How to Become a Movie Star

I am in Seattle this week for the annual American College of Emergency Physicians meeting along with about 10,000 other ER docs.  This is that week that you shouldn’t get into an accident!

It’s also a great sports weekend for Seattle.  Washington hosted (and lost to) Oregon at Husky Stadium with College Game Day in attendance.  And the Seahawks played a home game against Tennessee at CenturyLink Field, where they have sold out 87 consecutive games. 

I was lucky enough to have a few minutes free and got together for dinner with two friends from high school whom I had not seen in about 10 years.  As we watched the hometown Dodgers lose to St Louis, we shared stories from our childhood.  We all grew up in the Pasadena area in the 70’s, idolizing Pat Haden as he played with the Rams.  Flash forward to today and Haden is in the news for pulling his coach off a bus at the airport and firing him on the spot at 4 in morning. 

My most enduring memory of Pat Haden was when I met him while I as a junior at USC.  I was inducted into the Mortar Board honor society, and got to have lunch with the Board of Trustees of the school.  Haden was a member (and later the chair of the board) and I was as giddy as a schoolgirl as I sat down next to him at lunch.  A female classmate of mine was also at the table and had no clue who he was.  She asked him about his profession and background and I was surprised and impressed by his response.  He identified himself as a lawyer who had graduated from USC and “spent some time in Oxford*”.  He made no mention of his football career with the Trojans and Rams, so I piped up and said, “and I believe you played a little football too, right?”  He admitted to his athletic experience, but it was clear that he identified himself first and foremost as a *Rhodes scholar.   That’s pretty sweet.

Pat Haden lives in Pasadena, and was there when we were children.  His kids, in fact, attended my school a few years behind me.  Another LA Ram, Merlin Olsen, also lived in Pasadena at the time and his son was in my brother’s class.  But we didn’t know him as Merlin Olsen, 14 time All-Pro defensive lineman and member of the Ram’s Fearsome Foursome from 1962 – 1978.  We all knew him as Father Murphy.

Olsen played a frontiersman impersonating a priest in the short lived two-season series, after appearing in Little House on the Prairie for four years.  Two other members of Olsen’s Fearsome Foursome also turned actors.  Deacon Jones appeared on several TV shows and a few movies, including the 1978 Heaven Can Wait, a story about a LA Rams quarterback who was taken to Heaven too early by a sympathetic angel.  Rosey Grier parlayed his football experience into the biggest acting career of them all, going on to be a fixture in 1970’s TV movies, with 35 credits to his name.  (Lamar Lundy, the fourth member, was not as successful as his colleagues in Hollywood.  But 3 out of 4 aint bad)

This got me thinking; how many NFL players from the 60’s and 70’s do we know today as actors?  Here’s a partial list with their IMDB counts:

Alex Karras, 38 credits (including Mongo from Blazing Saddles and Webster’s dad), played for Iowa in college (YAY!), winning the Outland Trophy and taking the Hawkeyes to the Rose Bowl and played for the Lions 1958 – 1971. 

Terry Bradsaw, 15 credits (excluding his very successful career as an analyst), spent part of his childhood in Clinton, IA, but most of his life in Louisiana, led the Steelers 1970 – 1983.

Bubba Smith, 50 credits (most notably every Police Academy film), a star at Michigan State, played 1967 – 1976, mostly with the Baltimore (not Indianapolis) Colts (not Ravens).

Dick Butkus, 47 credits (including co-starring with Bubba Smith on the helicopter-police TV show Blue Thunder), a Chicago native who played for his hometown Bears 1965 – 1973

Fred Williamson, 117 credits (especially Blaxploitation films of the 1970’s), played in the NFL for one year in 1960 then switched to the AFL (Raiders and Chiefs) from 1961 – 1967

Fred Dryer, 39 credits (most known for the title role of the TV series Hunter), played 13 years in NFL and was a teammate of Pat Haden, Merlin Olsen, Deacon Jones, and Rosie Grier during his years with the Rams (1972 – 1981)

Joe Namath, 15 credits (nothing memorable), played for the New York Jets 1965 – 1976.  Trivia note: he was signed by the Rams in 1976 but only played 4 games before going down with an injury.  His replacement that year?  Pat Haden!

John Matuszak, 33 credits (everyone my generation revers him for playing Sloth in The Goonies), played 1973 – 1982, mostly with the Oakland Raiders.

OJ Simpson, 31 credits (such as the lovable Nordberg in Naked Gun), the second Heisman Trophy winner from USC, played 1969 – 1979, mostly with the Buffalo Bills.  He is also reportedly handy with a knife.

Ed Mariano, 56 credits (especially Officer Joe Coffey on Hill Street Blues), played 1972 – 1977, mostly for the Vikings

Jim Brown, 53 credits (also a big name in Blaxploitation films, but has carried his career through to the new millennium, including memorable roles in The Running Man and Mars Attacks), is in the NFL Hall of Fame for his remarkable career from 1957 – 1965 in Cleveland

Bernie Casey, 77 credits (one of the 8 actors to have portrayed James Bond’s CIA ally Felix Leiter), played 1961 – 1968 including the aforementioned Rams (he was teammates with Merlin Olsen and the rest of the Foursome).

Ben Davidson, 27 credits (played High Priest Rexor in the original Conan the Barbarian), played from 1961 – 1971, mostly with the Raiders.

Honorable Mention: Carl Weathers, 62 credits (Apollo Creed in Rocky 1 – 3 plus Predator), played only part of one season with the Raiders in 1970.

I was quite surprised by this list; it just kept growing.  Bottom line,  if you wanted to become an actor, your best bet was to play football for the LA Rams in the 1970’s.

Fight On,

Hans

PS: Congrats to the Penn State Nitany Lions for their stunning 4 OT heavyweight epic-match victory over the Michigan Wolverines.  My brother, Chris, and his wife Chloe were in attendance on a date to celebrate their 11^th anniversary.  What a treat that turned out to be!!