Why is Steve Austin's Boss in a Trench on the Western Front?

So I was watching an episode of the early 1960s TV Western Laramie and a familiar face appeared underneath the black hat of the villain for that episode.  It was an unnerving recognition.  I wanted to speak to him. I wanted to say, "Professor!  What are you doing here?  This is all wrong. Get back on your horse, ride out of town, trade those cowboy boots for the Keds we both know you ought to be wearing,  and go back to Gilligan's Island where you belong."

I wonder if this is a not-uncommon Boomer / X-er experience: that unsettling moment when you see an actor you grew up watching in his or her definitive TV role show up in a movie or TV role that predates the role you know them in.  You have a certain image of these people cemented in your head, and something from the past bubbles up to disrupt it.  It is like finding a picture of your parents in a previously unimaginable context, like the first time I saw my father's ROTC pictures in his high school yearbook.  Pop in a military uniform was jarring to see, but of course it was important to realize that he had a long past that was invisible to me.  Shouldn't the same principle have applied to the the TV actors I watched?  I mean, it was clear that Ron Howard hadn't sprung into existence as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days - I had seen him as Opie on Andy Griffith reruns – and so I should have known, even though I hadn’t seen visual evidence, that there must be earlier screen incarnations of, say, Fred MacMurray, the man I knew as kindly Steve Douglas in My Three Sons. And yet nothing could prepare me for seeing him in all those rat bastard roles he used to play in the 40s and 50s, such as J.D. Sheldrake in The Apartment.   Oh, Mr. Douglas, how can you be so mean to Shirley MacLaine?  What would Chip and Ernie say?

As a fan of old movies I’ve experienced these unnerving encounters quite a few times. These are ten that stand out to me: 

Lou Grant / El Dorado (1967). Mary Tyler Moore’s grouchy boss is a ruthless land baron in this John Wayne / Robert Mitchum vehicle. He was clearly more at home in a newsroom, though in both contexts he was afflicted with inept underlings. Ted Baxter would have been right at home as one of his cloddish henchmen in the Old West. 

Louise Jefferson / The New Centurions (1972). One’s first impulse is to exclaim, “Weezie, what are you doing here as a wisecracking LA streetwalker on chummy terms with tough cop George C. Scott?” Then you remember it is 1972 and the stereotyped, severely limited roles made available to black actors and go, “Oh, O.K. You do what you have to do. But trust me, a deeluxe apartment in the sky is in your future.” 

Archie Bunker / Lonely Are the Brave (1962). Having to live with the knowledge that he ran over outlaw Kirk Douglas’ highly meaningful horse on a rainy night in the Southwest explains a lot about Archie’s constant hostility. 

Col. Potter / Orchestra Wives (1942). You’re a soda jerk who has saved up all week to take Ann Rutherford to the big dance over in Dixon, only to get aced out by dreamy big band trumpeter George Montgomery. Experiences like this one prepare you to command a Korean War military hospital. 

Oscar Goldman / Paths of Glory (1957). As you watch him serve as sycophantic flunky to a bloodthirsty French General in WW1, Waylon Smithers in the trenches, you can already hear him saying, “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology . . .” 

Shirley Partridge / The Music Man (1962). Would Reuben Kincaid have signed Marian the Librarian to a contract? Doubtful.  

“Rocky” Rockford / The Fastest Gun Alive (1956). Jim Rockford’s charmingly crusty dad was almost always an exasperated sidekick, it seems, even when he was with the bad guys, in this case a surly Broderick Crawford.

Quincy / Twelve Angry Men (1957). The future medical examiner gets some early CSI practice, straightening out some fools about how one actually cuts a man with a switchblade. 

Officer Pete Malloy / The Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Is one of the squarest TV actors of all time really plausible as a famous jazz guitarist? Why is he in the Chico Hamilton Quintet instead of the Lawrence Welk Orchestra where he clearly belongs?  Thanks to the awesomeness of Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster in this film, we never have to dwell too much on this bit of discordant casting. Bonus points for Bewitched Darrin’s boss Larry Tate as a sleazy gossip columnist – much more believable. 

Master Po / Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937). Apparently the road to becoming a blind, wisdom-spouting Kung Fu master goes through a youthful period of being an overeager doofus. And the journey took 40 years! And yet even after those 40 years he still found himself opposite a white guy pretending to be a Chinese guy.  The more things change . . . 

EDIT:  Kudos to Marc for this contribution!   How the sight of these two Taxi cast members appearing in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest must have freaked out TV viewers a few years younger than myself.