My Favorite Actors and Their Sporting Equivalents

As I am prone to do with this blog, here comes another exercise in comparing the sporting world to that of classic cinema. Sports and movies have one crucially important thing in common.  They offer the same thing; movies and sports both entertain. They do so because they both offer the same elements; plot, conflict, and resolution.  The big difference is one is scripted, and one isn’t.

That’s why if you are a regular reader of Dubsism, you know why this blog has sometimes been called “TCM-SPN.”  The reason is I’m always finding new ways to understand the common threads between the two worlds.  In this case, movie buffs all have their favorite actors, just as sports fans have their preferred players.  Here’s how the comparison between actors and athletes works in my world.

25) John Cazale

My Favorite Roles:

• Fredo Corleone (The Godfather I & II)
• Stan (The Deer Hunter)
• Sal (Dog Day Afternoon)

The Sporting Equivalent: Mark “The Bird” Fidrych

Both Cazale and Fidrych are the definition of having a short, but brilliant career marked by good, old-fashioned weirdness.  Cazale’s entire Hollywood career is only five films, but they are five classics; Godfather I & II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter.  With the sole exception of “The Conversation,” Cazale always plays a moron or a weirdo.

Mark Fidrych became a national sensation in 1976 as a goofy hurler known for talking to the baseball, manicuring the mound with his bare hands like a kid in sandbox, and being completely unhittable. Cazale died in 1978 after a short illness, and injuries cut Fidrych’s career tragically short.  But they were both like the light bulb that shines the brightest just before it burns out.

24) Lee Marvin

My Favorite Roles:

• Major John Weisman (The Dirty Dozen)
• Shaleen/Strawn (Cat Ballou)
• Liberty Valance (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance)

The Sporting Equivalent: John Daly

Marvin’s resemblance to a flamboyant golfer isn’t easy to see at first…that is until you look at my three favorite Lee Marvin roles.  A little badass, a little comic relief,  and a little pure crazy is the perfect description of those Marvin roles and of Daly himself.

23) Warren Oates

My Favorite Roles:

• Bennie (Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia)
• Sergeant Hulka (Stripes)
• Colonel Maddox (1941)

The Sporting Equivalent: Duffy Dyer

Warren Oates is the Hollywood equivalent of baseball’s back-up catcher.  When you think of great actors throughout history, Oates isn’t one of those big names that leaps off your tongue.  Being a back-up catcher is a thankless and mostly anonymous job, but a good one is worth his weight in gold.  Warren Oates makes every movie he is in just that much better, and does it in ways many people just don’t appreciate.

Not to mention, both these guys look like they’ve leaned hard into bar rail for years.

22) Slim Pickens

My Favorite Roles:

• Major Kong (Dr. Strangelove)
• Taggart (Blazing Saddles)
• Hollis Wood (1941)

The Sporting Equivalent: Walt Garrison

Before becoming an actor, Pickens was a saddle-bronc rider and rodeo clown.  During and after his career in the NFL, Walt Garrison  was a steer wrestler.  Both these guys defined the term “cowboy,” and both are memorable in their own way.

Pickens is immortal for the three roles I mentioned and many more.  If you old enough to remember, Garrison coined one of the catch phrases of the 1970’s…”Just put a pinch between your cheek and gum.”

Not to mention, the only better way to destroy your body than being a running back in the NFL who moonlights by launching himself off a horse onto 300 pounds of bolting brisket on the hoof is to bull-ride a bomb out of a B-52.

21) Groucho Marx

My Favorite Roles:

• Rufus T. Firefly (Duck Soup)
• Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff (Horse Feathers)
• Otis B. Driftwood (A Night at the Opera)

The Sporting Equivalent: Bob Uecker

Here’s two of the greatest comic legends the world has ever seen.  The genius of Groucho is self-evident, but because Uecker was a ballplayer and he made that stupid sit-com (Mr. Belvedere), he doesn’t get credit for how funny he was.  Do a little leg work and find the video of his appearances on “The Tonight Show.”

