Guest Appearances

[mrsl]

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Any of us who occasionally check out channels like TV Land, or Encore's Western channel are used to seeing older actors appearing as guests on TV shows, but this one today really threw me. I missed the beginning 10 minutes where a guest appearance announcement may have appeared so when I turned on Gunsmoke and saw this lovely lady, I couldn't place her, but something about her voice made me take special notice. I watched and listened but it wasn't until about 15 minutes from the end that it came to me that the lady was Jean Arthur. Now most of you know Jean Arthur is low, low down on my list of actresses that I remotely like, and mainly because of her voice but as she appeared in that show in 1965, at 65 years of age, her voice had come down several octaves, it was now, although still high in pitch, it was now low in tone and actually very pleasant. Also, her hair, although done in an upsweep as in her movie years, rather than the tight topknot curls, now they were loose and framed her face with soft tendrils. I literally got out of bed and put my copy of Shane in the DVD player to compare while my memory was fresh, but the voice and look had not yet occurred. I'm used to seeing classic stars appear on Maverick, Gunsmoke, The Big Valley, etc. and usually just laugh because these were the same people who feared they would be put out of work by TV, and finally succumbed to its call. But once in a while a star appears that just shocks you because either they are playing their age, or they had been away for a few years and it was hard to place who they were.
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[movieman1957]

I have seen that episode of "Gunsmoke" and was very surprised because if I knew she had done it I had forgotten.

"Combat" was also a pretty good series for guest stars as well but they were seldom as big as Arthur was.

[movieman1957]

Well, maybe they were. I'm watching an episode of "Combat" called "Finest Hour." The surprise guest star - Luise Rainer. It was her first role in 12 years by the time the 1965 episode came along. The disc doesn't say how they got her out of retirement. It is not a role that any good actress could not have played. She has very big eyes. It is good to see her later in life.

[stuart.uk]

I recall the first time I saw the pilot of The Saint The Talented Husband recognizing one of the 2 leading ladies, Shirley Eaton, but I had no idea who the other older light haired actress was. It was only yrs later I discovered it was Patrica Roc, who played dark haired heroines in Millions Like Us and Two Thousand Women. TTH was Roc's last screen appearence. In another Saint The Well Meaning Mayor the leading lady was 18-yr-old Mandy Miller in her last screen appearence. Mandy was a top child star of the 1950s playing a deaf girl in the acclaimed Mandy

I had no idea at the time I first saw The Lost Prince, the actress playing the elderly Queen Alexander was none other than Bibi Anderson, the beauty from films like Duel At Diablo

The British cop show Heartbest had some big names as guests, Jenny Aggutter, David MaCallum, Frank Finlay, Dorothy Tutin, Samantha Bond, Charlotte Church, Thora Hird