Fred Savage, of The Wonder Years fame, has directed several episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
And Sean Astin once directed an episode of Angel. Being TV, you couldn’t tell other than his name was in the credits.
If you look at Fred Savage’s IMDB page, you’ll see that he’s directed episodes of many shows (Party Down, Modern Family, 2 Broke Girls, etc.).
I once rented a videotape (yes, it was a long time ago) of a documentary on jazz pianist Thelonius Monk.
As the opening credits rolled, the producer and director was listed as Clint Eastwood. This was after Clint had directed “Bird”, the biopic of saxophonist Charlie Parker, so I knew about his interest in jazz.
But it surprised me that he worked in such obscurity - his name had been splashed all over “Bird”.
I watched The Boondock Saints again the other day and noticed Bob Marley in the credits. Turns out it’s some other Bob Marley.
TCM showed The Last of Sheila (1973) last night. The credited writers: Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins.
Have a look at post #24
The Screen Actor’s Guild doesn’t allow two people to use the same “screen name”, hence things like Michael Hall, Michael Anthony Hall or Michael J. Fox, etc.
However, I suspect the Producer Chris Lloyd isn’t a member of SAG, so the rules don’t apply.
The Top Gear thread reminded me that when I tuned in for the post-Clarkson version last year, I expected to see Captain America. Who’s this shouty red headed geek with the Harry Caray glasses? Oh, that’s Chris Evans!
There is director Paul T. Anderson
and director Paul W. S. Anderson
and for good measure director Wes Anderson
This reminds me that Danny DeVito was a producer of Pulp Fiction.
I have a friend named Steve FitzMaurice who’s a musician in the Los Angeles area. Not the same guy named Steve FitzMaurice who’s a Grammy winning producer.
I went to high school with a guy who went on to work at Skywalker. I always look for his name in credits.
A number of years ago, I watched Chariots of Fire for the first time, and in the opening credits saw a familiar name: “Executive Producer - Dodi Fayed”. Princess Diana’s boyfriend? The one who dies with her in the Paris tunnel? I checked on IMDb and yup, same guy. He apparently produced a number of movies, including Hook and F/X.
This weekend past I watched the last part of a Hitchcock movie on TCM. The movie was Saboteur, from 1942. Near the end a bad guy is killed by falling from the Statue of Liberty. I didn’t watch the credits, but that guy’s name was mentioned. It was a 28 year old Norman Lloyd, who’s still alive at 102. He was well known as Dr. Auchlander on St. Elsewhere, as well as , obviously, a ton of other roles. I had him in the DeathPool a while back, but he didn’t have the grace to give me points. I never would have recognized him.
As timely as this week’s news. . .
Some years ago, one of the cable channels started showing ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ from the beginning. One of the names in the closing credits of the very first ep was ‘Bob Osborne.’ At the time, I wondered if it might have been the TCM host. I rewound it to his scene, and although I assumed they were the same person (and they were), I never would have been able to identify him
He’s in the movie.
A lot of people have mentioned being surprised that the character Cruise plays is played by Cruise. He definitely plays a different-acting and -looking character than we’re used to seeing from him, and I often see that sort of comment come up on Reddit, etc., when the movie is mentioned.
If you watch old Amicus Horror films from the 1960s and '70s, you often see the name of Tony Curtis in the credits. Not that Tony Curtis. This one.
Just thought of an amusing one. In the credits for Withnail and I, you’ll see the name of a Peter Best–probably not the Pete Best who was once one of the Beatles. But then there’s George Harrison and Richard Starkey–the ones who were Beatles.
There’s also a Peter Frampton–nothing to do with the Beatles unless you count that Sgt. Pepper movie, but it’s more likely the same guy mentioned above.
Then I would expect those same people to be surprised when they see Robert Downy Jr.'s credit come up for the same movie