20) Cary Grant

My Favorite Roles:

• Walter Eklund (Father Goose)
• Geoff Carter (Only Angels Have Wings)
• John Robie (To Catch a Thief)

The Sporting Equivalent: Jay Wright

Cary Grant defined suave, debonair, but had a hidden rough side. That’s why I love the “Walter Eklund” role so much because Grant is soooo playing against type in “Father Goose.”  George Clooney is really in many ways a modernized Cary Grant, and Villanova head  basketball coach Jay Wright has been one of our Sports Doppelgangers for Clooney.

Just look at him.  He’s got the suave, debonair, Grant-esque look, and that he’s been a high-profile sports figure in Philadelphia…one of the toughest media markets in America to be such…with a high-level of success for a long time means there might be more “tough” under those good looks than one might think.

19) James Mason

My Favorite Roles:

• Norman Maine (A Star Is Born)
• Johnny McQueen (Odd Man Out)
• Phillip Van Damm (North By Northwest)

The Sporting Equivalent: Steven Gerrard

Every year, we use that picture of James Mason’s “Norman Maine” inadvertently smacking Judy Garland’s “Vicki Lester” at the Academy Awards to announce our nominations for the Dubsy Awards, the worlds most prestigious award one can win in the world of sport.  Well, at least for an award given by an independent sports blogger whose readership falls somewhere between the web site for the Jacksonville Jaguars Fan Club and a Google Image search for nude photos of Michael Moore.

Most film buffs are more than familiar with the style of James Mason, as they are with legendary super-spy James Bond.  Mason and Bond are a bit different, but they are both rooted in all  things Americans think are British.  But what old movie fans may not recognize is that even James Bond thinks Liverpool football legend Steven Gerrard could be James Bond.

18) George Kennedy

My Favorite Roles:

• Dragline (Cool Hand Luke)
• Red Leary (Thunderbolt and Lightfoot)
• Joe Patroni (Airport)

The Sporting Equivalent: Conrad Dobler

Many classic film fans consider Walter Brennan to be the greatest “character actor” in the history. While those who believe that have Brennan’s three Academy Awards to back them up; only four people ever have won three or more Oscars, any conversation about great “character actors” cannot be complete without the mention of George Kennedy.  His portrayal of “Dragline” in “Cool Hand Luke” may very well be my favorite “non-leading man” performance ever.   Kennedy has an amazing range considering he can play knuckle-draggers like “Dragline,” yet his”Ed Hocken” role in “The Naked Gun” proved his proclivity for comedy.

But Kennedy really made his bones playing “tough/varying levels of crazy” guys. As far as athletes, nobody had a better take on “tough/crazy” than did Conrad Dobler.  What else can you say about a guy who wore a fake cast strictly for bludgeoning opponents?

17) Peter Sellers

My Favorite Roles:

• Dr. Strangelove / Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake / President Merkin Muffley  (Dr. Strangelove)
• Inspector Jacques Clouseau (The Pink Panther)
• Chance (Being There)

The Sporting Equivalent: Magic Johnson

In Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 meisterwerk “Dr. Strangelove,” Sellers played three different roles and was on tap to play “Major Kong” as well.  But when Sellers suffered an ankle injury and had difficulty mastering Kong’s “cowboy,” the role was re-cast.  Sellers’ injury meant he couldn’t maneuver through the B-52 and climb on to the bomb for Kong’s signature moment.  It’s also why Dr. Strangelove is in a wheelchair and Captain Mandrake makes mention of having a “gamey leg.” Despite his injury, Sellers delivers a performance for the ages.

Similarly, it was an ankle injury to Los Angeles Lakers’ super-star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the 1980 NBA Finals which forced rookie Magic Johnson to move from his usual role as a over-sized 6’9″ point guard to an under-sized center for Game 6 of that series.  Along the way during this game, Johnson played all five positions on the floor and notched a performance which will forever live in the folklore of the NBA.  Johnson netted 42 points, 15 rebounds, and 7 assists.  Not to mention, he played 47 of 48 minutes in the game and went 14-of-14 on free throws. The Lakers won the game and captured their first NBA title in the Magic Johnson era.

