sonny went to Yale as I recall.

[TomJH]

Chester Clute

Anyone who has seen their share of studio era films will have seen this face countless times. Usually cast as a nebbish, a meek little man, a henpecked husband, in general, one of the mice of the world, Chester was ideal for comedy support roles. Unfortunately I can't think of any one film which particularly stood out for him. A lot of his parts were uncredited, cast as, among other roles according to IMDb, "Milquetoast Customer," "Man On Bus" and "Train Conductor."

As you can see Chester didn't always get a lot of respect in his films.

Incredible to know, though, that in real life Chester was known as "Stud Muffin" to Ava Gardner. Apparently Chester was good at what Ava wanted, and there were rumours that one time Sinatra went looking for him with a gun.

 

 

 

Well, I can dream for the guy, can't I?

[CaveGirl]

35 minutes ago, TomJH said:

Chester Clute

Anyone who has seen their share of studio era films will have seen this face countless times. Usually cast as a nebbish, a meek little man, a henpecked husband, in general, one of the mice of the world, Chester was ideal for comedy support roles. Unfortunately I can't think of any one film which particularly stood out for him. A lot of his parts were uncredited, cast as, among other roles according to IMDb, "Milquetoast Customer," "Man On Bus" and "Train Conductor."

As you can see Chester didn't always get a lot of respect in his films.

Incredible to know, though, that in real life Chester was known as "Stud Muffin" to Ava Gardner. Apparently Chester was good at what Ava wanted, and there were rumours that one time Sinatra went looking for him with a gun.

 

 

 

Well, I can dream for the guy, can't I?

Perfect choice for my idea of unheralded actors. Someone who is almost a nonentity to the normal viewing audience but who brings verisimilitude to any film. Chester fits the bill superbly, and thanks, Tom!

[Dargo]

1 hour ago, CaveGirl said:

Dargo, don't you think Sonny Tufts and Forrest Tucker should have played brothers in films?
 

They look a lot alike, and seemed to get similar parts, but only Sonny went to Yale as I recall.

Yeah, come to think of it here CG, Sonny and Forest WERE very similar in build, resembled each other quite a bit, and were often cast in similar type roles.

(...yeah, Sonny should have guested as Tucker's Sgt. O'Rourke character's brother on that old sitcom and it would've been a case of perfect casting, alright)

[Dargo]

49 minutes ago, TomJH said:

Chester Clute

Anyone who has seen their share of studio era films will have seen this face countless times. Usually cast as a nebbish, a meek little man, a henpecked husband, in general, one of the mice of the world, Chester was ideal for comedy support roles. Unfortunately I can't think of any one film which particularly stood out for him. A lot of his parts were uncredited, cast as, among other roles according to IMDb, "Milquetoast Customer," "Man On Bus" and "Train Conductor."

Whaddaya talkin' here, Tom?!

Chester is VERY memorable as the nebbish little shoe salesman who Irene Dunne talks into playing "Adam" so as to attempt to alleviate Cary Grant's jealousy upon learning that she was stuck on that deserted island with another man in the movie My Favorite Wife...

(...remember now?) 

[Emily Emerac]

Among my top choices for actors are consistently wonderful and consistently underappreciated would be Harry Morgan, Frank Faylen and Percy Helton.  And one of my all-time favorites as an always top drawer female supporter is Verree Teasdale.

 

[CaveGirl]

3 minutes ago, Emily Emerac said:

Among my top choices for actors are consistently wonderful and consistently underappreciated would be Harry Morgan, Frank Faylen and Percy Helton.  And one of my all-time favorites as an always top drawer female supporter is Verree Teasdale.

 

Oooh, great choices and I particularly love Percy, and Verree is fab too. Harry and Frank are super also but a bit more famous at least among film buffs. Thanks so much, Emily!

[Emily Emerac]

How about Clinton Sundberg?  Mary Treen?  Walter Tetley?

[TomJH]

1 hour ago, Emily Emerac said:

Among my top choices for actors are consistently wonderful and consistently underappreciated would be Harry Morgan, Frank Faylen and Percy Helton.  And one of my all-time favorites as an always top drawer female supporter is Verree Teasdale.

 

I always thought Verree Teasdale was kinda hot - in an upper crust cream of society sort of way.

Hubby Adolphe Menjou probably agreed.

[TopBilled]

Another person I'd "nominate" for this thread is Richard Todd. I've never seen him give a performance I didn't admire. 

[Emily Emerac]

2 hours ago, TomJH said:

I always thought Verree Teasdale was kinda hot - in an upper crust cream of society sort of way.

Hubby Adolphe Menjou probably agreed.

Teasedale was very versatile - she could be haughty, naughty, evil, or downright hilarious.  Her arch delivery made her a sort of predecessor to Eve Arden.

I thought of a few more who deserve attention:  Elizabeth Patterson, Ida Moore, Moroni Olsen and the very droll Clarence Kolb. How about Ellen Corby?  She wasn't really "famous" until The Waltons, but she had a very long resume before that. I think one of my very favorite supporting players is John Qualen, who specialized in Scandinavian roles, but could do just about any dialect you needed.  He played generally meek and befuddled, but could be mean, too, like in The Devil and Daniel Webster.

[scsu1975]

Henry O'Neill. Long career as a competent character actor, usually playing the lawyer, judge, etc. But his best performance may have been as the ex-reporter turned drunk in Scandal Sheet (1952), where he puts two and two together, causing Brod Crawford to off him:

[Dargo]

There was never any typecasting that could be applied to actor Douglas Fowley here...

Adept at both drama and comedy in his nearly 50 year long film career, his roles could vary as widely as playing the sinister underworld type in many a crime saga and film noir, to the smart-talking and denture rattling WWII G.I. in Battleground, to his memorable comic turn as the frustrated movie director in Singin' in the Rain.

 

 

[ChristineHoard]

Donald Meek who was in lots of films often playing a worried, timid type of guy.  STAGECOACH (1939) is one of his most notable roles (Thomas Mitchell, another great character actor, drinks up his liquor samples)  and he's in CAPTAIN BLOOD, too.

[ChristineHoard]

On 8/25/2018 at 12:26 PM, Hoganman1 said:

In keeping with the "Monster" thread  you started I would suggest Richard Carlson. Maybe he did get some acclaim of which I'm not aware that would disqualify him, but he wasn't a big star as far as I know. 

I like Richard Carlson.  In addition to his monster/SF roles, he gives a nice supporting performance in THE LITTLE FOXES.

[Sepiatone]

4 hours ago, ChristineHoard said:

Donald Meek who was in lots of films often playing a worried, timid type of guy.  STAGECOACH (1939) is one of his most notable roles (Thomas Mitchell, another great character actor, drinks up his liquor samples)  and he's in CAPTAIN BLOOD, too.

    

I was just THINKING of him while going over the posts....   

I always thought, considering most of the characters he played, that he DID do his best to live up to his name! 

Sepiatone