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Post by sol-survivor on Apr 30, 2022 0:21:57 GMT -5
And I don't mean any of the people who made MST3K. I mean the actors, directors, or whoever else worked on one of the movies that were riffed. Right off the bat, though, I am excluding Gene Hackman and Gregory Peck from 401-Space Travelers, Ron Howard from 523-Village of the Giants, Clint Eastwood from 801-Revenge of the Creature, and composer John Williams, who did the score for 307-Daddy-O, which was apparently his first movie score. They're all a given. My own pick would be Richard Crenna, also from 401-Space Travelers. He had a successful career in radio, TV, and movies that lasted for decades. There are others I could mention, but I'll save them for someone else, for now.
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Post by foreign object on Apr 30, 2022 2:16:57 GMT -5
To me, the obvious choice was always John Carradine in Red Zone Cuba. Here's a guy who was in Bride of Frankenstein, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Ten Commandments but also in Hillbillys in a Haunted House and The Astro Zombies. He liked to keep busy and had fun and that would be the best career in spite of being in an MST movie. He was also in The Unearthly, but seeing him in a Coleman Francis movie takes the cake.
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Post by monkeypretzel on Apr 30, 2022 20:34:01 GMT -5
There's Robert Easton (The Giant Spider Invasion, The Touch of Satan) who had a 60+ year career in film, TV, and stage, besides being on of the most sought after dialect coaches for stage and screen and teaching university courses.
I've always had a soft spot for Bruno VeSota, who could portray a remarkable variety of characters and make you believe every one.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Apr 30, 2022 21:49:10 GMT -5
One that I find interesting is Bryant Haliday, who was in Devil Doll and The Projected Man.
He also co-founded Janus Films, a distributor of films by Kurosawa and Bergman among others. Janus was also instrumental in the creation of The Criterion Collection. People often point out that there are a few riffed films in the CC, but it partially owes its existence to a riffed actor.
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Post by BoB3K on May 1, 2022 23:29:45 GMT -5
Many of the old B&W MST3K movies have career actors in them. It's how Hollywood worked back then. I'll just throw out one of my favorites-- I've always liked Richard Carlson ("Tom Stewart killed me!"). He was in plenty of other solid classic sci fi movies like It Came from Outer Space and Creature from the Black Lagoon, as well as dozens of other movie and TV roles.
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Post by dudehitscar on May 2, 2022 13:48:37 GMT -5
Ron Howard was in Village of the Giants. One of the biggest filmmakers ever.
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Post by sol-survivor on May 2, 2022 14:02:04 GMT -5
^^^
Except I said in my original post he was excluded just because of that.
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Post by dudehitscar on May 2, 2022 19:48:33 GMT -5
^^^ Except I said in my original post he was excluded just because of that. ha. I missed that one in your post. my bad. |
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Post by dudehitscar on May 2, 2022 19:54:21 GMT -5
 Shawn Levy was the punch able rapist from Zombie Nightmare. well that guy went on to be a very successful director (Night at the museum series among other hits) and the executive producer and director of Stranger Things. ![]() |
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Post by sol-survivor on May 2, 2022 22:04:24 GMT -5
^^^ Except I said in my original post he was excluded just because of that. ha. I missed that one in your post. my bad. No problem.  I'll add John Forsythe and Ann-Margret from 615- Kitten With a Whip. He was very successful before and after KWaW, including working with Alfred Hitchcock on Alfred Hitchcock Presents as well as Hitchcock's very funny comedy thriller The Trouble With Harry (that also stars Shirley MacLaine in her movie debut and pre- Leave It to Beaver Jerry Mathers as her son Arnie, but neither of them were in any MSTed movies that I know of). He also had several TV series and TV movies. Ann-Margret was still relatively new but had lots of success afterwards. Her Ann-Margrock role on The Flintstones was the year before KWaW. We can't forget Lassie from 510- The Painted Hills, either. |
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Post by Mighty Jack on May 3, 2022 22:24:16 GMT -5
