What actor/actress comes to mind?

[Dargo]

Lyle Talbot

Next: she starred as the eponymous character in a B-picture series of films

[Cinemaspeak59]

Ann Sothern

Next: left the film business while still young

[Dargo]

Greta Garbo (only 35 when she quit)

Next: best performance playing a movie star of an earlier generation

[laffite]

Claude Rains

next : an actor/actress who would have acted a good mad scene (but who probably never acted one)

[Dargo]

Claude Rains

next : an actor/actress who would have acted a good mad scene (but who probably never acted one)

Excuse me here laffite, but what movie star from an earlier era than his own did Claude Rains portray in a motion picture? Might you be thinking of Claude's turn in the 1943 sound remake of 'Phamtom of the Opera'? And so if you were, my 'next' was not supposed to be in reference to some earlier role (such as in this case, Lon Chaney Sr.) a later actor had put his own spin on, but was instead about an actor playing the actual actor/movie star from an earlier era than his own and as, say, in a biopic.

(...sorry if I didn't make this clear)

[laffite]

Claude Rains

next : an actor/actress who would have acted a good mad scene (but who probably never acted one)

Excuse me here laffite, but what movie star from an earlier era than his own did Claude Rains portray in a motion picture? Might you be thinking of Claude's turn in the 1943 sound remake of 'Phamtom of the Opera'? And so if you were, my 'next' was not supposed to be in reference to some earlier role (such as in this case, Lon Chaney Sr.) a later actor had put his own spin on, but was instead about an actor playing the actual actor/movie star from an earlier era than his own and as, say, in a biopic.

(...sorry if I didn't make this clear)

It wasn't clear at all and I therefore should have left it alone. I still don't think I have it but it doesn't matter.

Perhaps you might repost the clue for others to have a shot at it?

[Dargo]

Thanks, and so...

Next: best performance by an actor or actress portraying the real life/career of a movie star of an earlier generation

[ziggy6708a]

not sure if BEST, but a fav of mine was
Kurt Russell as ELVIS ('79)

next -a character actor/tress you'd love to see as SOTM

[Dargo]

Una Merkel

Next: playing poker

[laffite]

Steve McQueen

next : has already done, or anyone who would have made a good rich uncle

[ziggy6708a]

Charles Coburn


-appeared with & w/o a toupee

[Detective Jim McLeod]

Ray Milland

Next- sweet and innocent

[Swithin]

Ray Milland

Next- sweet and innocent

That could apply to almost everyone on this board, but I will say:

The donkey who plays Balthazar in Au Hasard Balthazar

Next: Crusty old broad

[laffite]

Maria Ouspenskaya

n : circumspect

[ziggy6708a]

Wally Cox

- most surprising voice used in an animated film