As the OP says:
I thought that was pretty clear. The case of Henry Morgan playing two different characters in the TV series MASH pretty doesn’t qualify. The only way it would is if one episode was a virtual remake of the other. But just because somebody played two different characters in the same series doesn’t make it a fit for this thread. If it did, Dragnet and the A&E Nero Wolfe would be shoo-ins, since they re-used the same actors in different roles continuously.
Miriam Hopkins played one of the two women about whom a nasty child spreads a rumor, in These Three, William Wyler’s first version (1936) of Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour, which leaves out the lesbian angle, and is about a rumor of an ordinary affair. In 1961, he remade the film leaving the lesbian story intact, with Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn as the two young women. Miriam Hopkins plays the aunt of one of the women, which is probably the most substantial female role aside from the two leads.
Vincent Price (again) played the Duke of Clarence in a 1939 movie called Tower of London, in which Basil Rathbone played Richard III. Years later, in 1962, he played Richard himself in a Roger Corman movie also called Tower of London, which had a different script, but was still essentially a horror movie about Richard’s bloody rise to power.
References to the film on the imdb and elsewhere follow the lead of the opening credits and list actors for various parts, even though they didn’t appear in the film. In just the same way, the playbill of the original play gave not only the names, but also extensive bios of the actors playing these parts. It’s all, of course, to fool the audience. Some people (like me) actually read the credits, and they’d know something was up if only two actor’s names were given.
Harold Pinter, who rewrote Anthony Shaffer’s script for the remake (for the better, most critics say. For the worse, in my philistine opinion) managed to get himself in the film, despite it being a two-character play, and despite being dead at the time. They did it by having footage of him running on the television. It’s similar to the dodge Alfred Hitchcock used in Lifeboat, where he made his customary cameo appearance on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean by appearing as a picture in a newspaper one of them held (in a “before” and “after” picture for a weight loss product, no less)
How about Annette O’Toole? She played Lana Lang in Superman III and then Martha Kent in Smallville. Different productions, but both characters are part of the Superman mythos and were both substantial roles.
I’ve been trying to keep this as close as I can to cases where they’re in the same story, not the same “reality”. By your lights, Henry Morgan qualifies by being in the same “MASH Mythos”
I think I see the misunderstanding. In your OP you stated that an actor could play two different characters in the same TV (story). You also stated no cameos or walk-ons. I took that to include the story that was being told in the arc of a TV series. I see now that you were speaking strictly of a single movie plot. Sorry
I was referring to your comments about Barbara Eden who played her mother and a copy of herself in I dream of Jeannie. And Elizabeth Montgomery who plyed her cousin in Bewitched as well as (my example) Patty Duke’s Cousins roles in the Patty Duke show. I consider those to be tongue-in-cheek.
I did not consider Harry Morgan who played a crazy general who was a central character in one episode and then a main Character in the end seasons of MASH to have any implied connection to each other.
You evidently have a different definition of “tongue in cheek” than I do.
This isn’t a particularly deep or heavy topic, but I meant those examples seriously.
Seth Green was in both Buffy the movie and Buffy the TV show. I think most of his scenes were deleted in the movie (save for a brief moment), but it’s not what I would consider a cameo (which I take to mean a brief appearance from someone the audience would recognise).
The movie My Favourite Martian had the guy who played the Martian in the original TV series playing another character. At the end I think they tried to allude to him actually being the same character, but that makes absolutely no sense so I’m including it here anyway.
It happens more in theater than anywhere. Lea Solonga played Eponine in the original cast of Les Miz and later came back playing Fantine.
Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab in the original * Moby Dick*, then as the Nantucket preacher in the Henry Thomas remake on TNT.
Shirley Jones as Marian in The Music Man, and Mrs. Paroo on stage later in life.
On stage, John Rubenstein played the title role in the original Pippin and played King Charles in the revival (and is currently touring in the role).
Jeff Conaway played Danny in the Broadway version of Grease while John Travolta was in the much smaller role of Doody. By the time it was made into a movie, Travolta played the lead and Conaway played Kenickie.