And Derek Jacobi played an Alexander Dane-like character on Frasier, to wit: Jackson Hedley, the man the boys first saw play Hamlet and now stuck doing a sad circuit of sci-fi conventions owing to his one-time role on such a series. (The comic twist: Hedley really does suck, and is lucky to even be remembered as part of a crappy sci-fi show.)
Guiness is a good example of the Alexander Dane thing in that a lot of people mostly knew him for “Star Wars” but it’s worth noting he was nearing the end of his career anyway and he did after all get an Oscar nomination out of it. It did not hurt his legacy or reputation, and he was and is still remembered for his brilliant work in many other films.
It’s funny, I *only *know him from Company. I had no idea he was so well known for those movies.
In fact, Guinness (who continued to work solidly for the next decade and change after the original Star Wars) is pretty much a counterexample to this trope. Although science fiction fans may remember him exclusively as Obi-Wan Kenobi, he had a long history of major roles in significant films such as Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Our Man in Havana, and Doctor Zhivago, and after Star Wars he is remembered for his iconic performance as George Smiley in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People, Professor Gobble in Lean’s adaptation of A Passage to India, and Father Quixote in Monsignor Quixote, as well as a substantial body of stage work. Far from damaging either his career or reputation, his portrayal of Kenobi introduced him to a wider audience and resulted in a resurgence of interest in his older work.
Numerous other examples presented in this thread follow the same pattern of actors who, while well known for a particular role, went on to do substantial work. The trope referenced by the o.p. (“The Classically Trained Extra”) is someone who is (or believes themselves to be) capable of much better work but held back by association with a relatively trivial role. It is curious that no one has mentioned the obvious source of the trope, which was Leonard Nimoy, who despite obvious talent, a distinctive screen presence, and an established body of work, basically did nothing but TV and voice acting roles (and some limited stage acting) after Star Trek. Citing actors who moved onto other roles in producing or directing, or who used a high profile role as a springboard into personal projects is not the same thing.
Orson Welles is kind of a special case, insofar as his talent and ability to command the screen was always well recognized, but his constant fighting with studios over creative issues, alcoholism, and general drama overshadowed and limited his career. The same can be said for others like Sam Peckinpah or (later in his career) Richard Burton, who were reputed to be so difficult to work with that almost no one wanted to hire them.
Stranger
As far as Alec Guinness goes, I’ve never seen Star Wars; I know him mostly for his early movies.
I’ve seen Kind Hearts and Coronets; The Lavender Hill Mob; The Man in the White Suit; and The Ladykillers.
Of course he also became a successful director.
Yeah, I saw that episode (but you beat me to the reference!).
And actually, there are probably some people who remember Evans for his Shakespearean work, and have no idea of his TV career. To some extent this thread is a reflection of the reference pool of each of us.
Yeah, the Alexander Dane character always seemed to me to be an exaggeration of Nimoy: Dane is the cast member of “Galaxy Quest” who is the only alien, the only one wearing prosthetics on screen, and the one who is competing with the actor playing the Captain for screen time and good lines. That’s all Nimoy.
Marion Davies for the supposed portrayal of her in “Citizen Kane”. Then I’ve seen some of her supposedly good light comedies and wasn’t impressed. But comedy may not age well. Frank Deford once wrote about the “Who’s on First” routine of Abbott and Costello and noted it’s hard to remember how well they did at the box office for a decade. Or the conversation of the Algonquin Round Table of the 1920s doesn’t seem so witty and suphisticated decades later.
Despite the unflattering portrayal of the fictionalized Charles Foster Kane’s mistress and eventual wife in Citizen Kane, Marion Davies was a highly successful comedic actress who at one point used her personal fortune to keep Hearst from having to declare bankruptcy. Hearst’s promotion of Davies as a dramatic actress in historical films was misguided and probably led to the sometimes poor reputation she later garnered. Also, unlike the film, Davies remained with Hearst until his death, and rather than ending up as a wrecked alcoholic at a dive lounge, was heavily involved in philanthropic causes, and there is a clinic at UCLA named after her. She never married Hearst because his wife refused to grant him a divorce. There were a number of scandals associated with Davies, including an alleged (and later confirmed) pregnancy, and the death of Thomas Ince after a party on the Hearst yacht, but the decline of her career was largely due to waning interest in the career and Davies reaching an age in which studios would no longer cast her as a lead.
Stranger
As did his bulk. I just saw his 1966 B&W film Chimes at Midnight, drawn from several Shakespeare plays about Falstaff; Welles directed and starred. He’s good, but he’s also almost distractingly enormous. Scroll down to see him here - practically spherical in armor: Chimes at Midnight - Wikipedia. Time magazine’s reviewer said that Welles was “probably the first actor in the history of the theater to appear too fat for the role” of the rotund Falstaff.
OTOH, his size served him well in Touch of Evil.
Note that a big part of this is that “Alexander Dane” still has a quasi-career of doing cons and commercials. If he’d been in another crappy 80s TV show he’d be utterly forgotten. What galls him is that he could have been a contender, but he’s only remembered for this cheesy science fiction show. But if he’d been on a cheesy cop show or a cheesy sitcom absolutely no one would remember him. Maybe it would have been easier for him to be utterly forgotten than remembered for something he didn’t respect.
And Dane is clearly inspired by Nimoy who spent some time in the 70s wishing he could have a career beyond Spock, with some Shakespearean Thespian thrown in.