I was watching the old movie (THE TIME MACHINE( on TCM, and I noticed the late Whit Bissel was in the credits. I saw him, then realized that this guy was in tons of movies (never as a leading man). What’s it like to spend your whole career as a 2nd-rater? I’m sure the money is decent…but perhaps it isn’t good for the ego?
Anyway, Bssel was a competent actor…he just never seemed to get starring roles.
You have to understand that just by being in over two hundred movies and television shows, Whit Bissell had a better career than 95% of the members of the Screen Actors Guild. There was nothing “second rate” about it.
Agreed. Second-rate is the wrong way to describe it. “Supporting,” “character,” or even “journeyman” is better.
Think of it this way. You get up, go to work everyday. You know you’ll never be CEO or make a million bucks, but you like your job and you’re good at it.
I once read an interview with Gary Collins. Talking about a life of supporting roles, game shows and hosting pageants, he said he was just a regular working stiff. Except, of course, he married Miss America.
Whit Bissell is a very successful actor. He worked regularly, even if it was rarely as a leading man. He knew he wasn’t going to be a leading man, but many lead actors would envy him for his steady work.
A neighbor and schoolmate of mine left for Hollywood in the late '60s with stars in her eyes. After a couple of years working in the steno pool at CBS, she found work as a writer, as a singer, and as an actress. She never became a huge celebrity, but she’s always working, and she’s one of the best-adjusted, happiest people I know. I doubt that she envies the better-known folks who are constantly in the public eye, hounded by paparazzi and tormented by tabloids. There’s more to life than red carpet premieres.
Right now, if I were Whit Bissell I would be feeling dead.
But he was a working actor. And a successful one. And he lived to be 86. And had four children and six grandchildren when he died.
This appeared in his LA Times obituary.
I would suspect that being Wilt was no different from being a star, at least on the movie set. After all, you’re still playing a role, the camera’s still focused on you, if to a lesser extent, and if you’re playing a supporting role, you’ll probably get at least one or two scenes where you play a very important role. For that scene, you’re the star.
When I was on the set of “The Patriot,” I saw Heath Ledger and Chris Columbus working with Mel Gibson, but you couldn’t tell that Mel was treated that much better than they, although Mel lived in a very nice rental house in a gated community on Lake Wylie and got paid more.
But as others have pointed out, you’re unlikely to be targeted by paraparazzi. Gossip columnists aren’t going to pay much for sleaze about you. And if you’re a decent actor who shows up on time and knows your lines, you’ll probably always find work. Directors like actors who aren’t crazy. And now, IMDB even bestows a new and imporved immortality on you, remembering you right down to the smallest TV role.
Not a bad way to make a living.
I figure if I was an actor I’d love to be a character or bit-part actor, because it means you get to work in sometimes great films, with some great actors, on maybe five or ten tv shows or movies a year, and play lots of different types of roles, perhaps with some travelling to interesting locations. It’d be fun.
Maybe not as fulfilling as being a lead, but then it all depends on what your aspirations are.
And, on top of that, you’d often be recognised as “Hey It’s That Guy! Weren’t you the Desk Sergeant in that Meg Ryan movie? And then you were the Ski Instructor in that DeNiro film! Wow, that’s so cool!” but never to the point of being in the tabloids and having your privacy compromised.
And if you end up as some minor character on Stargate SG1, you get to go on the SF Convention circuit forever more 
When “10” came out Robert Webber was asked about life as a Supporting Character. His father had recommended it as a career path because you are never out of work. Sixty eight films, 86 TV appearances, and God knows how many plays between 1950 and 1988 it looks like daddy was right.
“Second-rate” seems like a fair description – it just so happens that it’s still a pretty good rate.
A friend and I had a theory that every movie made between 1930 and 1960 was required by federal law to include Ward Bond in the cast.
(slight hijack)
I always felt sorry for Ward Bond. 30 years of playing 3rd, 4th & 5th bananas in Hollywood and he finally gets a starring gig on TV’s “Wagon Train”. He promptly died soon after the series started.
VCNJ~
I feel the same way about Jack Carson: http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0007217/
It seems like the man shows up in nearly every movie I see on TCM; he was in close to 100 films. I finally looked him up on IMDB just so I could stop saying, “Hey, it’s that guy again!”
The true champ is Charles Lane: 254 film credits, 91 guest appearances listed in the IMDB, and recently celebrated his 100th birthday.
Tom London - per IMDB 559 films and over 60 TV gigs. He was the archtypical “cowboy crossing a dusty street in background”.
When the AFI published it’s top 100 films of the 20th Century, Ward Bond was the actor who has appeared in most of them. Who’d be 2005-era’s top second banana?
mm
Would you consider this to be the equivalent of the professional studio musician?
I for one wouldn’t—professional studio players need to be really, really technically good, whereas b-/character actors, while often very skilled, can just be second-tier talents who can’t really do any better. I suspect many if not most studio musicians are better players than the majority of the groups on whose sessions they play.
I’d equate it with playing bass vs playing lead guitar or singing lead vocals…
It sounds pretty rad actually, more supporting roles mean less work and less paparazzi/stalkers. You don’t get as much of the fantastic hollywood attention, but you don’t get as much of the I’d rather be dead right now hollywood attention. I’d rather be Oliver Platt than Brad Pitt…
Besides, wouldn’t an Oliver Platt get meatier roles than Brad Pitt? I believe this is a case where Brad’s good looks work against him. I’ve noticed where Oliver Platt works in films such as Pieces of April and other small, independent films where he plays different characters. Brad seemed to be coasting on his looks in Troy, not that I’m complaining. I’ll bet that when both men are in their fifties and sixties, Oliver will still be working in a variety of roles, where Brad might be typecast. Then again, I might be wrong.
There’s an indefinable difference between a lead actor/actress and a character actor/actress. It has to do with stage presence, or the nature of the stage presence. Many of the best actors around are character actors, many of the worst are leads. Leads often just play themselves, i.e., the personna that the audience has come to expect. Character actors are often called upon to use more “chops.” But this is, of course, not always the case.
I’d say it isn’t the case with Bissell, who pretty much did the same thing all the time. What he did, though, he did well (generally a stiff figure in some position of authority or superior expertise).
On the whole, I’d say being Whit Bissell would be pretty fun; I wouldn’t mind having a career that successful.