More --That Guy is Everywhere!

by Bernadette_P | created - 13 Oct 2014 | updated - 30 Oct 2014 | Public

In alphabetical order, some actors who seemed to have small parts in many, many movies & TV shows and were familiar-looking, but most people didn't know their names. This list begins with 1935 and stretches to the early 1980's. See how many you remember or look-em up on IMDb--you'll remember them then.

1. Philip Ahn

Actor | Impact

Korean-American character actor Philip Ahn played hundreds of Chinese and Japanese characters during a long career. He was born in Los Angeles in 1905 (though 1911 is the year usually given, U.S. government records confirm that Ahn was born in 1905), the son of a Korean diplomat. He attended the ...

Korean actor who played both Chinese & Japanese parts for many years. He was Charlie Chan's son-in-law in the movie CHARLIE CHAN IN HONOLULU (1938)

2. Morris Ankrum

Actor | In a Lonely Place

A graduate of the University of Southern California School of Law, Morris Ankrum was an attorney and an economics professor before switching careers and joining the theater. He was a veteran stage actor by the time he entered the film industry in the 1930s. His film career spanned 1933-64, during ...

He often played military officers. He played a judge several times on the TV show "Perry Mason" (1957)

3. Jan Arvan

Actor | The Poseidon Adventure

Jan Arvan was born on April 10, 1913 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. He was an actor, known for The Poseidon Adventure (1972), 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) and Soldiers of Fortune (1955). He died on May 24, 1979 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

He was in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE as well as many TV shows often as a maitre'd or waiter, usually with French accent and snooty attitude.

4. William Boyett

Actor | When a Stranger Calls

William Boyett was born on January 3, 1927 in Akron, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for When a Stranger Calls (1979), Newsies (1992) and Turner & Hooch (1989). He was married to Joan Amelia Reynolds and Willagene Wither. He died on December 29, 2004 in Mission Hills, California, USA.

He was on "General Hospital," but in TV series he was always a policeman. Finally he had a semi-permanent gig as a Captain on "Adam-12." His delivery of dialogue was very natural & realistic. He made you believe what he said.

5. Douglass Dumbrille

Actor | The Ten Commandments

Distinguished character villain Douglass (R.) Dumbrille, whose distinctive stern features, beady eyes, tidy mustache, prominent hook nose and suave, cultivated presence graced scores of talking films, was born on October 13, 1889, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He was first employed as a bank clerk ...

He appeared in the A-list classic MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN. He also co-starred in CASTLE IN THE DESERT (1941), the last Charlie Chan movie made at Twentieth-Century Fox Studios. He had a small but important part in EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS as an Army officer whose brain is amalgamated by aliens. It is a Sci-Fi classic with great fx for the 1950's showing the monuments in Washington, D.C. being sheered off by flying saucers. He appeared as a judge on "Perry Mason."

6. John Doucette

Actor | True Grit

Stocky, balding American character actor with a rich, deep voice, equally adept at Western bad guys and Shakespeare. He began his career in films in minor roles, primarily as gangland henchmen, and progressed to become widely familiar as a figure in a variety of dramas and occasional comedies. ...

He appeared in the Academy Award-winning movie PATTON, but was the "baddie" in many westerns. He had a unique style of delivering his lines and menaced many women and men, especially in saloons nearly always playing a real low-life thug.

7. Byron Foulger

Actor | Sullivan's Travels

One of those wonderfully busy character actors whose face is familiar if not his name, mild-mannered actor Byron Foulger began performing with community theater, and stock and repertory companies after graduating from the University of Utah. He met his future wife, character actress Dorothy Adams, ...

A small man, he always had a mustache and a "golly-gee" attitude even if he were accused of murder. He was in so many movies beginning in the 1940's then episodic TV shows stretching into the 1970's that I don't know how long his filmography is, but it must list 100 appearances. No one could act so innocent and put-upon as Byron Foulger. Indispensable, so it seemed to casting directors.

8. Steven Geray

Actor | Gilda

Diminutive, gentle-featured character actor, who specialised in playing meek, reticent or kindly gentlemen, usually of Gallic, Germanic or Eastern European backgrounds. Istvan Gyergyay was born in the old Austro/Hungarian town of Ungvar (present-day Uzhgorod) and studied at Budapest University. His...

He played a critical role at the end of the classic GILDA (1946) for most of the movie simply the bartender. He also appeared in the classic ALL ABOUT EVE (1950). He starred in only one film, now considered a classic for its originality & cinematography plus direction. That film is SO DARK THE NIGHT (1946). See it! Mainly, he played a kindly, benign and gentle, but intelligent, guy in many small parts. He used a French accent to disguise an Eastern European accent.

9. Rodolfo Hoyos Jr.

Actor | The Little Savage

Rodolfo Hoyos Jr. was born on March 14, 1916 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor, known for The Little Savage (1959), Villa!! (1958) and The Lineup (1954). He died on April 15, 1983 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

A career stretching from early 40's until 1982, known almost always as simply Rodolfo Hoyos, he had parts, sometimes in multiple episodes, of every major TV series from the 1950's into the 1980's. One of the few Mexican actors to do so. Born in Mexico City, D.F. he came to the U.S. and learned English well, with only a slight accent. He appeared in not only "General Hospital" (1963) but in STAGECOACH TO FURY (1956) and a starring role in an episode of "McMillan & Wife" (1971) in 1974 in the episode Game of Survival as Foreman of a thousand-acre ranch. Rodolfo Hoyos truly was a guy who was everywhere.

