Actors You Know

I had about an hour last night that I decided I would use to watch television.   I don’t really watch all that much TV, other than news.  When I do sit down, I hope that I have a couple of hours and I can watch a movie.   Lots of times, like last night, I only have 1 hour.   I look for something on Netflix that I can get through in that amount of time.    Last night, I decided that I would watch two episodes of the original The Twilight Zone television series.

The first episode I watched was “One for the Angles”.   It’s about a street salesman who a stranger named “Mr. Death” comes to take.   The salesman is played by Ed Wynn and Mr. Death is played by Murray Hamilton.   The story was mildly interesting.   What I found more interesting though was that both actors were very familiar to me.   I had seen them both plenty of times, but couldn’t exactly place where.   I had to go look them up on IMDB and then had an “Ah Ha!” moment.   The reason that they are both so familiar is that they each have roles in movies that I’ve seen dozens of times.

Ed Wynn plays the character of Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins.  You will remember the scene where they visit Uncle Albert who floats in the air whenever he laughs.   I love that scene; I always have.  I mean who doesn’t?  

Murray Hamilton was an extremely prolific actor.  He was in over 150 movies and television shows.   It’s likely that you would immediately recognize him also.   The movie that he is in that I’ve seen so many times is Jaws.   He plays the mayor of Amity.   Who could forget that sport jacket?   In the unlikely event that you’ve never seen the movie Jaws, you might still remember Murray Hamilton from his recurring role on BJ and the Bear.