“I am large. I contain multitudes.”
–Walt Whitman (“Song of Myself”)
In 1949, a young British actor named Alec Guinness wowed the filmgoing world by playing an octet of characters in Robert Hamer’s elegant dark comedy “Kind Hearts and Coronets.” With consummate deadpan skill, Guinness enacted all eight members of the aristocratic D’Ascoyne family, from banker to dowager to admiral, all murdered by Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price) in his cold-blooded climb to the title of duke. Ever since then, multiple roles by a single player –like Eddie Murphy’s impersonation of an entire family in “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,” which opens Friday — have been a sure route to renown for movie acting virtuosity.
Joanne Woodward won an Oscar in 1957 for her three-cornered portrayal of Eve White in “The Three Faces of Eve.” Peter Sellers won undying fame for his three roles in Stanley Kubrick’s great 1964 doomsday comedy “Dr. Strangelove.” And there are innumerable other multi-examples: actors playing good and evil twins (Bette Davis in both “Dead Ringer” and “A Stolen Life”), Jekyll and Hyde types, several members of a single family (most recently, Ralph Fiennes in “Sunshine”) or simply a bunch of different parts (Eddie Murphy in “Coming to America”).
Sometimes an actor makes only minor adjustment from role to role: Deborah Kerr barely changes personality while playing the three separate women who incarnate the Colonel’s recurring love in “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.” By contrast, Sellers, as sybarite novelist Clare Quilty in “Lolita,” shifts into a new face each time we see him: from the “normal” guy who accosts James Mason’s Humbert Humbert in a motel to the sheet-covered drunk who challenges Humbert to a game of “Roman ping pong.” In recent months, Jim Carrey (as the two-faced cop in “Me, Myself and Irene”) and Fiennes have dazzled us with their ability to leap from part to part in one film.
What qualities does someone need for these multiple tours de force? Tremendous observation and unusual detachment, of course; a talent for mimicry, mime and diverse accents, and, most of all, the ability to immerse oneself completely in each face.
The all-time master of multiple role performances, for my money, was Sellers, an amazing chameleon who could shift shapes, personalities and accents seemingly at will. And, for my (double) money, there’s a modern equivalent: Eddie Murphy, who returns Friday in his role as the entire Klump family, plus demonic alter-ego Buddy Love.
Jim Carrey may have torn himself in two in “Me, Myself and I,” Mike Myers may have given us a triple whammy in the Austin Powers adventures and Michael Keaton may have cloned himself silly in “Multiplicity.” But it’s still Murphy who takes the multiprize. And he’ll probably stay on top -at least until Robin Williams unleashes “First Person Plural,” his biopic project about a guy with 24 personalities.
Here are some examples of movie multiplication.
PETER SELLERS
Assuming Alec Guinness’ mantle, Sellers was the man of a thousand comic faces, from “The Ladykillers” in 1956 to Inspector Clouseau, Dr. Strangelove and company in 1964. Sellers’ ability to assume different personalities (from a seedy old projectionist in “The Smallest Show on Earth” to a psychopathic teddy boy in “The Ladykillers”) and change accents (from upper- and lower-class London to East and West Coast American, Indian and German) was unrivaled before or since. And he did it while retaining a quick comic fuse. (Perhaps it’s fitting that in real life, he was sometimes said to be a colorless man whose personality was opaque.)
Sellers’ standouts
“The Mouse That Roared” (1959): As Grand Duchess Glorianna XII of the Ducky of Grand Fenwick, as her stodgy Prime Minister Count Mountjoy and as Fenwick’s wildly unlikely conquering hero Tully Bascombe.
“Lolita” (1962): As the Great Impersonator Clare Quilty.
“Dr. Strangelove” (1964): As nervous RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, flustered President Merkin Muffley and high-strung presidential adviser/nuclear strategist Dr. Strangelove. (Until shortly before shooting, he was also set for Slim Pickens’ part of Texas bomber Major “King” Kong.)
“Undercovers Hero” (1975): As six different parts, including the President of France and Adolf Hitler, in this disastrous WWII-set sex comedy.
