'70s Actors (American): The Second Tier

For me, an easy vote: Cazale was a perfect five for five.

sutherland is canadian.

Oops--yes, he is. As a Canadian, I oughta know that. Also, Alan Garfield should be Allen Garfield.

jeff bridges don't quite belong to the '70s like say elliot gould does.

and by don't i mean doesn't

Southerland was second-tier? He was Hawkeye Pierce (with Elliot Gould as his sidekick, BTW).

Harry Dean Stanton had to wait until the 80s for his true breakout role:

tough choice b/w oates and gould, but oates it is

i'm gonna say gould because i just watched little murders and he was amazing in that (as was donald sutherland).

(he's also hilariously full of himself, judging by the commentary track)

clemenza otm

http://www.nysun.com/pics/6512.jpg

woulda probably thrown Alan Arkin and Matthau in there too...

arkin is so great.

Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins needs to be on DVD...

and Jason Robards!

I don't think of Matthau and Robards as being quintessentially 70s actors.

Robards had a great decade--I guess because of Long Day's Journey Into Night and Once Upon a Time in the West, I thought of him as half in the '60s, but looking at his IMDB page, he definitely tilts towards the '70s. Where I really goofed was leaving off Beatty: only seven films in the '70s, but McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Parallax View, and Shampoo are more than enough.

Yeah he had a great decade, but he's so much older than these guys and he was rarely the lead. He, Lemon, Matthau belong in a separate category, methinks.

I also think that Ned B, Stanton and Cazale (and Al Lettieri) guys were never leads belong in a separate poll for guys

Dennis Hopper OTOH should be in this poll.

Also where are dudes like Redford? Newman? McQueen?

for guys who were never leads.

Also, Alan Garfield should be Allen Garfield.

or Allen Goorwitz.

Martin Sheen was robbed.

It doesn't get more 70s than Elliot Gould.

I thought this poll was for regular supporting actors, not the guys who were regularly leads ... like Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen ... etc. who would be "first tier"

Oates. New book out about him I'm definitely looking forward to reading.

"I thought this poll was for regular supporting actors, not the guys who were regularly leads"

Yeah that's why I'm confused! Gould, Segal, Sutherland and Caan were all leads in the 70s. They became supporting actors much later.

though Gould and Sutherland were only in a few "major" films in the 70s ...they were in plenty of not so impressive movies. As opposed to John Cazale.

For what it's worth: the names above were meant to supplement a poll I posted on ILF. Basically, it's just a bunch of actors I like who a) didn't rise to the stature of Nicholson/De Niro/Pacino/Hackman/Hoffman, and b) immediately conjure up the '70s for me, realizing that that might not be true for someone else. (Maybe Jeff Bridges means The Big Lebowski to you; me, I think of The Last Picture Show and The Last American Hero and Stay Hungry.) And yes, it's a real mix: from someone like Caan, who almost always was the lead post-Godfather, to Garfield, a character actor for life. I majorly goofed on at least two omissions: Beatty and Redford. Redford probably belongs with the Nicholson group, Beatty's a tough call. The more I try to explain, the more confused I get. Help...

Gould starred in quite a number of "major" films in a short period in the '70s, most of them bad enough to kill his career by Jimmy Carter's inauguration.

Warren Beatty and Robert Redford definitely belong in the top tier, same with Paul Newman.

Though Robert Duvall is an omission here.

peter boyle will be underrated in this poll imo so i am voting for him

I don't see Newman as a '70s actor; you've got Hud, The Hustler, and Cool Hand Luke on one side, The Verdict, Absence of Malice, and The Color of Money on other (just to name a few). But yes, I definitely should have included Duvall.

it would be a tough call between Robert Duvall and John Cazale.

I swoon for Warren Oates, hands down. Loved him in Two Lane and Cockfighter especially.

I wish Dean Stockwell had done more movies than TV in the 70's.

I love California Split with Gould and Segal. I really would like to watch Little Murders again soon. Been thinking about that movie a lot lately.

I'm laughing at all the confusion "second tier" created--I tend to create polls (I've got a baseball one up now) based on intuition wrapped in a tangent inside a hunch. I watched Little Murders a couple of years ago. I thought it was...loud. I liked seeing the lead actress, whoever she was; I was reminded of the great All in the Family episode where she played a single mother who'd left her kid with the Bunkers.

^^Marcia Rodd. She also appeared as Maude's daughter in that series' pilot, but was quickly replaced w/Adrienne Barbeau.

On a related note to this poll, I was watching Cockfighter and realized Laurie Bird is sorta the female John Cazale--three '70s classics, then dead. However, the argument could be made that she's integral in one (Two-Lane Blacktop), mere (albeit cute) support in another (Cockfighter), and simply just there in the final one (Annie Hall).

That's right...how sad.