OK, if we're going to talk about this, I have to define the terms. The key thing is, you have to have been a big star on a big show, AND had other success. And we're talking OTA or basic cable shows only. Lucille Ball had a monster, monster hit as the centerpiece of I Love Lucy, and some success with other iterations of the same concept. Bill Cosby was a star in I, Spy, which only ran 3 years. He was the driving force behind Fat Albert. Then he was the main star in The Cosby Show, and the main star in Cosby, which was not too successful but ran 4 seasons. He'd be an excellent choice. But my choice (without doing an exhaustive search; this thread was mainly inspired by the Good Place finale) is Ted Danson. He was the centerpiece of Cheers, which popularize if not pioneered a) sitcoms used to tell long stories and b) the sitcom cliffhanger. He kept a rom-com going after the other half of the rom part left the show. He failed in a sitcom he did with Mary Steenburgen whose name I forget, but then had decent success with Becker. He stepped into CSI and kept it rolling. He was on Damages. He was part of The Good Place. And while not OTA, he has been on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Can anyone beat that? PS...honorable mention to Richard Belzer, who played the same character on, God, how many shows? Wikipedia says 10. See how many you can name? I could only think of 4 from the list, but I think they missed one. Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, and 30 Rock); (The X-Files and Arrested Development); (The Beat); (The Wire) Jimmy Kimmel Live. Wikipedia lists an appearance in character on Jimmy Kimmel Live but I think that's cheating. OTOH, wasn't he on The Simpsons?
How about the Irish guy Aiden Gillen who most notably plays Petyr Barlish (Little Finger) in Game of Thrones , Tommy Carcetti in The Wire and Aberama Gold in Peaky Blinders . Also starred in things like The Dark Knight Rises , Piorot , Law and Order and Queer as Folk
Honorable mention to Scott Bakula, who starred in three hour-long shows which each lasted at least four seasons (Quantum Leap, Star Trek Enterprise, and currently NCIS New Orleans). He would be just a genre actor like Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver, Stargate SG-1) but he broke through to a cop show instead of just sticking with science fiction.
I thought of him, but each of those shows is about the Becker/The Good Place level. He has no Cheers. Patricia Heaton has a shot if her new show stays on the air for a long time. Everybody Loves Raymond was a big hit, if no Cheers, and The Middle was pretty successful as well.
Andy Griffith, a TV star in long-running shows that together spanned a career of three decades (60s, 80s & 90s). But I have to give it to Bill Shatner. The first and iconic Trek captain for three TV seasons and a bunch of movies. Sliding over patrol car hoods in the 1980s. Then an unexpected but terrific TV comeback in the noughties with his Denny Crane on Boston Legal.
None of those so far gets close to my guy The Wire , Peaky Blinders and Game of Thrones !! Come on !!!
Movies are not TV. If "Shit My Dad Says" had become a hit, though, Shatner would be in the conversation. It's hard to judge Star Trek...it only ran 3 years IIRC; it was not a success. But its cultural influence is obviously enormous.
Don Knotts, perhaps? He played a large part in most of two huge TV hit shows (The Andy Griffith Show and Three's Company) and played a recurring role in a later hit show (Matlock), but did he let too much time pass in between shows to keep his name consistently in the public eye during that time? -G
Or perhaps Michael Landon, who starred in three TV hit shows that, when lined up consecutively, ran almost non-stop for three decades (Bonanza from 1959 to 1973, Little House on the Prairie from 1974 to 1983, and Highway to Heaven from 1984 to 1989), and who also appeared on the cover of TV Guide 22 times (second only to Lucille Ball)? -G
James Garner should also be in the conversation. Two iconic TV shows in two different eras of TV (Maverick & The Rockford Files) as well as a very respectable movie career. I guess he just lacks the third credit that matches his first two big TV gigs?
I attempted to give this more thought and come up with something different and still failed. I was going to throw out Damon Wayans or the entire family for something out of left field and then couldn't stop thinking about Sherman Hemsley which brought me back to Norman Lear.
I was trying to think of people on Cosby shows while not thinking about him. Then the answer was obvious after I got to A Different World. Cree Summer.
This is the first candidate that is making me really think. Bonanza was kinda sorta before my time. LHOP was a massive hit with females of my generation. HtoH, how big of a hit was that? But yeah, Michael Landon is a great call. The key part of a pretty big hit, a 2ndary character on a 14 year run, and the key part of a minor hit (HtoH.)
Not to mention that Michael Landon also wrote and directed a few episodes of Bonanza, and then was the executive producer, a writer and a director for the other two shows. -G
Richard Dean Anderson is another one who probably lacks a third big credit apart from MacGyver & Stargate?
Jackie Gleason had his own TV show before or around the same time as The Honeymooners, as did Jim Backus before Gilligan's Island. Larry Hagman was a co-star in I Dream Of Jeannie and Dallas. Leonard Nimoy as Spock and Paris should get an honorable mention. Ronny Howard pretty much WAS Happy Days (well, him and the Fonz), but he wasn't THE role on tAGS. Biggest is probably Lucille Ball, with William Shatner in second, and Michael Landon and Andy Griffith battling for third. FWIW, The Lucy Show was actually funnier than I Love Lucy, but since it was a daytime show, you could only see it during the summer or if you were sick. Greatest? Cos, for effectively playing different kinds of roles, one of which was voice only, and he voiced several of the Cosby Kids, maybe all of 'em except Russell, whose voice hadn't changed. Lucy was always funny, IIRC. Shatner on Boston Legal is like David Caruso as Horatio Caine. It's a horrible role and he should be docked points for it. I'd say so. Lear's shows made stars, but he wasn't a star himself.
I don't think she'd unseat Lucy, but I'm surprised Mary Tyler Moore got no mentions here. She was as big a star as most people who did. Carroll O'Connor (who was clearly the biggest star of two yuge shows) as well.
I was just popping in to propose Mary Tyler Moore. I think Julia Louis Dreyfus is a good candidate: Seinfeld, New Adventures of Old Christine, and Veep.
Same here. In addition to acting, her studio, MTM Enterprises, did her show and all the spin-offs (Rhoda, Phylis, Lou Grant) as wells as WKRP In Cincinatti, St. Elsewhere, and Hill Street Blues, among others. Hmm. Ed Asner has a ton of work: co-star in a groundbreaking workplace sitcom which spins off into a lead role in a drama. Starts as a reliable character actor on Naked City and Route 66 (where he shares a cop car with Bruce Dern in his own first credited experience), and is still ********ing working, mostly as a reliable character actor. So, maybe not a star, but one hell of a prescence.
Me too for Mary Tyler Moore. Really. And I was going to use the spin off angle as well. Or going another way, the guy who.plays Victor Newman on the Young and the Restless has been doing the.role for 40 years. That has to.count for.something.
David Canary played TWO guys on one of the biggest soaps of all time after he put in his shift on the Ponderosa...