Criminally Underrated Actors

I have someone in mind, but since she has received so many nominations (no wins, understandably), perhaps the term does not even apply… I doubt you’d even recognize her name.

OP, so you mean not just underrated actors, but CRIMINALLY underrated actors?

Like not actively praising them would be worthy of jail time?

Is that what you mean?

Butterfly McQueen

Tori Spelling

Karl Malden = weird, squashed nose

William Gaminara = unknown

Denis Quilley = enormous nose

Michel Serrault = prominent nose

Ed Begley, Sr = enormous nose

Maureen Lipman = prominent nose

Nikolai Cherkosov = prominent nose

R5 William Gaminara = polio victim

Meghan Markle

Five of OP’s list won Oscars (Mills, Malden, van Fleet, Begley, and Sanders, all supporting ), two others were nominees as leads (Howard and Remick). I’d say they were all recognized. What do you want—beatification?

Dan Duryea = a weasel / schlemiel with an unpronounceable name

OP I just mentioned Jo Van Fleet on another thread in regard to her performance as Peter Sellers' mom in I Love You, Alice B Toklas. The scene where she's laughing uncontrollably after eating a pot brownie is in every sense of the word hysterical. She's also good in The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (1971), East of Eden (1955), I'll Cry Tomorrow (1956) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). Consummate performer

Is Jo Van Fleet the one who looks like Susan Hayward's mother?

R12 she plays Lillian Roth's (Susan Hayward) mother

Bringing OP up-to-date, I'd venture Lindsay Lohan, Kristen Stewart, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

As far as males go, I cannot say anything because I still mourn Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Wasn't he in The Streets of San Francisco?

I like how that TV show proves that San Francisco has never been governable.

Oh, fuck you, OP. This "criminally underrated" list is of people well-regarded whose names you just learned."

Fuck you with Karl Malden's underrated nose.

But Wikipedia says Karl Malden's bulbous nose was his trademark.

Richard Basehart

Judy Garland was a very talented actress. Sinatra was good, too, when he made an effort.

Arthur Kennedy

Richard Widmark (I passed him once on Park Avenue in Manhattan, bigger and more solidly built than he appeared onscreen, looked intelligent and distinguished, might have been in his late sixties at the time).

Robert Ryan

Robert Mitchum (he should have gotten an Oscar for his devastating performance as Max Cady in Cape Fear, in which he wiped the floor with Gregory Peck)

There’s a group of character or smaller time actors, who, when they come onto the screen in a film, tell me things are about to get excellent - John Carroll Lynch, Martha Plimpton, Donal Logue, Zach Grenier, Clancy Brown.

As for an up and comer who I think will be a huge movie star once she hits the perfect role - Julia Garner. She should have been nominated for an Oscar last year for The Assistant.

Eli Wallach

When I read your post, OP, I thought you wrote “Joey Mills.” I was surprised somebody thought he was an underrated actor.

No one ever "underrated" John Mills as an actor. He may not have attained leading man status, any more than actors like Ralph Richardson and Paul Scofield and Michael Redgrave did, but they were never underrated as actors by anyone. You can add Jack Hawkins to that list, as well.

I'd say Gina Lollobrigida, though very popular for a while, was known more for her beauty, but she was really excellent in comedy, especially 'Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell". Of course, OP left off people know for comedy, since comedy is extremely underrated, especially by the Oscar people.

"known" that is

R22, I saw Zach Grenier on the stage. He was excellent. I love John Carroll Lynch, too

R25 Mills and Hawkins don't belong with the others you mention. They could only play one character.

They didn't have the range.

Lani O’Grady

Dana Plato

Mills and Hawkins both played a variety of different characters, actually

Yes, they sometimes played Captains, Corporals and sometimes Lieutenants and sometimes Midshipmen.

That's not even true

Matt Lattanzi

Amy Ryan

John Carroll Lynch

He does scary and menacing so well.

For r11.

Helen Martin

R34 LOL. He was very pretty to look at though.

R29 - John Mills had no "range" and always played the same character?!

Let's see:

The shoemaker in Hobson's Choice?

The village idiot in Ryan's Daughter?

Prof. Higgins in Pygmalion on Broadway?

The belligerent working-class father in The Family Way?

The political activist in the comedy Escapade?

The IRA gunman in Dearden's The Gentle Gunman?

The police detective in Tiger Pay?

Captain Scott in Scott of the Antarctic?

Come on.

Hawkins did Shakespeare and had a trained voice just short of operatic quality. His looks and voice got him the parts that are most remembered by people who didn't look too closely, including thrillers and comedies.

He and Mills were fine actors.

^*Tiger Bay (not Pay)

R40, agreed!

I thought Ashley Judd was quite good in Double Jeopardy and Ruby In Paradise. Too bad she kind of disappeared from the screen.

Brian Cox

Dyan Cannon.

