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    Actors who had two distinct careers

    Several women have evolved from comedy crumpet to middle aged character actress: Barbara Windsor, Wendy Richard, Diana Dors, Joan Sims

    Sid James: from Hancock sidekick to Carry Ons

    Angelina Jolie is, I suppose, reinventing herself as a director, as did Diane Keaton

    Laurel & Hardy: from silent to sound

    Jane Wyman: Mrs Reagan to Falcon Crest

    Clint Eastwood: Actor to director

    Woody Allen: comedy to more serious director

    Peter Falk: Columbo TV cop and John Cassavetes arthouse film actor

    Dirk Bogarde: Dr In The House to Death In Venice

    #2
    Actors who had two distinct careers

    Sir Alec Guinness: everything he did up until 1977 and then Obi-Wan Kenobi

    John Nettles: Bergerac (embittered, alcoholic detective) to Barnaby (jovial, family man detective)

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      #3
      Actors who had two distinct careers

      John Laurie. From renowned and celebrated Shakespearean actor to Frazer in Dad's Army. Or as he said himself:

      "I’ve played every part in Shakespeare, I was considered to be the finest Hamlet of the twenties and I had retired, and now I’m famous for doing this crap."

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        #4
        Actors who had two distinct careers

        David Jason: Britain's most-loved comic character, Del Boy, to Britain's most pathos-filled crime solver, Inspector Frost.

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          #5
          Actors who had two distinct careers

          Robert de Niro : from being screen-capturingly brilliant as a slightly unhinged serious character in movies in the 1970s, to being screen-capturingly awful trying to be a comic actor since 2000

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            #6
            Actors who had two distinct careers

            Meryl Streep has started to do some villains, lighter roles and sci-fi.

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              #7
              Actors who had two distinct careers

              Roger Moore—from rather lightweight TV actor to rather lightweight film actor.

              (Live and Let Die is still ace though.)

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                #8
                Actors who had two distinct careers

                Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: David Jason: Britain's most-loved comic character, Del Boy.
                In your world maybe, in truth a tedious little arsehole of a character in a populist lowest common denominator sitcom!

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                  #9
                  Actors who had two distinct careers

                  Squarewheelbike You viewed "Only Fools and Horses" as a "populist lowest common denominator sitcom"?

                  Fucking hell, you can't laugh at much. Only Fools and Horses was far from 'populist'. If it had have been, it would been another 'Keeping Up Appearances', or 'Birds of a Feather', or any one of the other sitcoms of its era set in the comfy surroundings of suburban UK living and poking fun at "the working classes". No, a sitcom set among the lives of semi-criminal market traders living in a high-rise block in the South London of the 1980s where they were not portrayed as scum but as the heroes? Just to pitch that to the BBC must have been genius. These were the very people Thatcher basically wanted to wipe off the face of the earth.

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                    #10
                    Actors who had two distinct careers

                    IIRC Only Fools started out in a more gritty vein than it later became. The Xmas specials of the 90s were cringeworthy.

                    John Laurie is in one of my favourite if grim film scenes, from The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935).

                    Tony Curtis took the Moore career path in reverse, going from film to telly, where he and Moore eventually met up in The Persuaders.

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                      #11
                      Actors who had two distinct careers

                      I don't know where Sean Penn would fall, but starting with Fast Times at Ridgemeont High certainly didn't predict a future doing serious films. I really like Fast Times, but it certainly fits in a genre that does not conjure images of great acting. Anyway, he's certainly gone on to be a serious actor and filmmaker.

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                        #12
                        Actors who had two distinct careers

                        Hugh Laurie. Made his name as one half of a UK comedy duo, and then suddenly, apparently without warning, turned up as the lead actor in a popular US drama for 8 seasons.

                        Stephen Fry on the other hand has had about 5 careers. Other half of above mentioned duo, host of popular game show (is it a game show? or a panel show?), writer, well-known nervous breakdown sufferer, Norfolk solicitor,and corporate shill for Apple.

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                          #13
                          Actors who had two distinct careers

                          Sigourney Weaver, actress of no little ability and quality, manages alternate career of being the genre novelty cameo of choice for the sci-fi/horror movie field. Does it well, mind.

                          Michael Palin, formed career as a comedy actor in you-know-what, now a travel documentarian, writer and jack-of-all-trades (although word hasn't reached me as to whether he's taken up carpentry yet).

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                            #14
                            Actors who had two distinct careers

                            QI's definitely a panel show - general rule of thumb, if the scores don't actually matter it's a panel show.

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                              #15
                              Actors who had two distinct careers

                              Actually, just to make a swift, yet brief detour, the scriptwriter Reginald Rose came to prominency writing the classic humane dramas 12 Angry Men and Whose Life Is It Anyway, yet ended up writing the screenplays for Who Dares Wins and The Wild Geese. From the nobility of Henry Fonda to Lewis Collins popping caps in terrorist ass. That's quite a turnaround.

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                                #16
                                Actors who had two distinct careers

                                Robin Williams.

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                                  #17
                                  Actors who had two distinct careers

                                  Sid James: from Hancock sidekick to Carry Ons
                                  Have to say, I don't see that as a massive leap. He was a comic/character actor, basically.

                                  Vinnie Jones: self-styled soccer hard-man to self-styled movie hard-man

                                  Mark Wahlberg: pin-up kiddy-rap star to serious character actor

                                  Harry Connick Jr: cheeseball jazz pianist to (sometime) serious character actor

                                  Roy North: soft-porn actor to Basil Brush sidekick

                                  (There are probably more than a few like the latter, tbh...)

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                                    #18
                                    Actors who had two distinct careers

                                    QI's definitely a panel show - general rule of thumb, if the scores don't actually matter it's a panel show.
                                    Yes - the 'other' proviso being that all the contestants will be celebrities (and it isn't for charity).

                                    (For ref: 'Game show' = punters doing stunts for prizes; 'Quiz show' = punters answering questions for prizes.)

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                                      #19
                                      Actors who had two distinct careers

                                      Sheridan Smith. Actor in various BBC Sitcoms such as The Royle Family, Two Pints... and Grownups turned Olivier Award winning stage performer.

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                                        #20
                                        Actors who had two distinct careers

                                        Jah Womble wrote: Roy North: soft-porn actor to Basil Brush sidekick
                                        You make him sound like Robin Askwith. One short film that contains a sex scene (with Gabrielle "UFO" Drake).

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                                          #21
                                          Actors who had two distinct careers

                                          Liam Neeson's the obvious one at the moment.

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                                            #22
                                            Actors who had two distinct careers

                                            Ronald Reagan

                                            Michael Crawford

                                            Martin Shaw

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                                              #23
                                              Actors who had two distinct careers

                                              You make him sound like Robin Askwith. One short film that contains a sex scene (with Gabrielle "UFO" Drake).
                                              I'd heard he'd made a few of these things. Okay, it's not Farmyard Anal III, but the juxtaposition is still rather jarring.

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                                                #24
                                                Actors who had two distinct careers

                                                Schwarzenegger
                                                Loads of people going music to movies Mark Wahlberg, LL Cool J, Ice-T

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                                                  #25
                                                  Actors who had two distinct careers

                                                  Mark Wahlberg
                                                  Who I mentioned upthread.

                                                  Leslie Nielsen and Rip Torn both played a lot of straight dramatic roles before settling into comic acting.

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