10. I. Stanford Jolley

Actor | The Crimson Ghost

Perennial film western heavy I. Stanford Jolley could be spotted anywhere and everywhere in dusty "B" fare from 1935 on. Often mustachioed, this freelancing, wideset-eyed, black-hatted villain, who showed up in Hollywood following vaudeville and Broadway experience, could be counted on to give the ...

From an uncredited role in FRONT PAGE WOMAN (1935) until his last role as 'Drunk' in 1976, he appeared in nearly every western movie & TV series from the 1930's through the mid-1970's. He also appeared in the horror movie HAUNTED PALACE (1963). Usually a conniving villain with a pencil mustache, in a 1959 episode of "Wanted: Dead or Alive" called 'Chain Gang' he played a pathetic slave in a chain gang from which no one escapes ever; he foils Steve McQueen's character Josh Randall from threatening to cut the throat of the corrupt boss of the gang. All the men on the chain gang turn against him. Then, supposedly, for his loyalty, he is given $10.00 and set free. He is a sniveling, scraping old man. Later, it's found that he was murdered that night just beyond earshot. This spurs Randall & the others to mutiny and they all escape except the man who sacrifices his life to save Randall from being killed in a mine explosion. A truly heartbreaking role for the usual villain he played.

11. Martin Kosleck

Actor | Agent for H.A.R.M.

His icy demeanor and piercing stare on screen epitomized the type of Nazi menace with a blind obedience to Hitler that everyone loved to hate. Kosleck portrayed Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, 5 times, as well as various German army officers, SS troopers and concentration camp officers. He ...

Due to his opposition to Hitler in German cinema, Martin Kosleck barely escaped a Gestapo Death Squad. But, in U.S. movies he portrayed Dr. Josef Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister & Hitler favorite, with no compunction. He also portrayed assorted SS Officers, Concentration Camp Kommandants, spies, agents & psychopaths. But, in Fly-By-Night (1942) he died a hero. He escaped from an asylum where Nazi agents were holding him and his mentor Prof. Langner. Langner would not reveal to the Nazis the effects of a weapon he had, by chance, discovered 5 yrs. before. It was a weapon which would have effectively neutralized any ground forces attacking the European continent. Kosleck's character George Taylor hitches a ride with Dr. Geoffrey Burton on a rainy night and leaves him a ticket to pick up a parcel at a local post office. Taylor is murdered for informing Dr. Burton some vital information. So, in this role, his sacrifice makes him, in the end, the first hero in this frenetic chase, suspense movie. He was also a spy in the 1940 Hitchcock thriller FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT.

12. Alan Napier

Actor | Marnie

A tall, distinguished-looking English character actor with aristocratic bearing and a precisely modulated voice, Alan William Napier-Clavering was born in Kings Norton, Worcestershire, England. A cousin of the former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, he studied at the Royal Academy of ...

Tall, distinguished character actor with aristocratic bearing and a well-modulated voice. He played the stiff-upper-lip Englishman in at least 100 outings. However, he is probably best-remembered as Alfred, the butler, on Batman (1966) though he also appeared in Hitchcock's MARNIE (1964) and as James Garner's leader Col. Peter McLean in the marvelous hit 36 HOURS (1965). Though Napier always appeared to be old, he wasn't, and lived to be 85-years-old, passing away in 1988.

13. Milton Parsons

Actor | The Hidden Hand

Milton Parsons was born on May 19, 1904 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for The Hidden Hand (1942), The Twilight Zone (1959) and Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947). He died on May 15, 1980 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.

A gaunt, skeletal-faced character actor he portrayed a series of coroners, morticians, eccentrics and crazy guys; he is listed as "First Axe-Murderer" in the Lew Ayres/Laraine Day starrer FINGERS AT THE WINDOW (1942). He also appeared in Broadway plays between 1930 and 1950. He guested on many of the major episodic TV series of the 1950's and 1960's. His was a face you didn't easily forget--especially in your nightmares.

14. Walter Sande

Actor | To Have and Have Not

Chances are you've seen his imposing character face scores of times but couldn't place the name. Colorado-born actor Walter Sande was one of those stern, heavyset character actors in Hollywood everyone recognized but no one could identify.

Born in Denver on July 9, 1906, Sande showed an early ...

A beefy, usually genial, presence he portrayed military non-coms, policemen, deputies and sheriffs. He had a face you could place, but not know his name. A sort of anonymous "good guy." He did appear in the Bogart/Bacall film TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944) and a sheriff in three episodes of Steve McQueen's only TV series "Wanted: Dead or Alive" (1956). His first outing in that series he played Sheriff Pat Garret, the man who shot his close acquaintance Billy The Kid. He also guest-starred in most of the TV westerns of the 50's and 60's.

15. Jay Novello

Actor | Harum Scarum

Short, dapper Jay Novello specialized in playing ethnic types, sometimes Spanish, Greek or Mexican but usually Italian--not surprising, since his parents were Italian immigrants and he grew up speaking the language before he learned English. Born in Chicago in 1904, he came from a very diverse ...

His over-120 movie & TV roles began at age 25 in the 1930 Seral THE JADE BOX. He played a dastardly, but uncredited, cultist. Actually, Jay Novello (born Michael Romano) was a small, dark-haired, dapper and mustachioed gentleman who mainly specialized in playing Italians. Probably because his parents were Italian immigrants. One of his best-known roles was in THE MIRACLE OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA (1952).



Recently Viewed