worst pro athlete turned actor

[Jay]

I thought Lyle Alzado was pretty good as a side role in Neon City.

[Eirik]

I give my nod for Best to the late John Matuzak for his performance in the magnificently bad "Ice Pirates."

[AndyC]

Has anybody mentioned Tor Johnson yet?

I'd suggest Andre the Giant's performance in The Princess Bride, but he fit the tongue-in-cheek nature of the movie.

[Bgrade]

Damn it.  I was going to say Bruce Jenner but if figured no one else had the pleasure of seeing him act.

[Bgrade]

Andre wasn't an athlete...  It wasn't his fault he was the biggest and the strongest.

He didn't even exercise



This goes back to my asking if wresters are actors first or athletes.
It is sort of a mix of the two.  That is why I think wrestlers tend to be the best athlete actors.
Take these greats as an example
Jesse Ventura,
Roddy Piper

[AndyC]

Seeing wrestlers act, I'd definitely call them athletes :)

Seriously, even if it's all fake, pro wrestling requires real physical strength and skill. The acting is the least impressive thing about it. I'd call wrestlers athletes first and actors second.

Mind you, I haven't watched wrestling in years. I think it's sucked since about 1989.

Think I might have posted this once before, but my favourite performance by a wrestler has to be Captain Lou Albano in Wise Guys. The part just required him to be an angry slob who shouts a lot, and he did it perfectly.

[Genetic Mishap]

No one's mentioned Hulk Hogan. Haven't seen him act, but I hear the movies are bad enough as they are. Santa with Muscles anyone?

[Bgrade]

Genetic Mishap wrote:

> No one's mentioned Hulk Hogan. Haven't seen him act, but I hear
> the movies are bad enough as they are. Santa with Muscles
> anyone?

I left him out becuase I have a soft spot in my heart for Suburban Commando.



You can all stop laughing now.....

[ulthar]

raj wrote:

> Joe Namath did a pantyhose commercial, while he was QB'ing the
> (New York) Jets.
>

Namath was also in "CC Rider and Company" where he played the leader of a biker gang.

[ulthar]

Larry Csonka (sp??) once guest starred on "The Six Million Dollar Man."  He played, er, a football player.   His acting was horrible.

[Yaddo42]

My vote for the "best" pro athlete turned actor would go to either Vinnie Jones who has been fun to watch in several action comedies like Guy Richie films and "The Mean Machine". He's limited, but he seems to know what works for him. The Rock has potential after seeing "The Rundown", but it's too soon to tell if he'll last.

Joe Namath has been awful in everything he's done, including playing himself on "Married With Children". The movie raj mentioned was the late 70s spy stinker "Avalanche Express" starring Lee Marvin, Linda Evans, and Robert Shaw. Namath plays a tough guy CIA agent, with a cowboy hat, named Leroy. The name is pronounced different ways by different cast members. He has little dialogue, all of which he screws up. The bad part is when he sacrifices himself in the scene raj mentioned (his best work in the movie BTW), no one even says anything, expresses any loss over his death or mentions his character ever again.

Pro footballer Ray Nitzsche had a bit part in the Monkees movie "Head" as did boxer Sonny Liston. Nitzsche did okay as a crazed football player in a foxhole during a war scene, only had to repeat two lines and try to tackle Peter Tork. Liston has no dialogue, but gets to beat the hell out of Davy Jones.

I thought Matuzak was good in "North Dallas Forty" then again the role wasn't much of a stretch, doped up football player. He was a good thug on an episode of "MASH" too.

Lawrence "LT" Taylor was a pretty bad version of himself, over the hill cokehead player, in "Any Given Sunday".

I liked Deacon Jones on the the show "Good vs. Evil" but he didn't get to do much.

I have a hard time poking fun of Lyle Alzado's 80s and 90s acting jobs no matter how bad he was since I read a book by a former team Dr. for the Raiders. Alzado was dying from brain cancer brought on by the effects of years of steroid abuse during most of this time, and any acting work he took was out of desperation for money. Doesn't justify the steroids, but when I see him in something like "Zapped Again!" I'm aware that he was a dying man wearing a toupee to cover the hair that had fallen out and the nasty scars and wounds on his head from his treatments that involved inserting material into opening drilled in his skull. Just a truly pathetic wreck at that point

[Johnny Z]

a little OT here Andy C, but you and I agree about when pro wrestling turned bad, did you ever visit this website? http://kayfabememories.com/phpbb Great website that's a tribute to pro wrestling when it was great.

[JohnL]

I was going to mention Hulk Hogan, but then one small scene sticks in my mind; The scene from one of the Rocky movies (too lazy to look up which one) where he's playing a wrestler named Thunderlips. He acts like a psycho and then when it's all over, he comes up to Stallone, who's pretty wary at that point, but acts completely normal. When Stallone asks him why he went nuts like that, Hogan smiles and says something like "It's just acting..." I think that's the only time I've seen him NOT playing his "Hulk" character. Maybe if he'd done more of that, people would take him seriously.

[AndyC]

I had no idea Alzado was already sick when he did that acting. He didn't look too bad at that point.

I remember there wasn't much left of him by the end, when he was on the talk shows denouncing steroids. I recall him mentioning that he had been messing around with human growth hormone and all kinds of weird anabolic drugs. Scary stuff.