[Festered]

No movie is complete without them. They’re those actors that conjure the line “Oh, that’s whats-his-face” from… the guys and gals that work in the trenches, giving a film it’s rich textures. The character actor- the people who get those Best Supporting awards at the Oscars.

Although rare, now, for them to become a star, once upon a time, they did it fairly often. Lon Chaney(Sr.) was one of the first, and most successful actors to cross over from the back-up trenches into stardom. Followed by Edward G. Robinson, Boris Karloff, and Humphrey Bogart.

But it wasn’t till after WWII, that a real explosion of great character actors emerged. Helped by the G.I. bill(which helped vets get work in the film industry) and the growing trend towards realism in films, Joe six-pack actors like Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Palance, Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen and others rose to stardom. Some of the great female supporting actresses of the day included Katherine Hepburn(the bulk of her career after the 40s), Bette Davis, Shelley Winters, Joan Crawford, and Angela Lansbury.

The trend of glossier, younger actors, today, has left somewhat of a void in this area, and there seems to be a generic look that makes distinction between star and support hard to tell. But still, a few slip between the cracks. Billy Bob Thornton, Tobin Bell, Kathy Bates, Robert Englund, R. Lee Ermey, Fred Dalton Thompson and Danny Trejo are some of the “newer” crop of pretty faces that have gone on to bigger and better things.

I’ve always liked Joe Don Baker, Borgnine, Lee Van Cleef, Palance, Bates, Thornton, Strother Martin, Jack Elam, L. Q. Jones, Bruce Dern, William Devane, Peter Boyle, Mario Brega and Roy Scheider in most anything, and usually pay more attention to the back-ups than the stars when watching a film.

Got any favorites?