It's a tough gig becoming a Hollywood star.
First you need a heap of acting talent, and then you've gotta nurture it for years until,
if you’re very, very lucky, you finally get your big break.
But that’s not how it goes for some actors.
These are the legends of old Hollywood who died before they found the recognition they
deserved.
You probably know Bruce Lee as the master of kung-fu action cinema, but if you were
living in America while he was still alive, you'd have known him as someone very different:
the sidekick from TV’s The Green Hornet.
In the 1960s, Lee was asked to play the Green Hornet's sidekick Kato in the decade’s second
attempt to turn a respected comic property into the campiest show alive.
While Kato was enough of a breakout character for Lee to start opening malls in costume,
Green Hornet itself tanked in America and was swiftly cancelled.
But it was incredibly popular in Hong Kong, where it was renamed The Kato Show.
In fact, it was so popular that Lee was quickly cast in a slew of martial arts films.
The last of these would be released in the U.S. as Enter the Dragon.
Enter the Dragon was destined to make Lee not just famous-famous, but "still appearing
on T-shirts five decades after he died" famous.
But Lee would never get to see this happen, one month before Enter the Dragon got its
U.S. release, the martial arts legend went to the great dojo in the sky.
There isn't a single movie that opens with the words "Starring John Cazale."
Cazale was only ever a supporting actor at best and only made a grand total of five movies
before dying from bone cancer in 1978.
Even his most famous role involved very little speaking, but you probably remember it nonetheless:
Fredo Corleone in The Godfather I and II.
Cazale's roles were often smaller parts, but that never stopped him from stealing the show.
All five of his movies, which also included Dog Day Afternoon, The Conversation, and The
Deer Hunter, were nominated for Best Picture.
In fact, they netted an incredible 40 Oscar nominations between them, but none for Cazale
himself.
As time passed after Cazale’s passing, and it became clear just how important his roles
had been, people began to reassess his legacy and the unique vulnerability he brought to
his characters.
Today, he's venerated among actors and movie lovers, and stands as an icon for those who
admire the craft of acting.
"He was amazing to watch.
I mean, it was a lesson in it itself.
I think I learned more about acting from John than anybody."
At the time of James Dean’s fatal car accident, his filmography could only be described as
sparse.
His credits to that point included "youth in drugstore," "sailor," and a soldier with
a handful of lines in 1951's Fixed Bayonets!
That's pretty much it, with the exception of the single substantial role Dean had been
handed barely a year before: Cal Trask in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's East
of Eden.
Dean's performance in Eden had been powerful enough to land him an Oscar nomination.
But it wasn't the kind of role that turns a 23-year-old into a cultural icon, and neither
was his turn as Jett Rink in Giant, which was still unreleased when Dean was offed.
His other unreleased picture, however, is a different story.
Rebel Without a Cause featured Dean as a rebellious teen who practically oozed cool.
Rebel's release came at a time when a whole generation of kids who'd been too young for
the war were hitting adolescence and looking for battles of their own.
In Dean, they found someone who seemed to embody all their angst, and the studio took
note when it came to marketing the picture.
James Dean the stylish rebel was enshrined in history, and James Dean the real-life actor
was nearly forgotten.
Because of the strange way cultural memory works, you can spend your whole life appearing
in good movies and still leave no lasting impression on history, but speak a single
memorable line and you’ll have people still talking about you 40 years later.
Such was the fate of Peter Finch, an Australian-English actor who, in 1976, played Howard Beale in
Network.
"I’m as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take this anymore."
Somehow, that line did more than just strike a chord with audiences.
It became a kind of pre-internet meme, the sort of quote that you could drop into any
random conversation with any random group of people and still have it be recognized.
It continues to crop up in news headlines today, in reference to everything from reality
TV to government incompetence, and in 2015 it even appeared on signs at anti-austerity
rallies across the UK.
Despite a steady and admirable career in Hollywood, it was just one line uttered only months before
his passing that granted Finch immortality.