Some of you older fogies may remember the lissome Whitney Blake, who played a sitcom wife on TV’s “Hazel,” for four seasons.
She transitioned into producing and directing, and was one of the creators of “One Day At A Time.” But I what found interesting is that her daughter was Meredith Baxter, an actress who is known for playing a sitcom wife on TV’s “Family Ties.”
(Also interesting is that Whitney played “Mrs. Baxter,” and in real life married a man named Baxter, which explains Meredith’s surname…but I digress).
There are plenty of children of actors that are also actors, of course, but are there other examples of matching sitcom roles across generations?
Sean Connery played Robin Hood, but you don’t care, because we all know that the first line in his obituary will mention him playing Ian Fleming’s James Bond.
Anyhow, his son Jason Connery, who also played Robin Hood, played – Ian Fleming.
Mario van Peebles played his father Melvin van Peebles in Baadasssss!, the story of how the elder van Peebles made the movie “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.” In the latter movie, Mario had a small role, playing the young version of the character played by his father.
And in an episode of “Leverage” with a costume party where everyone dressed as famous fictional detectives, Tim Hutton’s character dressed as Ellery Queen.
Peggy Lipton played a police detective on The Mod Squad and her daughter, Rashida Jones, plays a police detective on Angie Tribeca (very different characters but they’re both police detectives so there’s that).
Interestingly, just now looking at her credits, I see that Peggy Lipton played a character Nurse Winters on an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Rashida Jones played a nurse on Parks and Recreation.
Tom Hanks and his son Colin Hanks both served in World War II.
(Saving Private Ryan/Band of Brothers)
Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now and Charlie in Platoon. What makes the comparison stronger, even though the roles aren’t exactly the same, is that they were both narrators of their films.
lon Chaney didn’t want his son Creighton becoming an actor, but he did, after his father’s death, and was billed as “Lon Chaney, Jr.” Like his father, he made films for Universal Studios. Also like his father, although he performed in both “straight” movies (most notably as Lenny in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men) and horror films, he’s better known for his genre roles.
But Father and Son never played precisely the same role. Senior was The Phantom of the Opera and (although it’s not really horror ) THe Hunchback of Notre Dame, while Junior was famously The Wolfman, but also played the Frankenstein Monster and the Mummy. (both in sequels to the original pix).
The only time they played similar roles was when Senior played a vampire in London After Midnight His son didn’t star in the remake*, but did play a vampire in Son of Dracula.
*The remake, Mark of the Vampire, was directed by the same director, Tod Browning, and starred Bela Lugosi, who had been directed by Browning in Dracula. Just to bind this all together, Lugosi also played the Frankenstein Monster.
Harrison Ford and River Phoenix played father and son in The Mosquito Coast (1986). A few years later, Phoenix played young Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade.
Henry and Jane Fonda both appeared in On Golden Pond as father and daughter. Jane had actually purchased the play’s film rights because she felt the conflict between the film’s two characters very closely mirrored the emotional estrangement between herself and her father in real life. In later years, Jane said that the experience of acting together did indeed help repair their strained relationship.
Mamie Gummer played her mother (Meryl Streep) as a late teen in “Evening.” The resemblance was so close, I was positive they’d done some CGI trick to make Streep look decades younger.
Janet Leigh played the famous shower scene victim of a psychotic killer in Psycho.
Years later her daugther Jamie Lee Curtis was pursued by a psychotic killer in Halloween.
Dwayne Johnson played his dad (a pro wrestler in the 70s) on an episode of that 70s Show. his dad was in the same ep as his manager.
Not similar roles but Keifer Sutherland got the role in Dark City because they sent the script to the wrong Sutherland. He contacted the studio about the mistake and they were pretty much “Huh. Are you interested in playing it?”
