Best Comedian Actor?

It's a bad movie called High Spirits (1988). O'Toole is fine, he's Peter O'Toole. But the material is tired, cliché, sitcom stuff and has a very cheap feel. It co-starred Steve Guttenberg just as his career was quickly fading in the late '80s. It does have Liam Neeson in one of his early American movies as one of the two "real" ghosts. The other ghost is Daryl Hannah, also in career freefall. The rest of the cast includes Beverly D'Angelo, Jennifer Tilly and Peter Gallagher (a year before sex, lies & videotape). Most embarrassingly this was director Neil Jordan's first mainstream Hollywood job (though it was filmed in Ireland).

You can rent it, but it's not good.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

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My all-time favorite is Steve Martin.
I LOVE him!


Look how cute he is!

I do need to add that I also love the movie High Spirits. I think it is hilarious. I've watched my copy one hundred times, easy.



I also truly enjoy both Gene Wilder, and Richard Pryor.

Silver Streak (1976)


Stir Crazy (1980)


See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)


Also, Gene Wilder in . . .

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Young Frankenstein (1974)
The Frisco Kid (1979)
Haunted Honeymoon (1986)

I'm not sure I've seen Hanky Panky (1982). Probably many years ago.

Also, Richard Pryor in . . .

Uptown Saturday Night (1974)
California Suite (1978)
The Toy (1982)
Brewster's Millions (1985)

I could keep adding actors to this list, but I'll go for now.

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Never claimed it was the best film ever made or even mediocre, but IMHO O'Toole was comic in his role, especially compared with Guttenberg and Hannah, who weren't. The man can do comedy.

This may be one of those generational "you had to be there" moments. Gleason had for years had a top TV comedy show and was generally known only as a comic at the time he played (real life) Minnesota Fats as a classy, fastidious hard-scrabble pool shark who was totally the opposite of Ralph the bus-driver on the Honey-Mooners or any other characters Gleason played on TV. Critics had a lot of good things to say about his performance, which I thought was better in his small role than Newman was as the star. The best actor on the screen in that film, however, is definitely Scott, a great dramatic actor who also did an occasional comic role. However, I think Gleason as a comic turned serious actor was better than Scott as a dramatist turned comic.

That said, Scott delivered what I've always thought was one of the two funniest lines ever in a movie, in a film that I think was called The Driver in which he played an aging US hood who specialized as a get-away driver who, now living in Italy, is hired to transport a young gunman who the mob has just broken out of prison. In one scene, Scott is talking about the reason for his breakup with his wife some years earlier.

"She said she was going to Switzerland to have her breasts lifted," said Scott. "I thought she meant by surgery."

I'm second to none in my admiration of Fields as a comic, juggler, and all around buffoon. But the only dramatic film in which I remember him ever appearing was David Copperfield (1935) in which he turned his role into a comic figure. As for Buster Keaton, I can't remember him ever doing a straight role. As comics doing comedy, Fields and Keaton are the very best, but I don't see them stretching from comedy to drama.

Bill Murray is my favorite

There are also so many others

Steve Martin
Martin Short
John Candy
Mike Myers
Billy Crystal
Adam Sandler
The Three Stooges

I think "Chris Tucker" is funny as hell in "Rush Hour 1-3" and also in "5th Element"

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~In the event of a Zombie Uprising, remember to sever the head or destroy the brain!~

Good question.
So many to choose from.
Someone mentioned Laurel and Hardy.
That was a good pick.
If they both qualify, I would like to add John Candy and Chevy Chase.
It took me awhile to like John Candy, but I do now.
And don't forget Rodney.
I wish could include Phyllis Diller.
She was really funny.
I just looked up Phyllis Diller, and yay!...she did make movies, so I will include her too.

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"If you can't be funny be interesting."
Harold Ross

Lee Evans is a good actor and he is dead funny. I loved his role in the film "Freeze Frame" top quality

I really like Bill Murray, him in Caddyshack is just hard to beat. Chevy Chase is also one of my favorites, gotta love Christmas Vacation. Gene Wilder also cracks me up, Blazing Saddles,Young Frankenstein and Stir Crazy, gotta love it.

Jeff Bridges isn't really a comedian, but in The Big Lebowski, he's just priceless.

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The Dude Abides.