We talk a lot about actors on this blog but the kind that I think interests me the most are those performers whose names few people know but who worked constantly. They usually didn't get famous but they got a lot of jobs. At one point in his career, Jamie Farr was in that category…then he got cast as Corporal Klinger on M*A*S*H. If he hadn't, he would have been like Peter Leeds…an actor who worked constantly but there's no way I can point to one role and you'd all know who he was.
Back in this post, I told you about Eddie Ryder, an actor who was probably on network television every week for a decade or two but never in one identifiable role. The above photo of him is probably from the TV series, Dr. Kildare, where he had a recurring role as a doctor who had a couple of lines (usually just a couple) some weeks. As I watch old TV shows from the sixties and seventies, I spot him all the time.
Recently, some folks on Facebook have taken to scanning and posting pages from old issues of TV Guide. I noticed this morning a page from Sunday Evening, April 28, 1974. As you can see below, the CBS affiliate in whatever city this was from was rerunning an episode of Mannix and there's Eddie Ryder's name in the Guest Cast…
So let's say you watched that episode of Mannix and didn't feel like reaching for the remote control after it or — and this was frighteningly possible back in '74 — your TV didn't have one. You stay tuned for the next show on that channel — a rerun of a Barnaby Jones — and guess who's in it…
I will bet you that isn't the only time that happened. That guy was on TV about as often as Ronald McDonald…or even Jamie Farr.