Ted Danson

Ted Danson was in The Onion Field and Body Heat before anyone knew his name, and played Major Collings in two Spider-Man productions in 1978 and 1981. Then in 1982 he became Sam Malone, and stayed him until 1993.

Sam won him two Primetime Emmys and two Golden Globes, and the performance is better than its sitcom reputation suggests. Sam is vain, not especially bright and a recovering alcoholic running a bar, and Danson plays the vanity as a defence rather than a punchline. Nothing about the charm is presented as admirable, which is exactly why it charms.

The second act is more interesting than the first. Arthur Frobisher in Damages is the same magnetism with the floor taken out from under it, and it brought him an Emmy nomination. Michael in The Good Place, another nomination, asked him to play two versions of one character across four seasons of a comedy set in the afterlife. In between: himself on Curb Your Enthusiasm, George on Bored to Death, D.B. Russell across CSI and CSI: Cyber, Sheriff Hank Larsson in Fargo, Mayor Bremer in Mr. Mayor, Charles Nieuwendyk in A Man on the Inside.

The film career is the odd one out, a scattering of good supporting turns rather than a shape: Captain Hamill in Saving Private Ryan, both 3 Men pictures, Creepshow, Dad, Made in America, Mumford, Hearts Beat Loud. He received the Carol Burnett Award in 2025, which tends to go to people who have been good on television for four decades. In his case the arithmetic checks out easily.