Write your tribute to your favorite character actor.

[Tripe]

Ok you absolute Sha'er. time to praise the quintessential Englishman, consumate lounge lizard and gapped tooth reprobate Thomas Terry Hoar-Stevens  or Terry-Thomas as he is better known.



Other may try but nobody could play the mix of sleazy effeteness and charm that Terry-Thomas did, he truly convinced you that mothers wouldn't want to leave their daughters alone with him, mostly out of competitiveness with the younger woman.

The thing is he wasn't all that far removed from his persona as evidenced by this story:

In 1939, Terry-Thomas received, as he would later tell radio audiences, "a cunningly worded invitation to join the Army". He promptly reported to the Royal Corps of Signals in Yorkshire. Upon alighting from his chauffeur-driven limousine, a sergeant-major asked for his number. "Kensington 0736", T-T replied. This quip was rewarded with a contemptuous glare. He was informed, "From now on, you're just number 2389211."

Good Show!

[mrbasehart]

Of course, he's also bloody hilarious.   

[Tripe]

Oh  I thought that went without saying 

But perhaps some scenes: which I'll provide when Youtube is working for me again.

[Tripe]

Indeed he was. And in the original School for Scoundrels and a host of other great films.

Hey hey Youtube is playing ball again:

[a pretty girl is like]

He's not really my favorite character actor, just someone I've now seen in back to back movies two nights in a row.  The two movies being Charlie Wilson's War and Reservation Road.  He's quite versatile.



His name is John Slattery.  He plays the white guy in a suit perfectly.  Besides the two movies mentioned above, I've also seen him play the white guy in a suit in AMC's Mad Men and I remember him suit and all in the failed Soderbergh HBO experiment K Street.  He was also in Flags of Our Fathers but I don't remember if he was a white guy in a suit in that one.  Chances are he was.

[mrbasehart]

Yeah, Robert Shaw was great!  He did play the lead in at least one film, if I recall correctly.  Swashbuckler, or the Scarlet Buccaneer, made in 1976.  It harkens back to the 40s and 50s adventure movies, and stars (along with Shaw) James Earl Jones, Peter Boyle and Genevive Bujold when she was young and hot.  I remember it being pretty decent.  There's also a really odd little film he made in the early 60s, called the Caretaker, based on a play by Harold Pinter.  He co-stars with Alan Bates and Donald Pleasance (in one of his good movies). 

[Nunyerbiz]

Probably not much of a tribute.... but my first choice for favorite character actor: James Tolkan

AKA "The Principle from Back to the Future / Maverick and Goose's commanding officer from Top Gun".

No need to post a picture... as who doesn't know who this guy is? He's probably all of 5'7"... but he still plays a great hardass dectective / principle / mobster type in all kinds of good stuff and not-so-good stuff from the 80s/90s.

And last but not least... Clu Gulager. You couldn't throw a dead cat at a TV screen in the 1970s or 1980s without a good chance of smacking into a guest starring role from Clu.... and going back farther than I can remember... the guy basically invented the occupation of "Special Guest Star" in various westerns and whatnot in the 50s/60s.

[a pretty girl is like]

Don't forget that Robert Shaw also took down the Pelham One Two Three.

He was supercool in that one.

[Pak-Man]

I'm going to make an unconventional submission.

If cartoons and animated films have anything like Character Actors, I would say that one Frank Welker would fit the bill.

Sure he's had his starring roles, like Fred from Scooby-Doo and Megatron, but he has an impressive role of incidental voices too:

He was Furrball on Tiny Toons, Tokka and Rahzaar in TMNT2: Secret of the Ooze, Blip in the original Space Ghost cartoons, a puppy in the Smurfs, Santa's Little Helper on the Simpsons, Nibbler on Futurama (Both speaking and non-speaking), Darwin in seaQuest DSV, Chomp Chomp in the Pac-Man animated series, provided Lion roars in The Lion King, Brain AND Mad Cat in Inspector Gadget, Stripe in Gremlins, Chicken Boo and Buttons in Animaniacs, and the list goes on...
http://voicechasers.com/database/showactor.php?actorid=1059

Odds are if you heard an animal noise in an animated cartoon, or some gibbering comedy relief character, it was Frank Welker. :^)