Actors playing THEMSELVES in war films...

Watching Ill Met By Moonlight again tonight, and just having read Phylida Houseman's recollections of the making of the film, something came to me...

In the film, the S.O.E. British Liaison Officer Johnny Houseman who's part of the party on Crete that welcomes Billy Moss to the island is played by her husband...Johnny Houseman! 8O 8O 8O

(She herself later appears briefly as "Mihali's sister" in the glendi scene)

Yes, an ACTUAL S.O.E. BLO present during events in 1944 played HIMSELF!!!

The production was actually quite a reunion; Xan Fielding, Senior BLO for a time and author of "The Stronghold" and "Hide And Seek" about his time on Crete was a technical adviser, as was Mickey Akoumianakis...and later in the filming Paddy Fermor turned up for a couple of days!

Are there any other instances in the cinema or television of this happening??? And NOT in a documentary appearance...

I know Richard Todd came close - he was originally approached to play himself in The Longest Day but refused, and instead played Johnny Frost.

 

Phylo -
Richard Todd played Major Howard who held the bridge until Lord Lovatt arrived

Cheers

 

Didn't piper Bill Millin play himself in the longest day?

 

The guy who played Monty's Double played himself in the film.

I Was Monty's Double - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Shetland Bus - all the Norwegian's played themselves
as members of the "Royal Norwegian Naval Special Unit"

Check THIS castlist!
Shetlandsgjengen (1954)

Shetland bus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Longest Day

Red Button the guy on the church tower St Mere Eglise also was a paratrooper

 

Didn't Audie Murphy play himself in a bio-pic?


I believe it was the film 'To Hell And Back'

To Hell and Back (1955)

 

Miss D,

They did indeed play themselves it was a Norwegian 'feel good' movies made shortly after the war

Cheers
Andy

 

And ofcourse a number of men in Their is the Glory, one of them being Freddy Gough

 

Thanks for that Peter, must have last seen that film in the late 70s ... oh dear, moving on...

Ray Mears' prog The Real Heroes of Telemark, showed clips of a film made with the originals playing themselves, may have been a documentary though, can't remember for sure.

D

What a man. His autobiography makes for good reading.

Regards
Tom

 

According to the IMDB trivia for The Longest Day, the makers considered having Eisenhower play himself but decided that he couldn't be made up to look young enough. They weren't so bothered about age when they cast 54 year old John Wayne as Col. Vandervoort, who was 27.

The IMDB also says that Richard Todd refused to play himself in the film as his own role in D-Day was too small a part for that stage of his acting career. Joseph Lowe, who had a very small part as a Ranger, climbed Pointe de Hoc on 6/6/44 and again in the film.

The Longest Day (1962) - Trivia

One man who didn't play himself but did repeat on screen a real event in which he participated was Esmond Knight. In 1941 he was an officer on HMS Prince of Wales in the action with the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. A shell stuck Prince of Wales' bridge, blinding Knight and killing most of the others present, apart from Captain Leach. Knight recovered partial sight and resumed his acting career after the war; he played Captain Leach in Sink the Bismarck, which featured the hit on Prince of Wales' bridge.

A film about the Battle of Mons was made after WWI. A lot of the men in it were veterans and General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien played himself. In the absence of genuine archive footage it often gets shown as part of documentaries on 1914.

 

Marcus -

Piper Bill Millin did NOT play himself in "The Longest day" - that was Pipe Major Leslie de Laspee

Cheers

 

Cheers Tom.

I thought I'd read it somewhere. Must have mixed it up with something else.

 

Although not actually playing himself, it's my understanding that the fellow who played Cpl. Louis LeBeau (Robert Clary) in Hogans Heroes was actually held for 3 years in a German concentration camp. His camp number, A5714, was tattooed on his left forearm.

 

In an interview, Richard Todd said that in one scene towards the end, He (as Major Howard) addresses a young paratroop officer who is supposed to be Richard Todd.

 

There was a lot of the originals employed as advisers on the set of The Longest Day. Maj Howard Ret. and Lord Lovat to name two.

Cheers
Andy

 

Robert Montgomery (father of actress Elizabeth Montgomery) served as a PT boat commander in Panama and also the Pacific in Guadalacanal and the the Marshall Islands. In 1945 he starred as PT boat commander John Brickley in They Were Expendable .

 

Not somebody who played himself but a man taking part in a story with great significance for his family is Phillip von Schulthess, Claus von Stauffenberg's grandson, who has a small part in Valkyrie, the story of the July 20 1944 bomb plot. Nina von Stauffenberg was pregnant was von Schultess's mother at the time of her husband's death. Von Schulthess is billed as 'Tresckow's Aide', which is presumably meant to be Fabian von Schlabrendorff but he has only a couple of scenes and isn't given a name in the film.