Mention of Bob Denver on another thread has got me thinking about how he dealt with being typecast as ‘the lovable goof’. From all accounts (I just watched a 1982 interview with Letterman) Denver didn’t seem to be at all resentful of becoming synonymous with the Gilligan character he created, nor did he appear to be bitter about not getting any residuals for the decades of syndication that followed the show’s three season run. By Grabthar’s hammer, I bet MOST actors have been much more resentful of being typecast.
Some embrace it, and use it to their advantage. (“If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em.”) Some are bitter, and blame it for ruining their career.
The OP mentioned Gilligan’s Island. Alan Hale Jr. was an example of the former, and opened a restaurant where he greeting guests wearing his trademark hat and skipper clothes. Tina Louise is an example of the latter, sadly.
Gary Oldman has had a career of being typecast as the super villain, but he has earned a great living from it.
His take: “Gary Oldman described himself as the “poster boy for rent-a-villain” during the 1990s, becoming Hollywood’s go-to actor for antagonists in films like Léon: The Professional*, The Fifth Element, and Air Force One. He grew tired of the typecasting, calling it “a little old” after years of playing intense, manic, and sometimes comical bad guys.”
I always wonder how Betsy Sodaro feels about being in Ghosts as one of the basement ghosts with cholera sores on her face, and also in a commercial as some kind of parasitic bug. Jeez, she’s not hideous. Betsy Sodaro - IMDb
If you are middling-to-low-tier actor, you probably embrace it because it’s your lifeline and what lets you continue to have a career. You hone it as your main expertise, grateful to be in any movie.
If you are a top-tier actor, you probably try at some point to break out of it every once in a while and diversify your roles.
This seems accurate. I listen to a lot of podcasts that have conversations with various actors, and most actors relate how hard it is to even make a living at it, let alone become successful and a household name from a character (any character). If that means you are typecast, that’s often okay because you are still being cast. It’s such a rare thing for any actor to even get to that point, that many (maybe most) are just grateful that they “made it” in any sense.
Yeah, it’s also not uncommon for a person to do everything they can to prove that they can do other roles, and there are roles that ruin careers. Sometimes a person gets famous for one role, and that’s great, but it prevents them from getting any other significant roles. If a character becomes too famous too fast, and folks get burned out on it, they don’t want to see Urkel playing Hamlet.
It might not help that Shaggy from Scooby-Doo is essentially the same character, and I’d imagine a lot of people today (or even in the past 50 years) would assume that character was an imitation of Shaggy rather than the other way around.
Good for Denver that almost everyone has forgot Dusty’s Trail. Almost everyone. As a kid, I couldn’t believe the show. “It’s just a near exact redo of Gilligan’s Island! Sonufabitch! Whatta rip!”
Gilligan’s Island was a staple of rerun televison in my pre-teen years which is the only reason I remember it so well. It’s been almost 40 years since I’ve seen a complete episode. I didn’t see an episode of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis in reruns until it started airing on Nick at Nite in 1990 and I thought Zelda Gilroy was super cute. I don’t know if Dobie Gillis was rerun heavily in other markets, but that might be one reason why it was forgotten. Another reason Gilligan’s Island might be remembered so well is because it was so stupid.
I think Denver just realized how lucky he was to have the success he had. Most actors don’t do as well as he did and I think he was just grateful. Tina Louise was a little bitter, but I can understand that as well because she felt as though she might have been more successful if it weren’t for the island. But in more recent years, Louise has walked back that bitterness and said she wasn’t resentful of the show. It could be she just wanted to distance herself from the show once it ended.
Either Green Bay or Madison carried Dobie Gillis in the late 60s/early 70s. I’d watch anything in those days, but I just didn’t get it. The gulf between that and me was just too great. I got Gilligan, even if it was a bit stupid at times. But Dobie was like watching a foreign film. Wonder what I’d think of it now?
I just remember how much Dobie Gillis reminded me of Saved by the Bell, which was also on the air at the time. It was like watching the same show in a time machine.
You had to be canny to do so. The only example I can think of is Audrey Meadows, who played Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners. She agreed to accept the role only after insisting she’d get residuals in perpetuity. She got them because no one expected the series to last as long as it has. (Back in the day, most videotapes were wiped almost immediately under the belief “Nobody’s gonna want to watch the same show twice.”) No other member of the cast got them.
You really needed to own a piece of a show to make money off it (and still do, I suspect). William Shatner was given a percentage of Star Trek when he signed on to play Captain Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy got one too after he agreed to remain as Spock after the first season. (Of course, few people expected that series to last as long as it has either.)