16) Gregory Peck

My Favorite Roles:

• General Savage (Twelve O’Clock High)
• Atticus Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird)
• Charles Keith (Marooned)

The Sporting Equivalent: Former MLB Umpire Doug Harvey

Gods, pure and simple. For my money, nobody ever had more screen presence than did Gregory Peck.  Even in some of the bad movies he made towards the end of career, you need the fire department’s “jaws of life” to pry your eyes off him.  Even though as an umpire, Doug Harvey wasn’t playing the game, your eyes were always on him as well.  His statuesque six-and-a-half foot  frame topped with a shock of white, Moses-like hair was definitely an “eye magnet,” and he spoke with a booming, authoritarian tone one could only imagine as the “voice of God.”

15) Sterling Hayden

My Favorite Roles:

• Johnny Clay (The Killing)
• General Jack D. Ripper (Dr. Strangelove)
• Captain Martin Treleaven (Zero Hour)

The Sporting Equivalent: Chuck Finley

They were both pretty damn good at what they did.  They were both long and lean.  And they both were a wee bit crazy, and nobody should be surprised by that.  If there were two groups of people known to be about a half-bubble off level, it would be left-handed pitchers and actors.

Finley is probably best-known for his marriage to D-list actress Tawny Kitaen, which came to a cataclysmic and public end in 2002 when he filed for divorce three days after she was charged with  domestic violence after having beaten him with a stilletto-heeled shoe.  Kitaen tried to destroy Finley’s career by declaring to the Orange County (CA) Superior Court that he used steroids among other drugs, and claimed that Finley was brazen in boasting of his ability to circumvent MLB’s PED-testing policy.  She didn’t stop there; she also told tales of rampant abuse of alcohol and marijuana.  When he was confronted with the accusations of his soon-to-be ex-wife, Finley replied: “I can’t believe she left out the cross-dressing.”

To this day, nobody is really sure if that was a joke.

As for Hayden, I’m not sure I even know where to start.  What can you say about a guy who married and divorced the same woman three times? What can you say about a guy who was a decorated hero in World War II for his work aiding Yugoslav partisans fighting the Nazis; his reverence for those Marshal Tito-led communists leading to his briefly being a member of the American Communist party, who then he rolled over on by “naming names” during the “Blacklist” era of the 1950’s.

But he still made some great films.

14) Jack Lemmon

My Favorite Roles:

• Ensign Frank Pulver (Mister Roberts)
• Jerry/Daphne (Some Like It Hot)
• Shelly Levine (Glengarry Glen Ross)

The Sporting Equivalent: Bert Campaneris

In 1965, Bert Campaneris became the first major-league baseball player to play all nine position in one game. What was the most impressive was his performance on the mound.  Campaneris could throw ambidextrously; he pitched lefty to left-handed hitters and dealt righty against right-handers.

Like Campaneris, Lemmon did it all. He won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. He won an Oscar for Best Actor.  He’s won awards ranging from the Cannes Film Festival to an Emmy.  He founded a production company which brought us “Cool Hand Luke.”  Most importantly, Lemmon was immortalized on “The Simpsons;” “Gil” the boob-ish failed salesman is a straight-up parody of Lemmon’s “Shelley Levine” from “GlenGarry Glen Ross.”

13) Robert DeNiro

My Favorite Roles:

• Jake LaMotta (Raging Bull)
• Rupert Pupkin (The King of Comedy)
• Harry Tuttle (Brazil)

The Sporting Equivalent: Brett Favre

DeNiro makes this list for the same reason Favre made my list of the greatest quarterbacks; they’re two of the all-time best at what they do.  The problem is neither one of them knew when it was over.  Had they known, we wouldn’t have had to live through Favre’s “Lucy pulling the football” routine over his retirement, and we wouldn’t have had to suffer garbage like the “Meet the Fockers” franchise.

