Oh! John Larroquette was the narrator of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and this year, 48 years later, he did it for the update as well.
Also on DS9, William Campbell, John Colicos, and Michael Ansara reprised their roles as Klingons Koloth, Kor, and Kang from TOS.
The Black Bird was a humorous sequel to the Bogart Maltese Falcon. Both Lee Patrick (Effie Perrine) and Elisha Cook, Jr. (Wilmer) reprised their roles from the original, 34 years later.
Two, at least, with a third that was in the works.
- A radio series from 1949-1957, along with a TV series during roughly that same era (1951-1959), and a theatrical film (1954).
- A TV series from 1967-1970.
- A TV series, which was in development in 1982, in which he would have again starred as Friday, but which was scrapped when Webb died late that year.
Then there’s this Kenny Rogers Gambler movie:
Richard Rowntree looks like the leader at the moment, then.
In the UK we have William Roche, who has played the same character (in Coronation Street, a soap) since 1960, and (on the radio) June Spencer is still playing the role she started in 1957. But neither of these actors have left their series for any significant length of time.
William Daniels has a “lock” on the Adams family. He played John Adams on Broadway in 1776 in 1970 and in the movie version in 1972, then played him again in The Rebels in 1979 and in The American Revolution in 1994
He was also Sam Adams in The Bastard
He played John Quincy Adams in The Adams Chronicles in 1976. I could have sworn that he played John Quincy Adams much earlier, as well, before 1776, but I can’t find a record of it.
Ian Holm played Napoleon Bonaparte in
Napoleon and Love (1974)
Time Bandits (1981)
The Emperor’s New Clothes (2001)
…for a 27 year run.
In a similar vein, Kwan Tak-Hing played Wong Fei Hung in around 130 films (!) but only for a paltry 32 years, from 1949 to 1981.
Charles Gray played Mycroft Holmes in
The Seven per Cent Solution (1976)
The Return of Sherlock Holmes (The Bruce Partington Plans) (1988)
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (The Mazarin Stone and The Golden Pince-nez) (1994)
Peter Cushing played Sherlock Holmes in
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
Sherlock Holmes (TV series) (1968)
The Mask of Death (1984)
Nicholas Rowe played Sherlock Holmes (as a boy) in Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) and as an adult in Mr. Holmes (2015), for a gap of 30 years.
Leonard Nimoy played Spock in 2009’s Star Trek, 18 years after last playing him in the 1991 motion picture Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country.
Yes, I know about his role in TNG, but that aired a week before The Undiscovered Country was released.
Ooh— that’s a good one. Interesting about Ian Holm and Napoleon, too (I happened to see him in “Big Night” just yesterday).
Wikipedia says it’s a TV movie in 1952 called “A Woman for the Ages” but iMDB has the credit in question going to a “Bill Daniels.” If it’s really William, is his first screen credit.
Raymond Burr played Steve Martin in the Americanized version of Godzilla (1956) and played Steve Martin in the Americanized version of Godzilla 1985 (1985 – duh!) In both cases Burr’s scenes were shot without any of the original Japanese cast participating, and well after they had shot the original scenes.
At least the original version wasn’t constantly shilling for Pepsi.
Jerry Lewis starred as Julius F. Kelp in the original The Nutty Professor in 1963. He voiced the same character in the computer animated sequel The Nutty Professor in 2008 – a gap of 45 years (and, I think, the record so far)
Has anyone mentioned Harrison Ford portraying Indiana Jones? First in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and the last time being Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). I just read like yesterday they’ve announced they’re doing a fifth Indiana Jones movie set for release in 2023. It’s untitled thus far. I would suggest a working title of, perhaps, “Indiana Jones and the Dentures of Death”
Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves played Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan in Bill and Ted Face the Music in 2020, 29 years after appearing in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. Also reprising their roles were Hal Landon, Jr. as Ted’s dad, Chief Logan, Amy Stoch as Missy, and William Sadler as Death.
If you’re talking about Doctor Who there are crapload of examples, including Elizabeth Sladen’s Sarah Jane Smith, numerous multi-doctor shows which do make an effort to bring back former Doctors, and Nicholas Courtney’s Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. I’m pretty sure there are even more than that, given how long the show has been on the air, those are just the ones that come to mind easily.
Star Trek had DeForest Kelly reprise his role as Dr. McCoy for The Next Generation and also James Doohan as Scotty. Not to mention Lenoard Nimoy as Spock in the movies, a couple episodes of The Next Generation, and the Kelvin Timeline reboot. If I recall, some of the original Klingon commander actors reprised their roles on some episodes of Deep Space Nine. Then there’s the series Picard which, as already mentioned, is full of this.
Burke’s Law. 81 episodes in the early 60s. 27 episodes in the mid 90s. Both starring Gene Barry.
Perry Mason ran from 1957 to 1966. 30 Perry Mason tv films ran from 1985 to 1995. Cast members Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale returned for those. There were a few more Perry Mason films after Burr died with Hale appearing briefly in some.