Classic Character Actors

[TopBilled]

*Percy Kilbride*

 

In BLACK BART:

 

There ain't no permanence in this business. You just begin to like somebody and he turns up dead.

[TopBilled]

*Anna May Wong*

[TopBilled]

*John Carradine*

 

To Dana Andrews in FALLEN ANGEL:

 

Eric my boy, you're an artist. You have my sympathy.

[TopBilled]

*Doris Roberts*

 

To Rod Steiger in NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY:

 

Is that one of your own wigs you're wearing?

[TopBilled]

*Spencer Charters*

 

In YOUNG MR. LINCOLN:

 

Come, come, gentlemen. You've got to give the boys a fair trial-- a jury trial, before you hang 'em.

[TopBilled]

*Judy Canova*

 

Admiring her rich uncle's mansion, in SIS HOPKINS:

 

Why, it couldn't be purtier if it were a gas station.

[TopBilled]

*Orson Welles*

 

To Paul Newman in THE LONG, HOT SUMMER:

 

I guess you don't know who I am. I better introduce myself. I'm the big landowner, chief moneylender in these parts. I'm commissioner of elections, veterinarian, own a store and a cotton gin and a grist mill and a blacksmith shop...and it's considered unlucky for a man to do his trading or gin his cotton or grind his meal or shoe his stock anywhere else. Now that's who I am.

[Dothery]

TO BE OR NOT TO BE is such a great movie.

 

 

I still laugh whenever I remember the look on Jack Benny's face every time the young officer (Robert Stack) got up and left the theater. Just such a funny bit.

 

It may be a foolish analogy, but I've played piano for many years in restaurants and other public rooms, and like it or not, you always take it personally when people leave. That old insecurity is always there, even though they may have been cheering you five minutes before. You say to yourself, they have to catch a bus, or they have to get home for the baby sitter, but it's an anxious moment, anyway, and I can relate to Jack.

[Dothery]

Joey Bishop was a favorite of mine all the way back to 1952 or so, when he was on Ed Sullivan's show. I loved his material. One of his lines was that he was very sincere. He might not be funny, he said, but when you left you left feeling that he had been sincere.

[Dothery]

Jeanne Cooper! What a beautiful girl! Is that really Corbin Bernson's mother?

[Dothery]

My favorite Peter Falk "Columbo" line: "Sergeant, come on over here and look at this with me. Three eyes are better than one."

[lzcutter]

> Is that really Corbin Bernson's mother?

 

Certainly looks like he got her eyes and her smile, especially as he has gotten older. See him on *Psych* to see what I mean.

[TopBilled]

I couldn't find a suitable quote for Jeanne Cooper. I need to watch HOUSE OF WOMEN again. She is very good in that film, as a prison matron.

 

In her autobiography, 'Not Young Still Restless,' she says that Shelley Winters would sometimes get her to do small parts in Shelley's movies, but she and Shelley had a hot-and-cold friendship (I have read elsewhere that Shelley Winters was bipolar and difficult to get along with). Cooper says that she learned the most about acting from Maureen O'Hara while making the western THE REDHEAD FROM WYOMING.

[TopBilled]

*Carolyn Jones*

 

In LAST TRAIN FROM GUN HILL:

 

I haven't been lonesome since I was twelve years old.

[TopBilled]

*Peter Lorre*

 

In MAD LOVE:

 

Is there no room in your heart, even pity, for a man who has never known the love of a woman?

[TopBilled]

*Bette Midler*

 

In RUTHLESS PEOPLE:

 

Oh my God! I've been kidnapped by Huey and Dewey!

[TopBilled]

*Keye Luke*

 

In DR. GILLESPIE'S CRIMINAL CASE:

 

I'm small, but I'm from Brooklyn!

[TopBilled]

*Jessica Tandy*

 

To Morgan Freeman in DRIVING MISS DAISY:

 

Did you have the air-conditioning checked? I told you to have the air-conditioning checked.

[TopBilled]

*Sidney Blackmer*

 

To Carole Lombard in FROM HELL TO HEAVEN:

 

I never could be sensible where you're concerned.

[TopBilled]

*Mildred Dunnock*

 

In DEATH OF A SALESMAN:

 

Attention must finally be paid to such a man. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog.

[TopBilled]

*Jerome Cowan*

 

Looking at Humphrey Bogart's dead body in HIGH SIERRA:

 

Big shot Earle. Well look at him lying there. He ain't much now is he?

[TopBilled]

*Maureen Stapleton*

 

To Dick Van Dyke in BYE BYE BIRDIE:

 

Now, don't try to pay me back, son. I forgive you. So what if you're an ingrate? So long as you're happy.

[TopBilled]

*Will Geer*

 

When asked what keeps him going in EXECUTIVE ACTION:

 

Hard liquor and soft women.

[newclassicfilmfan]

Did Will Geer play the grandfather on the Waltons? That picture doesn't look like him.

[TopBilled]

Yes, he was Zeb Walton on the long-running TV series, and yes that is his picture. In EXECUTIVE ACTION, made during the time he was also appearing on The Waltons, he plays a southern politico. He has much shorter hair and it's a completely different type of character.