Playing Yourself!

[speedracer5]

In Thank Your Lucky Stars, Eddie Cantor plays himself and he plays a bus driver who looks like Eddie Cantor.

In It's a Great Feeling, Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan play themselves, but they are also part of the plot in that they are trying to help Doris Day (not playing herself) get discovered.  Of course, this film is full of cameos, but I'm not sure if that counts in this context. Errol Flynn also has a cameo, but he does not play himself. 

[jakeem]

How many times has this gent played himself in a movie or a television series? This photo is from the 1992 comedy "White Men Can't Jump," in which Rosie Perez's character gets a chance to play "Jeopardy!"

 

[hamradio]

Re: Playing Yourself

Well that could had been me in "Frequency". (acting gig never panned out)

[EricJ]

48 minutes ago, jakeem said:

How many times has this gent played himself in a movie or a television series?

Not many, IIRC.  

And before Alex, there was Art Fleming:

"Ted, you're putting everyone on that ship in jeopardy!"
Passenger: "I'll take 'Air Shuttle Disasters' for $40, Art!"

--Airplane II: the Sequel

[sewhite2000]

1 hour ago, jakeem said:

How many times has this gent played himself in a movie or a television series? This photo is from the 1992 comedy "White Men Can't Jump," in which Rosie Perez's character gets a chance to play "Jeopardy!"

 

Everybody say it with me in that Rosie accent: "What is a quince?"

[jakeem]

46 minutes ago, EricJ said:

Not many, IIRC.

Well, let's see. Alex played himself as one of the Men in Black in the "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' " episode of "The X-Files." Jesse Ventura, the former wrestler (and Minnesota governor), was his partner.

[jakeem]

And then there's the classic episode of "Cheers" in which Cliff Clavin was a contestant on "Jeopardy!" 

 

[jakeem]

And the scene from "She's All That" (1999) when Wayne Boggs (played by Kevin Pollak) -- the father of Laney Boggs (Rachael Leigh Cook) -- is watching Alex and "Jeopardy!" on television. He makes the wrong reponse every time.

[jakeem]

Of course, he made a cameo appearance as himself when Will Ferrell did his impersonation for the last time on a 2002 episode of "Saturday Night Live."

[Dargo]

People of a certain age who listened to a certain high-powered Top-40 radio station with its broadcast tower located just on the other side of the Mexican border, would certainly have already known of this guy...

...when they went to see George Lucas' American Graffiti back in '73.

[Fedya]

Dick Clark and a bunch of other people played themselves in The Phynx.

[Sepiatone]

Game show hosts?

RALPH EDWARDS makes an appearance in 1942's SEVEN DAYS' LEAVE as himself hosting a broadcast of Truth Or Consequences and even has a sort of "comic" line when he pulls the film's star VICTOR MATURE out of the audience by saying, "And here we have a young soldier, kind of looks like a 'poor man's' Victor Mature____".

Sepiatone

[RipMurdock]

How about Marjoe Gortner who was the child evangelist who wanted to go straight. The documentary about him was called Marjoe. Of course there were also all those times that famous baseball players like Mickey Mantle and Don Drysdale were in movies like ones with Doris Day. I think I remember one with Roger Maris probably due to his 61 homer run against the Babe Ruth legend. Didn't they call it 61 [with an asterisk] or something since he accomplished it in a longer season. I seem to also remember people like Yogi, and Giants' players plus of course earlier Jackie Robinson played himself in his bio flick.

[jakeem]

2 hours ago, RipMurdock said:

How about Marjoe Gortner who was the child evangelist who wanted to go straight. The documentary about him was called Marjoe. Of course there were also all those times that famous baseball players like Mickey Mantle and Don Drysdale were in movies like ones with Doris Day. I think I remember one with Roger Maris probably due to his 61 homer run against the Babe Ruth legend. Didn't they call it 61 [with an asterisk] or something since he accomplished it in a longer season. I seem to also remember people like Yogi, and Giants' players plus of course earlier Jackie Robinson played himself in his bio flick.

Are you thinking of the 2001 TV movie "61*" -- directed by Billy Crystal and starring Thomas Jane as Mantle and Barry Pepper as Maris?

[RipMurdock]

25 minutes ago, jakeem said:

Are you thinking of the 2001 TV movie "61*" -- directed by Billy Crystal and starring Thomas Jane as Mantle and Barry Pepper as Maris?

