The announcement that Gretchen Wyler has passed caused me to look her up at IMDB since I’m unfamiliar with her work. I see that the majority of her credits are for TV performances but that she does seem to have a few screen credits as well.
That got me to wondering if there are any actors who have yet to make their first movie but who are well known enough to be recognizable to the average person just for their TV work.
When you consider that even Letterman has had some movie face time, that Larry King’s TV persona has been used in several movies, and that many TV types add their voices to animated ventures, I will be surprised if there’s anybody “famous” in the realm of acting who has gotten “famous” just for TV work.
Can you name any?
(I didn’t check to see if this topic has been addressed earlier, so link to older threads if you know of such. Please.)
I did get that impression from her obituary comments and some cast photos at IMDB, but I haven’t seen IMDB list stage work as main credits for actors. The fact that TV is included is hefty enough and they keep expanding how TV credits are shown. I didn’t mean to belittle the stage aspect of Ms. Wyler’s work, but I was not familiar even with her TV work.
The idea that she had very few movie credits is what prompted this thread.
I looked at some long-running TV shows, thinking that those actors wouldn’t have had time to do movies, but by gum they do.
Like Ray Romano from Everybody Loves Raymond and Maura Tierney from ER – they were both in Welcome to Mooseport.
Also looked at busy actors like Jim Beaver, Laurie Metcalf, Mariska Hargitay, Kim Dickens, Goran Visnjic (sp?), Dan Florek (he’s been in everything on TV) – movie credits showing for all of them.
George Eads only one movie credit to his name, it’s his first credit and something nobody’s heard of. Yet he’s instantly recognizable to most Americans with a TV who have ever turned on CSI.
I did some random clicks of ex-SNL performers to see if any of them failed to make the leap to movies. Astonishingly, nearly all of them have screen credit, with the possible exception of Yvonne Hudson (from the cursed Sixth Season).
Not surprisingly, Susan Lucci seems to have had very small movie appearances or uncredited ones.
It may be obvious to most by now, but I suspect the relative rarity of a TV-only performer is due to the objective of most actors to make it to the big screen at least once in their career. Either that or their rise to prominence in TV or on stage makes the Hollywood crowd want to draw them into movies.
There just has to be at least one TV-only actor who has resisted the call or the urge, but locating that one or few is a hefty task.
Sawyer Sweeten and Sullivan Sweeten, who played Ray Barrone’s kids on Everybody Loves Raymond. Admittedly, no one know their names, but they are certainly identifiable. No films yet for either (not counting made for TV movies).
Well, there’s the uncredited appearance in Special Delivery (1976) back when God was still a corporal. I’m prepared to forgive that one, so Deidre may be a candidate.
Television actors get several months off between seasons and virtually all of them grab the chance to cash in on their tv fame by making movies. That’s why it’s so hard to find examples of people who haven’t done this.
Maybe people should look back in time to the 50s and 60s. Seasons then ran 39 shows instead of the current 22 and so actors really did have much shorter breaks. The flip side of that is that most of the experienced actors of the day would have come from movies.