By Buzz Byrne
Comedian Gilbert Gottfried has a joke about meeting aliens and their big question for the human race was, “Ben Gazzara is good actor, shouldn’t he have a better career?” With that in mind, this is a list of my “Ben Gazzaras”, great actors and one actress who did great movies but should have had better careers.
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LOU GOSSETT JR.
I know he won an Oscar. We all know that. The issue is why didn’t he get the roles that are now going to Morgan Freeman and Charles S. Dutton off of that win. AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN is fine, if a bit dated, as a love story. That movie got Richard Gere leading roles for the next fifteen years. Lou was in two great, if underappreciated movies after that- THE PRINCIPAL and DIGGSTOWN. But after that? It’s all TV guest spots, voice over and IRON EAGLE sequels. Honey Roy Palmer deserved better.
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TOM HULCE
Like Lou, Tom was in two spectacular movies. His were ANIMAL HOUSE and AMADEUS. From his OSCAR nomination off of AMADEUS Tom landed unique roles in the fun, underrated movies SLAMDANCE, DOMINIC AND EUGENE and PARENTHOOD. He did the voice of Quasimodo for Disney’s HUNCHBACK movies and then…nothing, until he got a small part in STRANGER THAN FICTION in 2006. I’ll grant that the roles he’s most famous for, Wolfie and Larry “Pinto” Kroger depended on his youthful crooked grin but he could have developed into a real interesting character actor. Check out his cast mates on either of those films and see who he was working with. It is astounding he didn’t have a bigger career.
TALIA SHIRE
This idea is basically stolen from the blogger sugarjones7. I don’t know that I am a fan of Talia’s acting ability but I am dumbfounded that the most recent thing she’s done is play the psychiatrist in a GEICO caveman spot. She was in ROCKY and the first two GODFATHER movies for crying out loud! And yet she gets parts based on GODFATHER III and ROCKY IV&V. Forget her costars that have professionally passed her by, how about her family? She’s been lapped by a brother, a niece, a nephew and her son. You’re telling me none of those people could have squeezed her into a decent role? She couldn’t even get into that awful CAVEMAN TV show, she’s relegated to the commercials it was based on.
HECTOR ELIZONDO
First of all, he should have been nominated for an OSCAR for his role in PRETTY WOMAN and that should have solidified his place as the Hispanic Sidney Poitier. He exudes the same qualities on screen as Poitier- dignity, power and cunning. He’s doing fine now on TV in CBS’ CANE but before that it is a mishmash of cartoon voice-overs and guest spots on good TV shows but where are the movie roles? This is too bad because he is too good an actor not to be getting quality movie parts.
NATHAN FILLION
It is much too soon to ask what happened to his career. I think there is still hope but somebody has got to get on the ball for Nathan. Maybe television and DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES will get him the breakout role he deserves in a mainstream feature. He is too good an actor- handsome enough to be a leading man and with a wry sense of self to give complexity- to be relegated to cult classics like SLITHER and SERENITY. Seriously, I bet he lays his head down on his pillow at night and thinks about his costar Ryan Reynolds from TWO GUYS, A GIRL AND A PIZZA SHOP and wants to wring VAN WILDER’s neck. I would if I were him.
FRED WARD
By far my favorite actor in great and awful movies that I love. How awesome is REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS? The adventure began and ended in the same movie. Kate Mulgrew went on to be part of the STAR TREK family and get raves for her Katharine Hepburn on stage, Fred went on to do TREMORS III with the FAMILY TIES dad. Fred had an amazing run from 1988-1993. In that time he did the first TREMORS movie, OFF LIMITS, MIAMI BLUES, HENRY & JUNE, CAST A DEADLY SPELL, THUNDERHEART, THE PLAYER and BOB ROBERTS. That is impressive. And yet since then? CORKY ROMANO? JOE DIRT? When did he go from playing Henry Miller to being the stupid hillbilly go-to-guy? I love watching him on screen. He is an actor of easily accessible depth but he never made it to the next tier. His work is fantastic in the movies noted during his heyday. It should be a resume that gets OSCAR worthy scripts, not guest spots on GREY’S ANATOMY and ER.