R40

[quote] Prof. Higgins in Pygmalion on Broadway

Incorrect

[quote] Hawkins did Shakespeare

Jack may have done the Bard on stage but neither you nor I nor any other Datalounger are alive to tell us about it.

John Mills also played the father in the movie "Swiss Family Robinson" and he had a very nice singing voice, starring in the wonderful musical "The Good Companions" with Judi Dench, playing the old theater cat in the televised "Cats" and I think he may have done a musical version of "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" on stage in the UK as well. Very talented. Yes, he did play also lots of military guys in films too.

Christina Ricci. She’s capable of quite a lot considering only ‘The Opposite of Sex’, rewatched recently and it really holds up.

John Gavin - like many good-looking actors, he was stereotyped as a pretty face. But, he was great in Spartacus and Imitation.

Paris Hilton

R46 You're right, mea culpa, remembered he'd done but didn't look it up to check. But as Alfred D. is a first-class character role and quite far from the rank and file soldier that the poster upthread suggests is Mills ever played, it still speaks to Mills' range. He got a Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as the village idiot in Ryan's Daughter.

R47 His work onstage including Shakespeare is extensive. He intended to focus on stage, and appeared as Mercutio on Broadway in 1951. I was alive at the time, actually, but not old enough to see it.

Like Mills, Hawkins had a wide variety of roles in thrillers, drama, comedy, and war on stage and onscreen.

Calling either actor One Role players is simply wrong.

Those fun facts you stumble upon when looking for something else.

Jack Hawkins was married to Jessica Tandy from 1932 to 1940. Tandy's so well known as one of a pair with Hume Cronyn, I was surprised she had a life before him.

[quote] Dan Duryea = a weasel / schlemiel with an unpronounceable name

Say what??

Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Daniel Kaluuya

Chiwetel Ejiofor

David Oyelowo

Wunmi Mosaku

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Dan Duryea was great in those creepy roles, starting with "The Little Foxes" and in tons of film noirs. There was one that TCM Film Noir Alley host Eddie Muller showed this past year that actually had Duryea as kind of a hero, or at least ultimately being that way.

I think it might have been the one co-starring Gale Storm.

Joan Collins

She has a flair for high camp and makes it look effortless.

Duryea's name unpronounceable? Not in the British Isles. It's a straight-up Irish name.

The unpronounceable names from the area are the ones that are pronounced entirely differently from the way they are written, like "Mainwaring" (pronounced Mannering), Gloucester (the "est" in the middle is silent, it's Gloster, and that also goes for places like Leicester), Ralph when it's "Rafe", Buccleuch (as in the Duke of - pronounced Buckley) . . .

Let's see - then we have Cumberbatch, and from the Scots, names like McKay/MacKay/Mackay, which Americans instinctively pronounce Ma-KAY, but in Scotland where it originated is pronounced Ma-KIE (rhymes with pie).

Duryea? No problem.

Duryea? No problem

Derr-Yee-Ay.

Robbie Benson

R29 R40 Mills was Pip in Lean's Great Expectations as well and he gave one of his finest dramatic performances opposite Alec Guinness in 1960s Tunes of Glory with the NY Times referring to Mills' performance as' brilliantly intense' and 'a fascinating contrast to his Colonel in The Bridge on the River Kwai'

[quote] Mills' performance as' brilliantly intense' and 'a fascinating contrast to his Colonel in The Bridge on the River Kwai'

Mills didn't appear in 'Kwai'.

R63 My mistake. The reference was to Guinness' Colonel in Bridge. Bosley Crowther said 'The acting is brilliant, and Mr. Mills is remarkably intense.

I didn't get the ending of Bridge over River Kwai.

Was a man sucking his dick? Or was he sucking another man's dick?

Sir John Mills, the owner of both an Academy Award and a knighthood, is "criminally underrated"??

[quote] Was a man sucking his dick

Which man, which dick, R65 ?

Geoffrey Holder

R40

[quote] John Mills in 'Hobson's Choice'

Two minutes on Google will tell you that Mills was not supposed to be in that film

Roger Livesey

R69 But he was, Blanche, he was!

R39 can you imagine what it must have been like to be Olivia Newton-John & Matt Lattanzi in the 80s? Two beautiful people living in Malibu California……

[quote] I didn't get the ending of Bridge over River Kwai.

Colonel Nicholson was torn between duty to his country.. and duty to his own personal duty.

Elvis

William Marshall

Grayson Hall

Lin Shaye

Sheri Moon Zombie

Dee Wallace

[quote] John Mills …starring in the wonderful musical "The Good Companions" with Judi Dench…

Almost half a century ago. And which no living Datalounger has seen.

R48.

They weren’t underrated but they got the breaks that came their way.

[quote] Roger Livesey

He gets a good showing in this black and white comedy. Even the credits had me chuckling!

"The Good Companions" does have a really good CD of the show though, with a very fine score.

Paris Hilton