# What/Who are the best "Chewing the Scenery" Films/Actors?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-who-are-the-best-chewing-the-scenery-films-actors/779359>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 9, 2017, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-who-are-the-best-chewing-the-scenery-films-actors/779359 "2017-02-09T00:12:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 35

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**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\
**Post date:** [February 9, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-who-are-the-best-chewing-the-scenery-films-actors/779359/35 "2017-02-09T16:29:19Z")

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Jack Cassidy got nominated for a couple of Emmys before he got asked to play a COLUMBO villain over and over – and, like I happened to mention [not all that long ago,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=19890665) his scenery-chewing is actually the key to his alibi:

> [@Nearly as heinous crime as an alibi for murder?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nearly-as-heinous-crime-as-an-alibi-for-murder/776032/6):
>
> The plot in a COLUMBO episode – “Publish or Perish” – had Jack Cassidy, the man with the most punchable face ever seen, establish his alibi by smashing his car into someone else’s before getting locked up for drunkenness.
> 
> He hams it up like mad, since the point is for (a) the bartender to remember the irritating loudmouth who was boozing it up and for (b) it to be plausible that he was _so_ drunk that, when asked where he was during the murder, apparently doesn’t even recall smashing into that vehicle – because the best alibi is one the insult-slinger clearly didn’t set up, to the point where he honestly doesn’t seem to realize he has it.

(Come to think of it, COLUMBO villains are probably a natural for this – given how William Shatner and Nicol Williamson have come up, and Ricardo Montalban has been, uh, referenced indirectly. I mean, have you seen Patrick McGoohan when he’s really going for it? He’s not just chewing scenery; he’s _relishing_ it.)

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