Courtney Cox: From “Family Ties” to “Friends.”
Well, Helen Hunt went from second banana on a sitcom to Academy Award - and, stretching a teensy bit, Clint Eastwood did much the same…
Has anyone mentioned Ed Asner as an MTM show alumni who did okay in his own series?
mm
Bob Denver went from Dobie Gillis to Gilligan’s Island (if you want to call it a hit show)
Linda Lavin went from a supporting role in Barney Miller to the title character Alice.
Bob Denver went from a supporting role in The Many Lives of Dobie Gillis to the title character in Gilligan’s Island.
Jane Curtin went from a supporting role on Saturday Night Live to one of the title characters in Kate & Allie.
How about Faith Ford as Corky Sherwood in Murphy Brown to Hope Shanowski in Hope & Faith. (she’s a co-lead with Kelly Ripa)
To stick the fork in this one yet again, “My Sister Sam” had been off the air for a year before Rebecca Shaeffer was murdered.
If we count SNL, Phil Hartman went on to The Simpsons and Sports Radio.
Gwynne co-starred with Joe E. Ross in “Car 54, Where Are You” before “Munsters”.
Even better … The Andy Griffith Show was actually a spinoff from the old Danny Thomas Show.
Bill(y) Mumy went from being a child sidekick on “Lost in Space” to being a Minbari sidekick on “Babylon 5.”
Richard Crenna went from playing Harvey Denton in “Our Miss Brooks” To playing Luke McCoy in “The Real McCoys” He may not have been a lead though, I thought he was a co-lead with Water Brennan.
Quoth Liberal:
That surely shouldn’t count, since she was one of the title characters on Lois and Clark, not just supporting. She did, however, have a recurring role on MacGuyver long before that (as Mac’s damsel-in-distress girlfriend Penny).
It seems to me that there’s almost guaranteed to be a plethora of answers to this, though, even with all the rules. Think about it: Every show has one or more stars. Each of those stars got their start somewhere. And very few people star in their own show as their first TV gig. Ergo, most people who are or were stars of their own TV shows were probably supporting actors in other shows before that. So the question reduces to the uninteresting “List people who starred in TV shows”.
Betty White was a TV star long before The Mary Tyler Moore Show: Life with Elizabeth (1952), The Betty White Show (1954), Date with the Angels (1957) . . .
True, but the question was whether that show was a “success.” It’s well-regarded, but only ran two seasons.
If you count that, then I’ll add Don Adams, who was a supporting character on “The Bill Dana Show” for two years before hitting it big on “Get Smart.”
I do believe you mean NewsRadio…
Corin Nemec started off as the main character in Parker Lewis Can’t Lose before eventually winding up as a minor character in Stargate: SG-1. (Yes, I know Stargate isn’t a comedy, but all the good examples have already been mentioned…)
I’ll also add another Stargate one: Richard Dean Anderson.
To my mind, he’ll always be MacGuyver, but he was the lead character in Stargate until recently (I’ve never actually watched the show, but one of my mates is obsessed with it…)
Harry Anderson went from being a real grifter, to playing a grifter on Cheersfirst season, to the lead of Night Court the next season.
Meredith McRae, not Meredith Baxter, was the blonde daughter on “Petticoat Junction.”
John Ritter–From Rev. Matthew Fordwick on The Waltons to Jack Tripper on “Three’s Company.”
After Happy Days, TV dad Tom Bosley went on to star in the at-least-moderately-successful Father Dowling Mysteries.
It might actually be a more interesting exercise to list people who were the stars of popular TV shows without being:
- A supporting actor on any previous show, or
- A successful standup comedian (which eliminates Jerry Seinfeld, Drew Carey, Ray Romano, Brett Butler, Roseanne Barr…)