Peter Falk played Columbo for 32 years (with some gaps). Raymond Burr played Perry Mason off and on from 1961 to 1993, also 32 years.
Ted Neely has been playing Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar intermittently since 1971. Yul Brynner played the King of Siam often from 1951 until shortly before his death in 1985; Richard Burton and Rex Harrison had similar attachments to their roles of King Arthur and Henry Higgins, but died before giving them as much longevity.
I thought Joel Grey might be a contender for Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret, but can only find listings for two productions twenty-one years apart (and the movie, of course). Not sure if touring groups are covered in Wikipedia.
In the 19th century, actors would latch onto a good role and tour in it to their graves: James O’Neill as The Count of Monte Cristo, Charlotte Cushman as Meg Merrilees, Joseph Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle–they got sick to death of it, but it paid the rent for decades.
William Daniels has a lock on the Adams family – not the ghoulish ones, the American History family. He played John Quincy Adams in 1952, John Adams in 1776 on Brodway in 1970 and in the movie in 1972, in TV commercials, then John nQuincy Adams again in The Adams Chronicles in 1976, Samuel Adams in The Bastard in 1978, John Adams again in The Rebel in 1979.
Herbert Lom played Napoleon Buonaparte in *The Young Mr. Pitt in 1942 and War and Peace in 1956. But he was Charles Dreyfus in seven films, starting with *A Shot in the Dark * in 1964 and ending with Curse of the Pink Panther in 1983.
Elisha Cook Jr. and Lee Patrick reprised their roles from 1941’s The Maltese Falcon for The Black Bird in 1975.
Charles Gray was Mycroft Holmes in The Seven Per Cent Solution in 1976 and went on to play him multiple times in the BBC/WGBH Sherlock Holmes series from 1985-1994.
I’ve tried to concentrate on roles in different series here, but you could easily bring in people who stayed with the same series for a long time, like Bernard Lee, Loisd Maxwell, and Desmond Llewelyn from the James Bond franchise. The latter played Major Boothroyd/“Q” from 1964 to 1999.
Hey, I never said he’d been doing it since the early '60s.
But let me now dwell on something else I glossed over in that post: back in '69, a slim guy with a knack for big costumes started using a cheerfully whiny voice to play Big Bird; Caroll Spinney then went on to spend decades at it, like various other actors mentioned in this thread. What’s interesting is that since '69 he’s also been using his signature taxi-cab-driver growl to play Oscar the Grouch; how many other guys have worked two separate roles, each for 40+ years, in the cast of an ongoing television series?
(And he’s still doing quality work; he got nominated for the Emmy in '11 just like he did in '10, with his most recent win back in '07…)
The episode listing for Bill Roache is massively incomplete. According to imdb he only appeared in 1 in every 8 of the first 2000 episodes. Given how massive a character he was then i find that hard very hard to believe
Me too. He’s quite unusual in that his character has always been a significant one. He was 18 when he joined, so he’s spent his entire adult life playing a single role. He’s 70 now and I doubt he’ll leave Corrie till ill health forces him to, so I bet he’ll be there for a long time yet.
I was thinking that one of the cast of The Archers must be in the running, and it turns out that Norman Painting is. From Wiki:
The actor Norman Paintingplayed Phil Archer continuously from the first trial series in 1950 until his death on 29 October 2009. His last recording for an Archers episode was recorded just two days before his death and was broadcast on 22 November. He holds the title of longest-serving actor in a single soap opera in the Guinness Book of Records.
Nanny G Frasier, if you knew how bored I am, being “Nanny G.” How trapped I feel… Frasier You have a wonderful career. Nanny G But nothing ever changes! Do you have any idea what it’s like to play the same character for twenty years?
Catherine Russell has played the same part in the play Perfect Crime(off-Broadway) in New York City since 1987. She’s only missed FOUR performances in that time, to attend siblings’ wedding. She’s listed in Guinness for Most Performances of a Theater Actor in the Same Role. They only list the record through 2008. She’s STILL playing the same part, four years later. And that’s performing (following a typical New York theater schedule) EIGHT shows a week!
Oh, and she has also found time to perform in other plays (either late-night shows or performances on her days off), some minor movies, and TEACHES acting at NYU.
