"Wait, it's a different guy?" moments

I was impressed by Robin Williams’ performance as the blind man in Young Frankenstein, until the credits rolled and it turned out to be Gene Hackman.

In 2005 I moved from Mexico (where the dancer/singer Chayanne was popular) to the US (where the future Mrs. Map loved the Croatian doctor character in E.R.), and I could have sworn the latter was playing the former. Nope.

I’ll rustle up some photos in a moment.

https://images.app.goo.gl/T6gGwutqbaqd8TTe9

https://images.app.goo.gl/86VEpHAYQapaqgkL9

Wilder.

I see from the Last Surviving Cast Member thread that Laurel Goodwin (“Yeoman Colt” in the first Star Trek pilot) has passed away.

I saw this actress (Judee Morton) in an episode of That Girl the other day and initially mistook her for Laurel.

Gene Wilder played Fredrick Frankenstein; Gene Hackman played the blind man.

Oh! Forgot that. Thanks.

While watching What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, I got to thinking that Kevin Tighe looked awfully familar. In that film, he played the husband of the woman who has an affair with Gilbert Grape. I thought he must be the same actor who played Connie Corleone’s boyfriend Merle Johnson in The Godfather: Part II.

Nope. Turns out that Merle Johnson was played by Troy Donahue and the two actors look alike (in those films, made in 1974 and 1993):

After looking further at Tighe’s credits, I think he seemed familiar because I’d seen him, probably for the first time, as Roy DeSoto, the blond paramedic in the TV series Emergency!

Please note that, while I found all of this mildly interesting, the exclamation point is part of the show’s title. :smile:

But there’s more… It turns out that Troy Donahue was a screen name given to him by Hollywood press agent Henry Willson (same guy who named Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter and many more), his real name being… wait for it…Merle Johnson.

Either Colin Hanks has a remarkable and very long term sense of humor . . . . or perhaps Rita Wilson has some 'splaining to do.
Except that Colin so obviously and strongly resembles Tom, we don’t know what goes on at these Hollywood parties. Thank you posting this.

Rita Wilson isn’t Colin’s biological mother.

I was watching Clue with my wife last night, and we were both amused by the subtle Rocky Horror Picture Show nods: Tim Curry, big scary gothic mansion, Susan Surandon shows up at the door in the middle of a storm. We both thought it was a shame they couldn’t have cast Barry Bostwick in the film somehow.

It wasn’t until the credits roll that we both realized that wasn’t Susan Surandon, it was Leslie Ann Warren.

Of course not, thank you for the correction.
Jeez, can’t even land a joke this month! I did think of looking it up, but decided to rely upon the fact that they are famously one of the longest married couples in modern Hollywood.

Not actors, but rather singers: I’ve was a lifelong Queensryche fan, at least up to the mid-90s. In the aggregate, I must have heard weeks or months of singer Geoff Tate’s voice. Sometime in the mid-2000s, I heard Helloween’s Halloween for the first time, and I was absolutely convinced that the singer must be Tate. In some registers, their late-80s voices were simply identical. I had to immediately google the song to make sure Tate hadn’t done it as a side project or something, and even watching the video and seeing the (totally not-Geoff-Tate-looking) actual singer Michael Kiske my brain still gets confused.

A couple of more for me:

When the SyFy series 12 Monkeys first came on, I thought, “They got Naomi Watts for this?” And then watched the credits, and nope, Amanda Schull.

When the character of Ariel was introduced on One Upon a Time, I thought, “They got Amy Adams for this?” And then watched the credits, and nope, JoAnna Garcia.

Whole careers can be built on the basis of “He/she’s a poor man’s _______.” :slightly_smiling_face:

I’m apparently not the only person who thinks Tate and Kiske look alike.

Can’t afford Martin and Lewis? Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell await your call

The Ritz Brothers. will make you ask “Groucho who?”

I was looking at that photo and thinking “Kate Mara really doesn’t look that much like Amy Adams.” But it’s not Kate Mara either!

Wow. Joanna Garcia was great in Mad Men, right? I had to look it up, that was Christina Hendricks.

Since reading through the Songs About Other Musicians thread, I find the song from post number 81 running over and over in my mind.

I have listened to it dozens of times since it was posted (and still couldn’t quote one single line from it accurately), but earlier today I actually looked up the song and realized there were references to both Carly Simon and Carole King. That reminded me of this thread because while I know they are two different people who might not even resemble each other – I couldn’t differentiate their works if you held a gun to my head. I decided I had better correct this deficit in my knowledge base so I opened a new tab and typed in the name Joni Mitchel who isn’t even one of the two in question. Eventually, I embarrassingly typed in all three names scolding myself for my ignorance on the topic of 1970’s female songwriters.

I was shocked to learn that there exists a biography shared by all three women:
https://www.amazon.com/Girls-Like-Us-Simon-Generation/dp/0743491483
So I did end up feeling a little bit vindicated; I might not know all of what makes them different, but I do know enough about what makes them similar to put them into the same category. I did know that Carole King was the one who was on Gilmore Girls.
(And to be honest, my confusion on this matter dates back to the first time I viewed the movie Love Actually when the Emma Thompson character talks about [some female American songwriter] teaching a cold British woman how to love.)