In Praise of the Typecast

Red linked to this post - a revisionist look at William Shatner. And it's a darn fine one.

And it got me to thinking; how many excellent actors have gotten their careers hijacked by roles that make them successes - and then typecast them forever?

I'm not the tireless cataloguer of film facts that Red is - far from it. But growing up watching (or, largely, eschewing) junk TV as I did, there are a few stories that amazed me.

Remember Gomer Pyle, USMC? Yeah, Jim Nabors had a bit of a singing and acting career before "Gomer"...

...but one year, watching late night TV during college, I saw A Town Without Pity, a movie about the court-martial of a couple of GIs accused of rape in post-war Germany. And I noticed Frank Sutton, who played Sergeant Carter. And he was very, very good. IMDB shows his career was mostly soap operas and "B" TV, and his bio indicates he was a typical C-list journeyman actor - but then that's what kept a lot of actors (including William Shatner, DeForrest Kelly, Leonard Nimoy and James Doohan) in the chips back then. And now.

As a child, there were few things I hated worse than getting immunization shots. One of them was The Munsters. Some of you are no doubt going to write protesting your love for the show; please, live in your own memories, you're entitled to them. But I hated hated hated the Munsters, even as a kid. And Gwynne was involved in worse - Car 54 Where Are You and Sergeant Bilko, yet more shows that bored me then and depress me now.

So when I got into college, I was amazed when my drama professor showed me pictures she'd taken in the '50s, showing Gwynne as a highly-respected, classically-trained Shakespearean stage actor.

So OK, Alexandra. I'll give Shatner a break...