12) Karl Malden

My Favorite Roles:

• General Omar Bradley (Patton)
• Father Barry (On The Waterfront)
• Sheriff Longworth (One-Eyed Jacks)

The Sports Equivalent: Herb Brooks

This is the only time on this list that the actor actually played his sports equivalent (see the 1981 made-for-TV movie “Miracle On Ice.“)  Not only that, but Malden and Brooks could damn near be one of our Sports Doppelgangers.

But the role and the resemblance aren’t the reason for the comparison.  It’s actually because they both got overshadowed in their greatness.  Malden won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as “Mitch” in 1951’s “A Streetcar Named Desire.”  While he’s most known for coaching the 1980 “Miracle On Ice,” Brooks’ crowning achievement as a hockey coach was winning three NCAA hockey championships at the University of Minnesota…which is where about half of that “Miracle” team came from.

The soul of the comparison lies in the fact that taking home an as Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and winning championships at the levels just below the pros means most won’t understand your greatness.  Karl Malden gave us some the great acting performances of all time, but he was never the “star” of the show.  Herb Brooks is one of the great hockey coaches the world has ever seen, he just didn’t have a lot of a success at the professional level.

11) Van Johnson

My Favorite Roles:

• Lt. Steve Maryk  (The Caine Mutiny)
• Ted Lawson (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo)
• Sgt. Immanuel T. Evans (Command Decision)

The Sports Equivalent: Joe Garagiola

I loved ’em both, but you have to admit, these are two guys who were unlikely to end up where they did. When you stop to consider some of the heavy-weight leading men in Hollywood during Johnson’s hey-day of the 1940’s through the 1960’s, and when you recall that Johnson had “before the title” billing in only a handful of time in “major” films, there’s really no way to look back at his career and not say “damn, this guy was a major player.”

Garagiola is the purest essence of the power being liked.  That’s why he got a lengthy eulogy on the now-defunct “Radio J-Dub” podcast (if you follow the link, be sure to pick Episode 39). He was an unremarkable baseball player, he labored as a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs, and New York Giants. He wasn’t educated, and he had no formal training as a broadcaster, yet not only did Garagiola become a staple for a multitude of televised sporting events, he was a regular guest host of both the “Today” and the “Tonight” shows, which in pre-cable/satellite/stream 1970 America was a huge deal.  His charm lay in the fact  he was everybody’s lovable “Uncle Joe;” the guy at your family holiday who everybody liked because he was a tremendous story-teller.

Here’s how powerful that is.  Garagiola had all the qualifications of a broadcaster as your real Uncle Joe, and he’s a bald guy with bad teeth who is clearly “ethnic” in an era where all your “big-time” television journalist talent was “Gold Medal Flour” white, and yet he got to interview people like Yassir Arafat (web-search him; he’s one of the biggest figures in global politics of the 1970’s), and John Lennon and Paul McCartney while they were still members of The Beatles (if you need to web-search them, we can’t be friends).

To me, that’s the soul of this comparison.  Van Johnson becomes a star in his own right because he’s not a larger-thant-life figure like John Wayne, he’s not debonair like Cary Grant, and he’s not a poster-child for masculinity like Clark Gable. Being able to identify with somebody is the soul of liking them; Garagiola is your hilarious “Uncle Joe;” Van Johnson is the essential “regular guy named Joe.”

10) William Holden

My Favorite Roles:

• Sgt. J.J. Sefton (Stalag 17)
• Max Schumacher (Network)
• Pike Bishop (The Wild Bunch)

The Sports Equivalent: Jack Nicklaus

Whether its Holden’s “Golden Boy,” or Nicklaus’ “Golden Bear,” when your nickname includes the term “Golden,” you’ve done something right.  While lists about the “greatest ever” are subjective and simply argument fodder…and the main reason this piece is about my “favorites,” what really can’t be argued is that Holden is one of the best “leading men” of all-time just as Nicklaus is one the best “links-men” to ever pick up a 7-iron.

9) Humphrey Bogart

My Favorite Roles:

• Lt. Cmdr. Phillip Queeg (The Caine Mutiny)
• Dobbs (Treasure of the Sierra Madre)
• Charlie Allnut (The African Queen)

The Sports Equivalent: Yogi Berra

This might be the oddest comparison on this list, but it makes sense once you research it a bit.  Berra was most known for his odd quakes, but once you take a peek at Bogart’s IMDB page, you see he’s full of verbal gems as well.