No, though I've seen that film. I'm talking about a film called something like Safe at HOme Plate which had both Mantle and Maris in it from the early 1960's during the home run contest for Maris. Pepper was really good as Maris in that film though. Looked like him and had his personality.

[jakeem]

7 minutes ago, RipMurdock said:

No, though I've seen that film. I'm talking about a film called something like Safe at HOme Plate which had both Mantle and Maris in it from the early 1960's during the home run contest for Maris. Pepper was really good as Maris in that film though. Looked like him and had his personality.

Ah, you meant the 1962 baseball movie "Safe at Home," which billed young actor Bryan Russell as "the luckiest kid in the world!" The movie also was the final screen appearance of William Frawley, who was playing "Bub" on the TV sitcom "My Three Sons" at the time.

[Thenryb]

Howard K. Smith played himself in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

 

[Dargo]

1 hour ago, Thenryb said:

Howard K. Smith played himself in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

 

Smith was also in 1964's The Best Man and 1972's The Candidate.

And speaking of television newsmen playing themselves on film...

Growing up in L.A., I'd often notice a few of the local television reporters that the movie studios would use when they needed someone to play a newsman in their films.

Angelenos of a certain age might remember recognizing Clete Roberts in 1955's The Phenix City Story and in a few other feature films back in the day...

He also had a memorable role playing a Korean War correspondent in an episode of the M*A*S*H television series, and in fact often played himself in many another TV series from the 1950s thru the 1970s. 

Another local L.A. reporter who'd often get the call to play himself in a movie would be Bill Stout, and who also played himself in the aforementioned The Best Man and The Candidate films...

 

 

 

 

[RipMurdock]

1 hour ago, jakeem said:

Ah, you meant the 1962 baseball movie "Safe at Home," which billed young actor Bryan Russell as "the luckiest kid in the world!" The movie also was the final screen appearance of William Frawley, who was playing "Bub" on the TV sitcom "My Three Sons" at the time.

Yeah that's it with Maris on the left and Mantle on right. Frawley was a big baseball fan.

[Dargo]

2 hours ago, jakeem said:

Are you thinking of the 2001 TV movie "61*" -- directed by Billy Crystal and starring Thomas Jane as Mantle and Barry Pepper as Maris?

Just wanna say here that I LOVED this TVM, and thought Crystal's direction and all the actors in it were absolutely first-rate.

And yeah, even the casting in it was perfect.

(...probably one of the best films about baseball ever...and regardless it being a TVM or not) 

[RipMurdock]

Just thought of a couple more. Seems like boxers often were playing themselves in movies with people like Joe Louis and Max Baer and even the glass jawed Primo Carnera. ONe movie that had both Baer and Carnera was with Myrna Loy called The Prizefighter and the Lady, but the funny part is Baer was playing a character and Carnera was playing himself.

[EricJ]

3 minutes ago, RipMurdock said:

Just thought of a couple more. Seems like boxers often were playing themselves in movies with people like Joe Louis and Max Baer and even the glass jawed Primo Carnera. ONe movie that had both Baer and Carnera was with Myrna Loy called The Prizefighter and the Lady, but the funny part is Baer was playing a character and Carnera was playing himself.

Carnera also played himself when he faced off against Mighty Joe Young.

[jakeem]

28 minutes ago, Dargo said:

Just wanna say here that I LOVED this TVM, and thought Crystal's direction and all the actors in it were absolutely first-rate.

And yeah, even the casting in it was perfect.

(...probably one of the best films about baseball ever...and regardless it being a TVM or not) 

Well, you must remember that Crystal is the ultimate Yankees fan. Ten years ago, he even played in a spring training game in Tampa on the eve of his 60th birthday. He struck out in his only at bat, but he worked the count to 3-1.  

By the way, he's played himself twice -- in "I'm Still Here" (the notorious 2010 screen collaboration of Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix) and in "The Comedian" (the 2016 Robert De Niro film).

[Sepiatone]

OK, so how about the most OBVIOUS one?

TO HELL AND BACK, starring...............

 

Sepiatone

[Dargo]

11 minutes ago, Sepiatone said:

OK, so how about the most OBVIOUS one?

TO HELL AND BACK, starring...............

 

Sepiatone

WAIT! Jeffrey Hunter was playing HIMSELF in that one???

(...oops, sorry...ya know I DID always get those WWII flicks with the word "Hell" in the title mixed-up somehow...uh-huh, and along with that one starring Steve McQueen TOO!!!)