Mel Brooks names the most miscast actor in cinema history: “The furthest thing in the world”
Everybody who’s ever seen a movie, never mind worked on one, knows how a single miscast actor can tank an entire production. It wasn’t something that ever plagued Mel Brooks‘ filmography, but it did baffle him when he saw one of his childhood heroes play a role they shouldn’t have been anywhere near.
Casting is especially key to comedy, since the basic tenet is to make audiences laugh. Ironically, after being rejected by Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks when seeking the perfect Lone Starr for Spaceballs, Brooks ended up with Bill Pullman, who failed to make him laugh even once. Still, it worked, because he was the straight man in the face of the intergalactic chaos unfolding around him.
Think of any one of the EGOT-winner’s best movies, and every major role is perfectly cast. It could have been Richard Pryor as the lead in Blazing Saddles, but when he couldn’t get insured, Cleavon Little proved himself to be the ideal candidate, and it’s easy to imagine the classic caper being swallowed whole by Pryor’s charisma and comic delivery, which wasn’t what the character required.
Similarly, not many people in Hollywood would have pegged Gene Hackman as a barrel of laughs, but thanks to a fortuitous tennis schedule, he stole every scene he was in as Young Frankenstein‘s Harold. Brooks’ issue wasn’t with one of his own pictures, though, but the ones he’d grown up with. It was his first celebrity encounter, but he couldn’t resist taking a dig at the star in question’s worst performance.
Larry ‘Buster’ Crabbe isn’t exactly a well-known name to most audiences, but since Brooks was born in 1926, he was enamoured by the Olympic gold medallist-turned-actor, who found fame on the silver screen by playing Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers, three of the biggest pop culture heroes of the 1930s.
When the future comedy icon was “12 or 13”, he waited patiently to get Crabbe’s autograph, which was the first time he’d ever had anything signed by a star. His three breakout roles got a pass, but as far as Brooks was concerned, there was another world-renowned fictional figure he should have steered clear of.
“His act was altogether foolish,” he explained to The AV Club. “I mean, they provided him with a crazy act with quick-change costumes where he was Flash Gordon for a while, then he was Tarzan, and then I think he was Sherlock Holmes. And, believe me, he was the furthest thing in the world from Sherlock Holmes. Talk about a miscast. Larry ‘Buster’ Crabbe as Sherlock Holmes? With an Indiana accent?”
Alongside Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Arthur Conan Doyle’s sleuth is one of the two most heavily-adapted characters in film, television, stage, and radio history. That means it’s been played by countless actors of the years, but even though he “couldn’t believe I saw him in person”, Brooks could never reconcile his adoration with the fact that Crabbe was the worst Holmes he’d ever seen, and the most miscast actor he’d ever laid eyes on.
