I didn’t want to hijack [thread=168993]this thread[/thread], but wanted to branch out and ask this question.
What performers have had their careers overshadowed by a single role, or action?
So much so that when their obituary is written, many years hence, it will start off with something like “best known for their role as So-and so in the movie/TV series Whatever” This theme could be extended to folks in other careers too.
Topping my list are any of the actors from ST-TOS. No matter what they did before or after they will be the folks who were Kirk/Spock/Uhura, or whatever.
Another is Tim Curry. I lived for a while in East Lansing Michigan, and heard part of a radio interview he gave. He was in town as the lead singer in the revival of some musical from the 1920’s. Of course the interviewer asked him about HIS OTHER BIG ROLE and he kind of sighed. Curry said that no matter what her’s performing in, be it live musical/non-musical, no matter what the character is in a movie he’s acting in, among the first questions people ask him about in interviews is THAT CHARACTER HE PLAYED IN THE OTHER MOVIE.
Colin Firth, I remember hearing, had some difficulty getting work after Pride and Prejudice, because he didn’t want to fall into that trap, but Darcy-esque roles were the only ones being offered. Seems like he decided to bite the bullet.
I think that the definitive answer is George Reeves, the TV Superman of the 50’s. After his TV role, he found that he was so identified as Superman that work was hard to find. It probably contributed to his suicide (but that’s kind of open to debate).
Nope, Burt Ward. He almost got cast in the leading role in The Graduate, but missed out 'cuz of the Boy Wonder gig. Pretty much sliced off any hopes for a post-Batman career.
I think that an even more archetypical answer would be Alan Alda, from MASH. I don’t think he will ever be able to escape that role, to the extent that nobody remembers (including me!) anything else he did or will do.
And the truly ironic thing about this one is that I remember a quote he made about taking the Who role. He’d done the wizard Kura inThe Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra, and found that after those two roles “all I was being offered was blue-eyed maniacs” He did do Sherlock Holmes afterwards, and Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, in C.S. Lewis The Silver Chair.
Tom Baker has made a serious comeback on British television lately. Not only has he popped up as a regular character on Monarch of the Glen (along with another fighting-against-typecasting actor, Anthony Head), but he also seems to be doing a lot of voiceover work (including Little Britain and half the television commercials currently airing).
Speaking of British TV, Wilfrid Brambell and Harry Corbett never escaped the stigma of Steptoe and Son, forever doomed to be associated with their characters. Warren Mitchell has had slightly more success getting other work after Till Death Us Do Part, but Alf Garnett haunts him as well.
(For US readers, these two shows were the models for Sanford and Son and All in the Family, although each version is strongly rooted in the culture of its home country.)
