I’m not talking about guest shots (which are common- Tyne Daly is guest starring on BURN NOTICE this year as a friend of Sharon Gless for example) but where they were both series regulars. Examples:
—Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance appeared as Lucy & Ethel in I Love Lucy, then starred as Lucy Carmichael and Vivian Bagley (a widow and divorcee sharing a house) in “The Lucy Show”.
—Bill Cosby and Felicia Rashad starred as Cliff and Claire Huxtable in The Cosby Show then as Hilton and Ruth Lucas in Cosby (still husband and wife but different characters) in Cosby for four years. (My understanding is that Telma Hopkins was originally to be his wife but was jettisoned when Felicia became available; no idea whether it was amicable and I never watched the show enough to know how different it was from The Cosby Show).
Are there any other cases of two (or more) actors starring in two (or more) successful TV series as different characters?
First thing that comes to mind is Michael Landon and Victor French.
Played Charles Wilder and Isaiah Washington on Little House on the Prairie and the Jonathan and Mark Gordon on Highway to Heaven. ETA: Oh, and Andy Griffith had both The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock. Don Knotts was Deputy Fife on the former and had a recurring role as Matlock’s neighbor in the later seasons of the latter. This one is pretty borderline, though.
Justin Berfield is the youngerst person to be in over 100 episodes of 2 different TV series. He played Ross Malloy on Unhappily Ever After for five seasons then went on to play Reese on Malcolm in the Middle for seven seasons.
Not exactly what I was going for, but this reminds me:
Bea Arthur and Rue McLanahan were regulars on Maude and then on The Golden Girls. (Rue McLanahan and Betty White were on several episodes of Mama’s Family together but I’m not sure if either would be considered a regular.)
In the Lucy vein, Ann Tyrrell was Ann Sothern’s sidekick in Private Secretary; the two reprised the relationship in the Ann Sothern Show. Actually, you could include Don Porter as the all-purpose boss, as well.
In The Partners, his completely forgotten follow-up to Get Smart, Don Adams brought back Robert Karvelas, who had played Agent Larrabee, as one of the cast.
Burt Reynolds brought back Ossie Davis from his days on B.L. Stryker, to co-star with him in Evening Shade.
David Caruso and Dennis Franz were both in Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue. Caruso had a recurring role in the first season of Hill Street, but I don’t know if he did any scenes with Franz.
Henry Winkler and Ron Howard worked together in Happy Days and Arrested Development.
Only those of us who were Saturday morning cartoon fans in the Seventies will remember this, but…
Years after starring together on “F Troop,” Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch starred together on a Saturday morning series called “Ghost Busters.” This was LONG before the Bill Murray movie of the (almost) same name came out, but the premise was similar. Tucker, Storch and their pet gorilla Tracy were hired each week to get rid of troublesome ghosts.
Franz’s character didn’t join Hill Street until later seasons.
Dean Winters was on the first season of Law & Order: SVU with Christopher Meloni and BD Wong, all playing law enforcement officers, a far cry from their roles on Oz on HBO.
Thomas Gibson was in several seasons of Chicago Hope, then Dharma & Greg, and now Criminal Minds.
Robert Urich was in: Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (1973) - as “Bob Sanders”
***S.W.A.T. *** (1975-76) - as “Officer Jim Street” Soap (1977) - as “Peter Campbell” Tabitha (1976-77) - as “Paul Thurston” Vega$ (1978-1981) - as “Dan Tanna” Gavilan (1982) - as “Robert Gavilan” Spenser: For Hire (1985-88, plus later TV movies) - as “Spenser” American Dreamer (1990) - as “Tom Nash” It Had to Be You (1993) - as “Mitch Quinn” The Lazarus Man (1996-97) - as “Lazarus” The Love Boat: The Next Wave (1998) - as “Capt. Jim Kennedy” Emeril (2001) - as “Jerry”
plus a handful of miniseries (including Lonesome Dove), documentaries and specials. Of course, excluding the miniseries, only Vega$ and Spenser for Hire could really be called successful.
Right. We’re looking for teams of two actors who appeared together in one show and who then went on to appear together in another show as different characters.
Possibly Bob Newhart and Tom Poston count. They were both in The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart and the short-lived Bob. But Poston had only recurring roles in the first and third shows, he wasn’t really a regular.
Ok this is a stretch. Larry Hagman (JR on Dallas) and Donna Mills (Abby Ewing on the spin-off/cross-over Knots Landing) were in a very short-lived series “The Good Life” in the early 70’s
