While he usually has some prosthetic help, Ron Perlman probably has a record for the most ugly characters portrayed on film.
Ruth Buzzi.
I have to agree with cher3. Bea Arthur was quite striking in her youth. I never thought she was ugly, even in her later years.
Some of the women looked pretty good when they were younger, but had the bad judgment to get older. :rolleyes:
I think the queen of them all was Marie Dressler, who not only was unattractive, but who still managed to be a top star, not just a character actor.
Who played Hatchet face in Cry Baby? Did she really look like that?
Kim McGuire, who’s done very little else, but Cry Baby reminds me of Susan Tyrell, an actress who totally fits this category. You’d know her if you saw her, but surprisingly there are no good images of her when you Google her name. She looks like Norma Desmond’s even more demented but destitute cousin. Her best known characters include Grandma Ramona in Cry Baby and, my personal favorite, the character of Sconset Sal, a horrid and crude fisherwoman, on the sitcom Wings. In one episode of the latter Antonio briefly considers marrying her to stay in the country (she’ll “take him on” for $1000) and is trying to warm to the notion- my favorite scene is when he’s just decided “Well, she’s not that bad”, then she picks something from hair and flicks it saying “Get away little fella… I ain’t the Holly-day Inn!”
Sadly she rarely works today because she had to have her legs amputated due to a blood disease a few years ago. Here’s hoping she makes a comeback once she learns to use her prostheses or that somebody who admires her work will write a character role into a wheelchair for her.
Page was another example of a woman who looked pretty good back in the day. In her younger days, she worked as a stripper using the stagename “The Bronze Goddess”.
If Steven Wright and Jeffrey Tambor could have a kid…
Pictures (they’re actually work safe, but may make you do a double take as her swimsuit is the same color as her skin)
Since when is Kathy Bates ugly? She’s heavy, not ugly. NOT the same thing.
Ruth Buzzi is not ugly. I’d offer her a Walnetto any day.
Of course, I had a crush on all the female Laugh-In cast members.
In most cases the prosthetic improves his appearance.
Heh! I never thought she was particularly hideous, either, but you’ve seen the Friar’s Club Roasts – she was the Bea Arthur most of the time.
Ruth: I have always, always loved Frank Sinatra!
Frank: That’s nice, sweetheart, just don’t look at me for the love of God.
What’s sad is that, if you knew them in real life, few of these people would strike you as ugly and some, especially “back in the day,” you’d think of as hot. Cloris Leachman, for instance, was a beauty queen in college, though if you’ve ever been to the Northwestern campus you’d realize that was no great feat. rimshot No, really, she was Miss Chicago of 1946 in the run up to the Miss America contest.
I saw Margaret Hamilton on a talk show and she exuded sweetness to the point where she became beautiful.
[aside] I have seen Richard Kiel in all manner of roles that span forty-some years and am happy to see that not once in that time has he paid one red cent for acting lessons, at least ones that took. He couldn’t act in 1959 and he can’t act, in the precisely same manner, today.
Danny Trejo (kind of ugly, but more menacing and scary than anything else). He’s always portraying thugs, gang members, killers, prisoners, and monsters.
Tiny “Zeus” Lister. Again, he’s big, ugly (with his familiar lazy eye), and scary.
Agreed on Steve Buscemi.
THE QUEEN OF THE SIXTH DIMENSION - FORBIDDEN ZONE!!!
I wonder if Liza Weil (Paris Gellar of THE GILMORE GIRLS) may develop into this category tho she’s actually just plain & can be attractive in the right light (as can many listed here- Ruth Buzzy for example, and Margaret Hamilton as Mrs Olson was just sweet!)
Dammit, Woman, you’ve been invoked with passion & desperation for the past two weeks!
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=328476&page=1&pp=50
And this
[QUOTE=Eve]
As a hatchet-faced crone myselfQUOTE]
is just a desperate plea for affirmation!
You’re a doll & you know it- now just tell us about Peter Sellers, please.
[QUOTE=bluethree]
What’s so ugly about Bea Arthur? I think she’s nice looking. And Sarah Jessica Parker is easily twice as ugly as Bea Arthur. Sarah Jessica has the classic Witchy-Poo face, warts included. Yet they pass her off as beautiful.
QUOTE]
Give me a choice as to who to have dinner with and I’d choose Bea Arthur.
She seems like a pleasant old lady who’d have some good stories.
If I was having dinner with Sarah Jessica Parker I don’t know how I’d every get past that little voice in my head that says “Gah! She is one ugly broad. Matthew Broderick must be gay.”