Now before you do that, let’s play a little game I like to call “Bogart or Berra.” Can you tell the difference?

1. A hotdog at the ballpark is better than a steak at the Ritz.
2. I never said most of the things I said.
3. I hate funerals. They aren’t for the guy who’s dead. They’re for the guys who are left alive and enjoy mourning.
4. It gets late early out here.
5. The only good reason to have money is this: so that you can tell any SOB in the world to go to hell.
6. The future isn’t what it used to be.

Now, it would be easy to web-search the answers, but what fun would that be?

8 ) Robert Duvall

My Favorite Roles:

• Lt. Col. “Bull” Meechum (The Great Santini)
• Bob Hodges (Colors)
• Ned Pepper (True Grit)

The Sports Equivalent: Mike Krzyzewski

If they were ever to make the “Coach K” story, Duvall would be the first choice to play the legendary Duke head coach even if today he’s creeping up on 90 years old.  The reason is simple.  Duvall is at his best is at his best playing characters who had a quiet, but expressive voice although they were very capable of a powerful diatribe…and there’s even a range to those roles.  It goes from “Bull” Meechum whose temperature gauge always runs a little hot, to the “Tom Hagen” character from “The Godfather”  who only raises his voice if he must; usually when he talking to Sonny.

During a post-game press conference, we get a more “Hagen”-like Coach K, but if you’re a college basketball fan, you’ve seen plenty “red-lined” Krzyzewaki; the one who seems a stone’s throw from a “Bobby Knight-esque” chair-flinging moment.

7) Steve McQueen

My Favorite Roles:

• Jake Holman (The Sand Pebbles)
• Thomas Crown (The Thomas Crown Affair)
• The Cincinnati Kid (The Cincinnati Kid)

The Sports Equivalent: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Despite the fact these two both are silky smooth and the “kings of cool” in their own ways, they also had a hidden level of straight-up “tough.”  All you have to do is watch McQueen is pretty much any film he’s ever made; you can see it for yourself.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar might just have lived the coolest life ever.  Imagine in your life being the all-time leading scorer in the history of the National Basketball Association, having your own jazz radio show in Los Angeles, and arguably being a movie icon in your own right.  Don’t even try to tell me the “Listen, Kid!” scene in “Airplane!” isn’t one of the most memorable in the film.

But Abdul-Jabbar’s “tough” brings two other things which can’t be unseen.

First of all there’s Kareem doing martial arts on-screen with Bruce Lee. It isn’t every day you see a 7’2″ guy throwing snap kicks. But there’s also the opening game of the 1977 NBA season when Kareem had finally his fill of Milwaukee Bucks center/cheap-shot artist Kent Benson and leveled him with a straight right.

The question is will Benson never forget this moment…or does he have absolutely no recollection of it?

6) Gene Hackman

My Favorite Roles:

• Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (The French Connection)
• Harry Caul (The Conversation)
• “Little Bill” Daggett (The Unforgiven)

The Sports Equivalent: Gordie Howe

There’s no denying these two are among the best who ever plied their respective trades.  There’s also no denying these were two tough dudes, and that quality obscured their greatness. Just look at the picture above. That’s a 50-year old Gordie Howe beating the crap out of a guy half his age.  To this day, the parlance of hockey includes the “Gordie Howe Hat Trick,” which is getting  a goal, an assist, and a fight in one game.  Everybody remembers Howe’s ability to separate people from their consciousness, but with 786 goals and 1,023 assists in his 25 seasons in professional hockey, it isn’t out of the question to say Howe may be the best all-around hockey player to ever don the skates.

Likewise, if you were to have a conversation today about who the greatest living actor may be, that discussion cannot be complete if it does not include Hackman. Five Academy Awards nominations and two wins puts him on the list by default.

