Don’t kill me, I heard that one before.
This is sort of a hijack.
A friend of mine recommended the movie Dogma to me, and explained that every movie that Kevin Smith directed (including Dogma) contained two characters, Jay and Silent Bob, for at least a moment. In Dogma, they’re actually fairly major characters, and Silent Bob (as you might guess from his name) never speaks, except once, when he says, “Thanks.” (IIRC) It turns out that Silent Bob is played by Kevin Smith himself, although I assume he speaks in interviews and in public, which makes this post a hijack.
AFAIK, Silent Bob has spoken in all the movies he’s appeared in. It ranged from one line, to some serious dialog (in Dogma).
Harpo Marx used to give talks after he quit movies. He’d simply say, “Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking . . .” and bring down the house.
“Captain, there are four stowaways in the hold!”
“How do you know htere are four of them?”
“They’re singing ‘Sweet Adeline!’”
One of the funniest oblique-humour gags ever…
Friar Ted et al.–
Now that I think about it, Marcel Marceau had a pretty sizeable speaking part–one that I bet he’d rather forget–in BARBARELLA.
(For those of you too young to know the movie I’m talking about, BARBARELLA was a science-fiction epic in which Jane Fonda suffered a series of outer-space mishaps, all of which tore her clothes off.)
Actually, Silent Bob says three words in Dogma. There’s the, “Thanks,” at the end, and just after throwing Loki and Bartleby off the train, he says, “No ticket.” Sly little reference to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
I think RealityChuck is thinking of Chasing Amy, in which Silent Bob has quite a long monologue.
I haven’t seen much of his work but Gene Sheldon had a tendency to play characters who could not speak, even when playing himself. I don’t know if he always performed silent or not or what he was like when he wasn’t performing.