I always forget this guy when we have "Underrated Actor" threads

"Runner!"






"Virginiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaans!!!"

Richard Jordan, 1938-1993

What a great actor. I felt as though a personal aquaintance had died when I heard the news way back when. He had a presence and charisma that arrested the eye and stole scenes. His performance in Gettysburg as General Lew Armistead is probably my favorite. I always cry to see him dying just inside the Union lines atop the ridge, asking for his best friend, Union General W.S. Hancock, whose lines his men had just penetrated briefly.

Strangely, I've never heard anyone sing his praises. I think he was superlative.

the Sweat of Thy Brow", opposite Barbara Barrie. He played Jonah, a young man disfigured by a fire, who lives in the street and steals buns from bakeries to ward off the hunger. But he's also a protector who slips in and out of the shadows and helps people in trouble. Barrie, whom he saves from muggers, recognizes him as a good soul and helps him to overcome his shyness (due to his disfigurement) and teaches him the value of self-respect and the joy of working for your food, by getting him a job in one of the very bakeries he stole from.

I think this was one of his first parts. He died way too young. He was magnifique in Les Miserables, too.

And thinking about that episode makes me wonder why we don't have shows like Naked City anymore. I think it's one of the best series ever, if not the best. It's so much more than just a cop show. The writing was superb; you get to see young hopefuls like Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Ed Asner, and Jon Voigt rubbing shoulders with established theatrical stars like Luther Adler, Burgess Meredith, and Hume Cronyn; and New York itself was such a powerful, seductive character that I fell in love with the idea of living there. If I had to be transported back to a different place and time, it would be New York in about 1960, and in black and white. Luckily, they've been bringing the series out in DVD, complete with the commercials of the day.

I've never seen the first episode of Naked City. I'm going to have to look into this. Thanks for the heads up! It sounds great. Do you know which season the episode with Jordan is in?

the first season with James Franciscus was only half-hour programs. But starting in season two, they became full hour shows. So "And By the Sweat of Thy Brow" is the third show of either season three or season four, depending on where you start counting.

Check Amazon. There are several discs out now, and they don't necessarily do it Season One, Season Two, etc. They pick and choose supposedly thematically related episodes whatever the season and put them together. With all shows, there are some episodes that aren't as good as the others, so those ones will probably be the last ones transferred to DVD. So I really don't know what disc it would be on. I have the complete series on VHS from when I recorded it from reruns in the late '80s, but they don't last for ever, so I'm really looking forward to next week when my boyfriend brings me the first DVD box set up from Chicago.

I can recommend certain other favourite episodes:

"Hold for Gloria Christmas" stars Burgess Meredith as dissipated, drunken poet Duncan Kleist, who has sold his poems to bartender Herschel Bernardi in exchange for booze. Well, he wants the poems back, so he steals them. His dream, a poetic fantasy, is to mail them all to a non-existent girl named Gloria Christmas c/o General Delivery. Bernardi is not amused. Alan Alda has an early cameo as a rival beat poet. He and Meredith have a challenge improv poetry competition that ends with Meredith humiliated.

"Ooftus-Goofus" stars Mickey Rooney as a man no one will pay the least attention to at the grocery store where he works, while his wife (Maureen Stapleton) is screwing a used-car salesman behind Rooney's back. To get attention, late at night he changes all the prices to lower ones -- eggs 5 cents a dozen, roast beef 2 cents/lb, etc. Of course, the next day, there's mayhem in the store. He finds a few other ways to gain attention, too, culminating in a big climactic gesture.

"Shoes for Vinnie Winford". Dennis Hopper plays a very spoilt rich kid who thinks he can do whatever he wants to whomever he wants, like a certain President. And like that certain President, Vinnie Winford is also a complete psycho -- probably the most psycho part he's ever played other than Frank in Blue Velvet.

"A Horse Has a Big Head, Let Him Worry!" Diahann Carroll received an Emmy nomination as a teacher of visually impaired children in Brooklyn -- not stone blind, but pretty bad. On a field trip to Manhattan, one particularly independent little boy (John Megna) separates himself from the rest of the group and everyone is shitting a brick because he can't really see all that well and who knows what might happen to him? As it turns out, he's pretty self-reliant.

"The Fault in Our Stars" has Roddy MacDowall as an out-of-work actor who has been locked out of his apartment and resorts to strangling cab drivers in order to get rent money and to pay for acting classes. He uses the experience in class as an acting exercise.

I could go on, and on, and on, and on, but I think you should discover the wonder that is Naked City as soon as possible for yourself. You won't be disappointed. If you do get some of the DVDs, I'd like to know what you think of the show, so feel free to PM me.

BTW, the reviews of Naked City on the Amazon site are pretty well glowing right across the board. Some of them gush even more than I do. But they're absolutely correct.

I've got to get this series.

this has been one of them."

Edward Norton. The guy can play anything.

It's like he's constantly on the brink of superstardom, but never quite makes it.

He's like the Chris Cooper of his generation.

American History X was stunning, and he carried most of the load.

Stunning is putting it mildly