Hackman also gets a “default” on the “tough guy” angle; he served in the U.S. Marine Corps.  Again look at the picture above and tell me you want that guy coming at you with a bayonet.

I didn’t think so.

5) Walter Matthau

My Favorite Roles:

• Morris Buttermaker (The Bad News Bears)
• Willie Gingrich (The Fortune Cookie)
• Professor Groeteschele (Fail-Safe)

The Sporting Equivalent: Bill Belichick

It isn’t true, but it’s completely believable that I found both these pictures by web-searching “curmudgeonly scowl.” Hand Belichick a Budweiser and he could pass for Matthau’s younger brother. Not to mention, they both have the classic “deadpan” delivery for almost every word they ever uttered.

4) Henry Fonda

My Favorite Roles:

• Lt. Douglas Roberts (Mister Roberts)
• Tom Joad (The Grapes of Wrath)
• Frank (How The West Was Won)

The Sporting Equivalent: Dick Vermeil

To me, Henry Fonda was always the essential “nice guy.”  Was there a nicer guy than Mister Roberts? Tom Joad had his moments, but then there’s Frank.  Yeah, I know I listed “Frank” from “How the West Was Won,” where Fonda is decidedly NOT the protagonist; the “good guy never says things like “people scare better when they’re dying.” Just like Cary Grant’s “Walter Eklund” from “Father Goose,” I’m a sucker for somebody playing against type.

Dick Vermeil’s entire life has been “playing against type.”  If I told you to picture your idea of the prototypical professional football coach, do you have in your head a guy who bursts into tears at the drop of a hat?  That’s why this year the Dubsy Awards introduced the Dick Vermeil Awards For Great Moments in Crying.

3) George C. Scott

My Favorite Roles:

• General George Patton (Patton)
• General Buck Turgidson (Dr. Strangelove)
• Andy Kilvinski (The New Centurions)

The Sporting Equivalent: Chuck Bednarik

George C. Scott is one of the great dramatic actors to ever grace a sound-stage.  “Patton” taught us that. But he’s also one of the great comedic actors as well. We saw that in “Dr. Strangelove.”  In the Joseph Wambaugh cop classic “The New Centurions,” Andy Kilvinski is a masterful blend of comedic and tragic.

Bednarik was the last of the “Iron Men,” guys who played football both on offense and defense, and did both well enough to be arguably the greatest Philadelphia Eagle of all time and have a bronze bust of himself in the Hall of Fame.  What else can you say about a guy who can lung a Lucky Strike and a stogie simultaneously?

2) Clint Eastwood

My Favorite Roles:

• William Munny (The Unforgiven)
• Dave Garver (Play Misty For Me)
• John “Thunderbolt” Doherty (Thunderbolt and Lightfoot)

The Sporting Equivalent: David Robinson

When you mention the name “Clint Eastwood” to the average person, they immediately picture “Dirty Harry.” They might even hark back to the “spaghetti western” hero “The Man With No Name.”  Doing so misses a lot of incredible stuff; Eastwood is not only a tremendous actor, he’s an award-winning director, an accomplished musician. He was also mayor of Carmel, California for a time.

People who look at David Robinson and only see a basketball player are making the same mistake.  Like Eastwood, Robinson did it all.  He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in electrical engineering, he’s a classical pianist, a basketball Hall-of-Famer, and has an Olympic gold medal.

1)  John Wayne

My Favorite Roles:

• Sergeant John M. Stryker (Sands of Iwo Jima)
• Ethan Edwards (The Searchers)
• Jacob McCandles (Big Jake)

The Sporting Equivalent: Ted Williams

I must credit Denis Leary on this one; he had this nailed years ago.  Both Wayne and Williams were larger than life characters in their own rights, and their will never be anybody like them ever again.  This very list is an exercise in comparisons, and yet one thing you will never see here or anywhere else is the idea that some up-and-coming actor is the “next John Wayne” or an emerging hitter being touted as the “nest Ted Williams.

“The Splendid Splinter” was the greatest hitter to ever pick up a bat. John Wayne was the biggest star Hollywood ever produced, and neither of those things are changing any time soon.

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