I’m watching 1969’s Battle of Britain: at 1:02 there’s a scene that cuts to three shots in three cockpits. Robert Shaw says “tallyho!” Edward Fox says “tallyho!”. Ian McShane doesn’t say anything, but I expect him to say “cocksucker!”
IIRC, Jonathan Banks also played a psycho murderer on Hill Street Blues. His performance really freaked me out.
Elizabeth Montgomery’s “love interest” in that episode of The Untouchables (a two-parter, I think) was David White, who played opposite her as “Larry Tate” in Bewitched.
I’m pretty sure Jonathan Banks played a lot of bad guys in various 1980s/90s TV shows. IIRC he’s said in interviews that he really enjoys playing villains.
How about another Breaking Bad actor? Actually, even before Breaking Bad, when I knew him mainly from Malcolm in the Middle, I was watching a rerun of Seinfeld and went “Hey, there’s Bryan Cranston.” He was in a few episodes where he played Tim Whatley, Jerry’s dentist and a love interest of Elaine’s.
It’s been noted here numerous times that young Susan Caputo, who appeared in two episodes of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, grew up to be Brittany Morgan, who played “Katherine Wentworth,” Pam Ewing’s crazy half sister on Dallas. She was the one who “killed” Bobby Ewing at the end of the 1984–85 season by running him over in her car.
As a teen in the 80s, I loved the film “Witness” — still do. Circa 2010, I saw it with my wife (first time for her, about the 20th for me), and she said, “Hey, there’s Viggo Mortensen playing an Amish dude!”
I laughed — “yeah, right. Lay off the crack, hon.”
Of course, it turns out she was right.
(A lot of weird casting in that movie: a Russian ballet dancer, a Broadway diva…)
^ You need coffee, terentii. Suzanne Cupito was Morgan Brittany.
I was very proud of myself for when I was watching the Max Headroom series (alas 20 seconds into the future was too far ahead of its time), thinking “Hey Murry sounds an awful lot like George Bluth Sr.” Turns out I was right.
I think I tend to recognize actors at least as much by their voice as by their face.
Watching Deadwood, that rich guy from back east who rolled into town and bought a gold claim looked really familiar. I went to IMDB and realized he was Timothy Omundson, who I knew as Detective Lassiter from Psych.
Watching “The Amazing Transparent Man” Rifftrax I noticed that a prison guard was played by Patrick Crenshaw - aka Blue from “Old School”.
“You’re my boy, Blue!”
Turns out she appeared under more than one name. But yes, that is the correct combination.
Falk had a small role in a flick called “Pressure Point” starring Sidney Poitier and Bobby Darin. I recommend it highly.
Or his character in Buckaroo Banzai.
Seinfeld was full of actors and actresses who went on to more recognizable lead roles.
I remember Sheree North as Lou Grant’s girlfriend on MTM. Just now she turned up in a 1974 episode of Hawaii Five-O as the cheating wife of the villain. But she was also Kramer’s mother “Babs” on Seinfeld.
Incidentally, this is another episode in which the “expert” advising McGarrett is actually a bad guy.
That’s because their talents were real, and they were spectacular.
This article from The Hollywood Reporter lists some actors who guested on Seinfeld before more recognizable roles, including, yes, Teri Hatcher (of the spectacular breasts).
Roles like this are why Leslie Nielsen was in Airplane - he was known for serious, dramatic roles; the directors thought that bringing that grave mien to declaim lines like, "I am serious. And don’t call me ‘Shirley’ " would heighten the absurdity. Then it turned out that Nielsen had a gift for deadpan comedy, and his career went in a different direction.
I know he did do at least one more non-comic role; he played a jealous husband who murdered his wife and her lover, and was then killed by their zombies, in Stephen King’s Creepshow.
Vis à vis Peter Falk, I’m surprised no one has yet pointed out that he played Fred Savage’s grandfather in The Princess Bride.
Falk was also a taxi driver in It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, and much later played a fictional version of himself (who turned out to be an angel) in Wings of Desire.