Sam Waterston for selling Robot Insurance.
When I think of Casino the two scenes that pop into my head are when Pesci pops the woman in the back of the head and gently places her head on the table and the brutal scene when he is beat to death. And I have only seen the movie a couple of times. Those scenes stick with you.
And if you ever get the wrong order at a fast food place many will hear “They FUCK you in the drivethru!” in their head. He has had many memorable roles.
There’s Jerry Lewis and his transition from comedian to telethon king.
Actors Ronald Reagan, Arnold S., and Fred Thompson and politics.
Stone Bill Wyman was also an inventor.
Then there’s Detroit Tiger Al Kaline and his batteries…
Pesci’s death scene was definitely the few minutes I was thinking of. That beating was just brutal.
That is definitely one. It is easy to lose sight of how freakin’ huge a star Lewis was at a certain point of his career.
Boston Legal, obviously. Denny Crane.
On a similar vein, there’s Jerry Penacoli. I’m sure he’s quite the accomplished journalist on shows like Hard Copy and E Network. But I will always snicker at the name, recalling a gerbil rumor back when I was in 7th grade in South Jersey.
She did movies, TV, and Broadway, was nominated for 4 Emmys and 6 Golden Globes, but hetero males will remember one poster.
Schwing!
Nobody has. And you didn’t mention the incident, so some of us are still in the dark.
Carl Sagan and Michio Kaku. I have not read their academic writings, but I am certain that it required a lot more time and labor than the stuff that I have read.
Christopher Walken. He’s appeared in over a hundred movies and won an Oscar. But if you mention him in conversation, the first thing somebody will say is “You mean the cowbell guy?”
Actually its that poster that put her on the map and differentiated her from the crowd of competing angels. It was her Marilyn Monroe moment and endeared her to a generation. It wasn’t just some silly thing she did and was remembered for that eclipsed her fame, it was a defining thing she did to establish her fame.
All this Home Alone talk has me wondering if the William Daniels/Wonder Years thing wasn’t intended to be Daniel Stern, the other Wet Bandit and Wonder Years narrator.
I’ve seen multiple movies she’s starred in (both early breakout and later comeback efforts), seen her 1 woman show on Broadway 3 times, and yet I’ll always first remember Rula Lenska for her Alberto V05 commercials.
Baseball owner Bill Veeck always said when he died, the lead in his obituary wouldn’t be winning a world series or integrating the American League, it would be using 3’7" Eddie Gaedel as a pinch hitter.
Tommy Lee Jones for Ameriprise Financial.
June Allison for Depends.
I would have gone with Disco Demolition Night.
Billie Burke had a long career that went from 1916 to 1960, and played a variety of roles, of which Glinda, the Good Witch is not at all representative, yet that’s the only thing most people under 60 have ever seen her do.
Also, it’s not really what the OP was asking about, but Lucille Ball almost never became known as a comedian. She was in Hollywood since the advent of sound, trying to find her niche. The studio tried her as a second-tier Katharine Hepburn, and then as a femme fatale, before trying her in dry, bitchy comedy, as a supporting actress in some fast-talking screwball comedies, and some “dramedies,” like Stage Door. No one figured out she should be doing physical comedy until she’d been in Hollywood for almost 20 years.
I wonder sometimes what people who are fans of her TV work, but have never seen her early movies, think the first time they see something like Five Came Back.
Rosey Grier - He was part of the LA Rams Fearsome Foursome. He was Robert F. Kennedy’s bodyguard when he got shot, but took the gun and subdued Sirhan Sirhan. But most contrary to his tough-guy image, he was into needlepoint.
Joe Namath - NFL quarterback, spearheaded the NY Jets win over the Miami Dolphins in 1969, and wore pantyhose in a Beautymist Commercial.
Alex Karras - Feared Defensive Tackle for the Detroit Lions for 12 seasons. Later, he appeared in Blazing Saddles, punched out a horse, and delivered the immortal line “Mongo only pawn in game of life.”