Recently we were watching an episode of Dr. Kildare from 1965.
In the opening, the usual credits roll with freeze frames at the regular points. Title, “Starring Richard Chamberlin”, "and Raymond Massey’. Then the next freeze frame is “Special Guest Star Raymond Massey”. Wait, what? I had to backup and check. The PotW was indeed Raymond Massey in grizzled old man with beard makeup.
And on top of it (and despite what the IMDb desc. says), no one notices the similarity in the show. They do the usual tricks when Massey and Massey are interacting. Shot from different angles, over the shoulder, but I only noticed one split screen shot.
I don’t ever recall seeing something like this before. Sure, there’s whole series based on “twins” like The Patty Duke Show and The Second Hundred Years. Plus lots of guest “twins” like Sabrina on Bewitched and Jeannie II on I Dream of Jeannie, but this is different. (No, I’m not stuck in the 60s, why do you ask?)
Does anyone know of a similar example? Rules I’m suggesting:
The actor is really a regular and is listed twice. Regular role and guest star.
The two characters are not siblings, cousins, grandfather/grandson, or such.
The similarity in looks is not mentioned and is not relevant to the show. They are portraying someone who could have been played be another actor with no story changes.
Don’t know how it was credited but Jackie Gleason and Art Carney were guest stars on the Honeymooners. Ralph and Norton were going to a Racoon Lodge convention I think, and turns out Gleason and Carney were staying at the hotel too. I think it’s the episode where on a train ride sharing a berth Norton asks “Do you mind if I smoke?” and Ralph responds “I don’t care if you burn!”.
Does a TV performance of Peter Pan count? Most versions going back to the stage play had Captain Hook and the Father be the same actor.
This is a tough one, because the actor playing their nearly identical cousin/sibling or their doppleganger is very common, especially in the 60s and on Soaps. But what you described I’m having trouble thinking of another example.
Do the Dopplegangers count? We have the classic Mirror Image from the Twilight Zone and Mirror, Mirror from Star Trek where most of the regular actors played their alt versions. (the famous Spock with a beard episode)
I love the fact that the credits on Bewitched had Serena played by Pandora Spocks. I think Bewitched deserved bonus points for that.
I don’t know whether or not Robin Williams was officially listed as a guest star in the Mork & Mindy episode “Mork Meets Robin Williams.” It certainly does not fit your third criterion, and thus doesn’t really count for this thread, but I couldn’t help thinking of it.
I think A Girl Like Edith on All in the Family might qualify.
Jean Stapleton is credited as Giovanna Pucci and plays both Edith Bunker and Judith Klammerstadt.
However, as the title mentions, the girl is “like Edith” so there needs to be similarities between the two. The story would work if it was a different actor that looked similar to Jean Stapleton, but it wouldn’t be as funny. .
It reminds me of how Barbara Eden also played Jeannie’s similarly naughty, brunette sister, Jeannie II, in several episodes of I Dream of Jeannie (as well as playing Jeannie’s mother once), though I think that Eden was always directly credited with those roles, rather than under a pseudonym.
Raymond Burr played another character at least once on Perry Mason TOS. Captain of a small boat I think. Similar to characters he played before turning his on screen image around with the Americanized version of Godzilla.
After leaving Star Trek: The Next Generation, Denise Crosby later returned as a guest star. She played both her former character, Tasha Yar, in the episode Yesterday’s Enterprise, and her daughter later on.
Maybe not precisely what the OP had in mind, but it’s what I thought of.
This seems to be the episode in question. Entitled " The Case of the Dead Ringer". The blurb has “but the other side used a sailor who looks like Perry to implicate him in bribery.” Which seems to violate rule 3. Unlikely to be a mistake like the Kildare blub given the title.
Burr’s character is “Grimes” and is the only such role Burr played in the series, per IMDb.
While look at the Perry Mason IMDb page I noticed a “…” under Burr’s listing. Which lead me to the Grimes thing. There’s also one for Ray Collins but that’s just him being listed as Lt. Tragg withour or without a first name.
Here’s the page for that. The blurb has “The butcher returns with his fiancee who is the spitting image of Edith …” That plus Jean not being credited by her own name rules it out. But I think maybe I could be more lax on that last point.
In The Adventures of Superman, Season 2, Episode 10, “The Face and the Voice”, a thug named Boulder is given plastic surgery and voice lessons to look and sound like Superman. The credits say “Guest Starring George Reeves as Boulder”, or something very similar.
Again, what made the Kildare episode quite different (to me) is that Massey was not playing a doppelganger.
“Twin”-like portrayals are very common. E.g., Happy Days had Al’s twin brother priest in an episode. Ad nauseum. For classic sitcoms with long runs it might be easier to list ones that didn’t go down this road.
Again, I want to focus on TV series. There are a ship load of movies with people playing multiple parts. The Pythons, Peter Sellers, etc. Too common to be at all notable.
In an episode of The Abbott and Costello Show, regular player Sidney Fields appeared both as A&C’s lawyer and as an inmate they meet in prison (who performs the “Niagara Falls”/“Slowly I Turned” routine).