For my fourth pick, I choose Lonesome Rhodes, as played by Andy Griffith in
A Face in the Crood.
Larry Rhodes is a drifter spending the evening in a jail in rural Arkansas (Jesus, is there any other kind of Arkansas?) singing high, lonesome songs about being stuck in an Arkansas jail, when he's "discovered", given a local show, then a show in in the bigger Memphis market, and then it's on to New York for the big time.
As he progresses, a darker side emerges. On television, he plays a likable singing bumpkin with a homespun sense of humor, not unlike the television sheriff Griffith would soon make famous, and keeps playing it to the public and even to the executives he has to please. The dichotomy between his public persona and his private and true self are slowly revealed, and the result is fascinating,if not down right disturbing.
Griffith had chops, but there are some who insist the character had more resonance after his television character became an iconic cultural linchpin. The film was not successful, critically or commercially, upon release, and maybe that fact does contribute to his effectiveness here.
Don't know, as I saw it after the fact. But it still remains one of the more intriguing performances you'll see. I think it stands on it's own.
The film, also starring Patricia Neal and Walter Matthau, has had a bit of a comeback, given the similarities between a scene in the film and a certain event on last year's Presidential campaign trail.
It's that, and then some, but it's also a fascinating clinic on par with (
undrafted) in maneuvering the twists and turns of a twisted psyche.
So, I now have:
1. Chance the Gardner, as played by Peter Sellers in Being There.
2. Alex SeLarge, as played by Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange[/I]
3. Yoda, as played by Frank Oz, a puppet, a dude in a frog constume, and some expensive CGI in the Star Wars movies, and
4. Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, as played by Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd