“Scene Stealers” Archive
Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
Last week on this site an article examined the career of SCTV regular-turned-movie dad Eugene Levy, so now let's turn to a look at his distaff counterpart, a gifted comic actress from the Great White North who's also gone on to big-screen notoriety for a parental role, albeit one who was a little more forgetful than Levy's American Pie pop. A passing mention of a woman suddenly sitting up in her airplane seat and yelling out "KEVIN!" should be enough for filmgoers to know that I'm talking about Home Alone mother Catherine O'Hara.
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Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
The world of cinema has given audiences a goodly number of touching father-son moments over the years, from Mickey Rooney as typical teenager Andy Hardy and Lewis Stone's as his wise pop, Judge Hardy, in the 1930s- '40s MGM series, to the devotion shown by Godzilla to his less-than-gargantuan offspring Minya in Son of Godzilla, to the familial games of catch that ended the '80s baseball dramas The Natural and Field of Dreams. For the last decade or so, however, the most popular paterfamilias among moviegoers has probably been "Jim's Dad" in the American Pie films, a role that introduced a new generation of fans to one of the stars of the brilliant SCTV comedy series, Eugene Levy.
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Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
It’s an impressive body of work that most actors would love to have on their resumé: Gerald O’Hara, Vivien Leigh's troubled father, in Gone with the Wind; Clopin, 15h-century Paris' “King of the Beggars,” in The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington's cynical press secretary Diz Moore; Cary Grant’s aviation mentor, Kid Dabb, in Only Angels Have Wings; and alcoholic medico Doc Boone in Stagecoach. That he played all of these roles, not just in his career, but in the same year is a testament to the versatility that made Thomas Mitchell an audience favorite for decades.
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Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
She was Maid Marian's devoted lady-in-waiting. She survived encounters with the Invisible Man and the Frankenstein Monster. And she worked for the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford and Billy Wilder. She was rubber-faced character actress Una O'Connor, once dubbed the movies' "quintessential town biddy."
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Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
One of the most thankless recurring roles in movies must have been as one of Charlie Chan's would-be detective offspring. After all, how many ways can an actor say "Gee whiz, pop!"? For the venerable Keye Luke, however, playing "number-one son" Lee Chan was an early stepping stone in a film and TV career that last nearly 60 years.
Born in Guangzhou, China in July, 1904. Luke came to the U.S. at age three when his family settled in Seattle. He moved to Hollywood as a young man and worked, not as an actor, but as a commerical artist and technical advisor on Asian-themed films. Luke's artwork was featured in RKO's pressbook for the original King Kong, and he painted murals and the auditorium ceiling for Graumann's Chinese Theatre.
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Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
It is, to borrow a phrase from one of his better-known movie roles, "inconceivable" that filmgoers of all ages aren't familiar with at least the voice, if not the leprechaun-like face, of comedic mainstay Wallace Shawn. Fans of art films know him as a favorite cast member for the likes of Woody Allen and Alan Rudolph, Gen-Xers remember him as the scheming Vizzini in The Princess Bride or as debate teacher Mr. Hall in Clueless, and kids will recognize his voice as that of Rex, the not-so-terrifying Tyrannosaurus from the Toy Story films. Acting, however, is just one part of Shawn's mutli-faceted career.
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Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
In a movie like 1980's Airplane!, where the jokes are zooming past viewers at a rate of several per minute and the starring cast includes veteran stars the likes of Lloyd Bridges, Leslie Nielsen and Robert Stack, it takes a special kind of performer to make a lasting impression in a supporting role. However, that's just what comic actor Stephen Stucker did in the role of the manic and--oh, how shall we say it?--flamboyant airport control room worker Johnny.
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Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
Amid the taboo-shattering and polymorphously perverse chaos that is the John Waters universe, she was an oasis of...well, if not sanity, then certainly an off-kilter form of niceness. Few who have seen the director's landmark 1972 "exercise in poor taste," Pink Flamingos, can look at an order of deviled, hard-boiled or sunny-side-up eggs without thinking of the snaggletoothed grin, cackling laugh and one-in-a-million line delivery that were hallmarks of "Edie the Egg Lady," Edith Massey.
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Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
It's a rare accomplishment for an actor or actress to receive an Academy Award nomination for their very first film appearance. It's even more rare for that first appearance to come at the rather advanced (for Hollywood) age of 61! But that's just what happened to Sydney Greenstreet, whose, shall we say, imposing presence and air of sophisticated menace served him well in a relatively brief nine-year career packed with memorable characters.
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Jason Marcewicz | Scene Stealers
One of the most recognizable character actors of the past three decades has to be Mike Starr. With his hulking 6'3" frame Mike cuts an imposing figure. As a result, much of his TV and film work have typecast him as a heavy, usually the muscle of mobsters. Says Mike: “I get a lot of calls for New York-oriented things, mob parts, cop roles. I think they stereotype me by size; that's a bit of a pitfall. Some people bring me in for the big gentle guy or these killers. It's hard to figure out what they think of me.”
But Mike’s versatility as an actor has not gone totally unnoticed by casting agents; nor by us movie geeks.
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Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
Iconic low-budget filmmaker Roger Corman is famous for the array of top directors--among them James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Joe Dante, Ron Howard, and Martin Scorsese--who got some of their first breaks working for him at the American International and New World studios. But when it came to on-screen talent, one of the longest and most diverse careers to emerge from those humble B-movie breeding grounds must be that of craggy-faced actor Dick Miller, a Corman regular who would become a "good luck charm" for many of those future auteurs and a cult favorite.
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Gary Cahall | Scene Stealers
"I was never the 'babe,' so I knew I'd never get those big roles. I'd always be the best friend or the quirky sidekick." So said comedienne/actress Joan Cusack about a body of work that has garnered her many fans (including, in spite of the comment, her fair share of male admirers) and two Academy Award nominations, all for following in the Hollywood tradition of Joan Blondell, Eve Arden, Thelma Ritter, and others known for playing the heroine's wisecracking gal pal.
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