Robert Wagner:
Army Ranger, THE LONGEST DAY.
Navy Frogman, THE FROGMEN.
Air Force pilot, THE HUNTERS.
Marines – jeez, take your pick: HALLS OF MONTEZUMA, WHAT PRICE GLORY, STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER, IN LOVE AND WAR…
Richard Widmark:
Air Force rescue service pilot, FLIGHT FROM ASHIYA.
Navy destroyer captain, THE BEDFORD INCIDENT.
Army drill instructor, TAKE THE HIGH GROUND.
Marine lieutenant, HALLS OF MONTEZUMA.
James Garner
Army: 36 Hours, Tank, Darby’s Rangers
Navy: The Americanization of Emily, Up Periscope
Air Force: Space Cowboys, Toward the Unknown
Marines: Sayonara
RAF: The Great Escape
Also served in the actual Army during the Korean War.
He played a former naval officer – specifically, Vice-President LBJ – in Timequest.
Mark Wahlberg, in between playing cop after cop after cop after cop after cop, has found time for the following roles:
Army sergeant, Three Kings.
Marine scout sniper, Shooter.
Air Force captain, Planet Of The Apes.
Navy SEAL – not yet, but Lone Survivor is apparently in pre-production.
John Garfield:
Air Force, Air Force.
Marines, Pride Of The Marines.
Navy, Destination Tokyo.
Army, Gentleman’s Agreement.
Sam Shepard:
Air Force, The Right Stuff.
Army, Black Hawk Down.
Marines, One Kill.
Navy, Stealth.
And then we’ve got the go-to guy for all things military, whether you need him to play a Marine sergeant in House Of Games, or an Army colonel in Andersonville, or a Navy commander in Down Periscope, or even a gun-toting USAF Major in Air Force One: William H. Macy.
I imagine with all the character acting he’s done that Ernest Borgnine ought to be on our list. Anyone care to verify?
He had been in the Army in Marty.
…and played active-duty Army in From Here To Eternity. Plus he was the McHale in McHale’s Navy, played a former Marine in Another Harvest Moon, and apparently qualifies with the Air Corps as Dominic Santini on Airwolf.
ZOMBIE TAB HUNTER!
Tab Hunter served in the Coast Guard before getting his big break playing Marines in Saturday Island and **Battle Cry **followed by Army roles in That Kind Of Woman and The Girl He Left Behind and They Came To Cordura – as well as an Air Service role in Lafayette Escadrille, with bonus points for a regular USAF role in Birds Do It, plus a role as the Navy’s go-to lieutenant for explosives-expert work in Operation Bikini.
I’m too lazy to look up roles, but Professional “Military Guy” character actors like R. Lee Ermey and Dale Dye are good candidates.
Shane “Thunderbirds are go, Tracy” Rimmer pulled it off largely by dint of hailing from this side of the Atlantic while working in Britain: you need an American naval officer who’d be lost without timely help from Commander James Bond? The BBC is doing a production of Lee Oswald: Assassin and needs a guy who can sound like a USMC Sergeant? Well, shucks, why not just cast the actor Brits are always hiring to play an American CIA agent, or the American Secretary of State, or whatever?
(And, yes, he played that Air Force pilot in Doctor Strangelove before he portrayed Colonel Ball opposite George C Scott as General Patton.)
Steve McQueen played a USN sailor in The Sand Pebbles, USAAF officers in The Great Escape and The War Lover, and a US Army former sergeant in Hell is for Heroes.
He was also in an OSS movie titled Never So Few, but I can’t find which branch of the service his character was in. In real life, Steve served in the US Marine Corps between 1947 and 1950.
Clint Eastwood was also the USAF pilot who bombed the giant spider in Tarantula, but you would never know because he was wearing a crash helmet and oxygen mask.
So did Jim Rockford.
Even Star Fleet!
Guy Madison was apparently on liberty during WWII when he got his first on-screen role, as – well, a sailor in the WWII flick Since You Went Away, which wasn’t much of a stretch. After the war came his next role, as a Marine in Till The End of Time; he then landed USAF roles, as a Captain in On The Threshold Of Space after playing a Lieutenant in Red Snow…
…but his life’s work was pretty much playing Army officers, in Massacre River and Drums In The Deep South and Hell In Normandy and Raiders Of The Bloody Beach and Old Shatterhand and The Command and The Last Frontier and War Devils and Hell Commandos and Battle Of The Last Panzer.
(He also played an enlisted man in Honeymoon, and a Korean War vet torn away from his GI-Bill-funded studies in 5 Against The House, and a Civil War vet called back into action in The Charge At Feather River, and a former combat pilot forced to make an emergency landing in Jet Over The Atlantic; dude had a type, is what I’m saying.)
Van Williams qualifies on the thinnest possible technicality: between wrapping up his hundredth episode as surfside private eye Ken Madison and starting his run as the Green Hornet, he apparently played an Army corporal on The Dick Van Dyke Show, an Air Force sergeant in Red Nightmare, a USMC lieutenant on The Gallant Men, and a Navy commander in Pursue And Destroy.