Inna Churikova? I guess if we lived in Russia that would be too obvious an answer?  But I featured her in a piece about the actors in Jack Frost... mightyjacks.blogspot.com/2021/05/some-thoughts-about-acting-in-frost.html to quote from that... back in 1964, she was a relative newbie, at age 20, working in only her second credited motion picture, playing the part of Nastenka's spoiled step-sister. When this experiment debuted I wasn't aware of who she was or anything about her career. I might have thought that she wasn't bad for what she was asked to do, but I had no idea I was watching someone who would later become one of my favorite actors. Also, the story goes that she cried after seeing the picture and considered leaving the business. Thankfully, she stuck with it and forged a long and fruitful career. |
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Post by kmorgan on May 4, 2022 20:25:48 GMT -5
Re: John Carradine, I love a quote attributed to him: "I've appeared in some of the finest movies ever made. And I've made a lot of crap, too." Re: Robert Easton, I found video of him being interviewed by Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show" from 1979. His segment starts at around the 50 minute mark: www.shoutfactorytv.com/the-johnny-carson-show/the-johnny-carson-show-comic-legends-of-the-70s-carol-burnett-8-10-79/5e97a46b699b790001b91aee. As far as MST alumni who found success, Timothy Van Patten has gone on to great success as a producer/director, with multiple Emmy wins. Nick Tate, who played Alan Carter (the second coolest space pilot in science fiction) in "Cosmic Princess" is one of the more successful voice artists, and one of the Five Guys in a Limo. And both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee should also be included in the "given" list, I suppose. |
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Post by continosbuckle on May 10, 2022 2:15:47 GMT -5
Chester Morris in She Creature had a very long and distinguished career. He was one of the first actors to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.
But it does seem different when it's a person who had a long career before appearing in the movie on MST3k. Would Basil Rathbone from The Magic Sword be acceptable?
Kim Cattrall did all right too.
Not sure that anything Peggy Webber did was considered "great", but she kept acting until she was 80, which was 48 years after Screaming Skull and The Space Children, and didn't seem to be hurting for work at any point in her career.
And speaking of Space Children and of people who had significant careers before their MST3k'd movie, Jackie Coogan had credited roles from 1921 all the way up to the 80s.
Also from Space Children, Michel Ray, but his career was less about his acting (despite being in Lawrence of Arabia) and more about everything else he did.
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Post by BoB3K on May 10, 2022 10:08:31 GMT -5
I always liked Chester Morris in She Creature. Just the right amount of chewing the scenery with real acting. Sometimes I get him confused with "You're just a dummy Hugo" Bryant Haliday who's a pretty good leading antagonist in Devil Doll of course as well as The Projected Man.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2022 16:41:29 GMT -5
Four time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond was the camera operator on "The Incredibly Strange Creatures..."; he won for "Close Encounters."
Henry Mancini was a house composer at Universal-International and was one of three composers on "This Island Earth." He also composed music for "It Came from Outer Space" and "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" which was subsequently tracked into '50s Universal monster movies riffed in Season 8. (A lot of the "Creature" score was also sold into the library managed by General Music Corp., which provided stock scores for MSTed movies like "Women of the Prehistoric Planet," "The Phantom Planet," and "Hercules and the Captive Women." I think some of Mancini's cues can be heard in those movies.)
Another prolific and respected composer whose work was riffed was Masaru Sato ("Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster"). He's probably best known for a nine-film collaboration with Akira Kurosawa (including "Throne of Blood," "Yojimbo," and "High and Low"), but he also frequently worked with Kihachi Okamoto (one of the great uncelebrated directors). At least twelve films on Kinema Junpo's list of the Top 200 Japanese Films were scored by Sato.
Actually, the Godzilla and Gamera films are surprisingly good candidates for people with great showbiz careers. The MSTed entries in these series were produced by major studios at a time when the Japanese film industry was still modeled on the earlier Hollywood studio system, so casts and crews assigned to Godzilla and Gamera flix also worked on their studios' most prestigious films. For example, Masaichi Nagata had a terrific run heading Daiei (until he pulled a Howard Hughes and helped run it into the ground...), including Oscars for "Rasho-mon" and "Gate of Hell"; he also created the Gamera character and was credited as the producer on "Gamera vs Barugon."
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