Mel Blanc was Daffy Duck for 52 years.
Not by much, tho. He played Columbo from 1971 to 2003, so that’s 32 years.
Chris Noth was Det. Mike Logan in 1990 when Law & Order started, and he’s now playing Logan on L&O: CI.
Not for much longer though. It’s been announced that he’s being replaced by Jeff Goldblum from the next season.
Anthony Perkins ties Newman’s time span. He played Norman Bates in Psycho (1961), Psycho II (1983), and Psycho III (1986). If you include the made-for-cable Psycho IV:The Beginning (1990), Perkins spans 29 years as a lead character.
Julie Kavner also. I got into watching the old Tracey Ullman show just for the two minutes of Simpson cartoons. For those of you too young to remember or didn’t watch the Tracey Ullman Show was a sketch comedy show in the early days of the Fox Network. The Simpsons were only on for about a minute before the middle commercial break and a minute after. Castellaneta and Kavner were very active members of the cast. They got the leads on the Simpsons basically because they were already on the payroll. I don’t remember if Yeardley Smith and Nancy Carwright ever had live actions roles on the show in addition to their brief Simpsons work.
Dann Florek has been playing Captain Cragen for as long as Chris Noth played Logan, and is still playing him on L&O: SVU.
George Clooney has played himself in every movie and TV show throughout his entire career.
Perhaps that’s not what you meant though.
Harrison Ford has been Indiana Jones since 1981, with the most recent movie coming out just last year. So he’s been the same lead film character for 27 years. The first Rocky movie came out in 1976, and there was one in 2006, so Sly Stallone has been the same lead character for 30 years. Rambo has been almost as long-lived a role, with the first movie in 1982 and the last one just this past year.
Just for laughs, consider Alan Hale. He first played Little John in Robin Hood (1922), again in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and in his final film Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950), all under three different “Robins”, giving him 28 years.
So did John Wayne.
If commercials count, then Andy Griffith and Ron(ny) Howard both played Andy and Opie Taylor beginning in 1960 (including the *Make Room for Daddy *episode that introduced the characters), and again last year in an ad for Obama, a span of 48 years.
Is that ad on YouTube? I totally missed that!
Wow, those are lengthy relationships with the same character.
I came in to vote for Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes (1984-1994), but I see that he was a mere amateur compared to some of these folks.
Kevin McCarthy played Dr. Miles J. Bennell in Invasion of the Body Snatchers back in 1956, essentially reprised the character in a really short piece in the 1979 remake, and showed up as him again in a cameo in 2003’s Looney Tunes: Back in Action. That’s a span of 47 years.
Raymond Burr played Steve Martin (I kid you not) in the added scenes for the Americanized Godzilla in 1956 and reprised the part in 1984 in the Americanized Godzilla 1985, a span of 28 years.
I can’t get to youtube at work, but if you google ‘Andy Taylor Obama’ you get a couple hundred thousand hits.
Of course, Burr also played Perry Mason from 1957 to his death in 1993. 38 years isn’t too bad.
Cause Raymond Burr is a wild and crazy guy
Hey – Disney Voice Actors have long careers.
Bill Thompson voiced J. Audubon Woodlore from 1954 to 2002 – 48 years.
Clarence Naish did Donald Duck from 1934 to 1983 – 49 years.
I’m imagining Ironside with an arrow through his head, playing the banjo and making obscene balloon animals.