“The Prisoner of Zenda” (1979): In a whippin’-spoof version of the Anthony Hope swashbuckler classic, as Rudolph IV and V, rightful Ruritanian kings, and their Cockney cabbie double Syd.
EDDIE MURPHY
What makes Murphy so good? Why can he so delightfully fool us in “Coming to America” or triumph as Klump after Klump? As one of the “Saturday Night Live” parade of sketch artists, Murphy could always play a ton of people and pick up surface characteristics with lightning ease. Like Sellers, he has an uncanny ability with accents, shapes and personalities. He immerses himself in parts so completely, you temporarily forget one man is playing them all.
Murphy’s magic
“Coming to America” (1988): As African Prince Akeem, Clarence the Barber and elderly customer Saul.
“The Nutty Professor” (1996): As beneficently plump college professor Sherman Klump, his lean-mean, lady-killing alter-ego Buddy Love, rockin’ TV diet guru Lance Perkins, and Papa, Mama, Grandma and Ernie Klump.
“Nutty Professor II: The Klumps” (2000): The Klumps, again. Not a very good movie, but a virtuoso turn by Murphy.
MULTIPLE ROLES
ONE ACTOR
Jerry Lewis: In “The Nutty Professor” (1963), as geeky Professor Julius Kelp and his Hyde-like other self, Dino-esque swinger Buddy Love; in “The Family Jewels” (1965), as kind chauffeur Willard Woodward and the six weirdly diverse uncles of child heiress Donna Peyton (Donna Butterworth); in “Three on a Couch” (1966), as Christopher Pride, boyfriend of preoccupied psychiatrist Janet Leigh, disguising himself four times to fool her patients.
Buster Keaton in “The Playhouse” (1921): As every member of cast and audience at a dreamlike minstrel show.
Deborah Kerr in “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp” (1945): As three beautiful redheads whom the crusty Blimp meets and loves.
Alec Guinness in “Kind Hearts and Coronets” (1949): As the eight luckless D’Ascoynes.
Fernandel in “The Sheep Has Five Legs” (1954): As a cantankerous old French vintner and his long-absent quintuplet sons.
Shirley MacLaine in “Woman Times Seven” (1967): As seven variations on the eternal feminine, acting against seven different leading men.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus in innumerable silly roles in “Monty Python and The Holy Grail” (1975), “Life of Brian” (1979) and “The Meaning of Life” (1983).
Meg Ryan in “Joe Versus the Volcano” (1990): As three women who encounter doomed Joe (Tom Hanks).
Mike Myers in “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” (1997) and “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” (1999): As “Yeah, Baby” swinging spy Powers, bald super-villain Dr. Evil and (in “Shagged”) ultra-huge Scottish heavy Fat B.
Ralph Fiennes in “Sunshine” (2000): As three generations of the Hungarian Sonnenschein family, living through Imperialism, Nazism and Communism.
MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES
ONE ACTOR, SPLIT ROLES OR PERSONALITIES
Danny Kaye in “Wonder Man” (1945): As timid bookworm Edwin Dingle, possessed by the soul of his rollicking comedian twin brother Buzzy Ballew, after Buzzy is slain by gangsters.
Joanne Woodward in “The Three Faces of Eve” (1957): As repressed housewife Eve White and her alter-egos, sex-crazed Eve Black and sensible Jane.
Tony Randall in “The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao” (1964): As mysterious Dr. Lao and the six mythological creatures he becomes as his circus visits a troubled Old West town.
Sally Field in “Sybil” (1976): As the 17 separate personalities of disturbed Sybil, patient of psychiatrist Joanne Woodward.
Steve Martin in “All of Me” (1984): As befuddled L.A. attorney Roger Cobb, possessed by the wandering soul of deceased rich client Edith Atwater (Lily Tomlin).
Jim Carrey in “Me, Myself & Irene” (2000): As good goofy cop Charlie Baileygates and his bad batty alter-ego Hank.
ALL-TIME CHAMPION
Rolf Leslie played 27 parts in “60 Years a Queen” (1913).
TWINS
Olivia de Havilland in “The Dark Mirror” (1946): As Terry and Ruth Collins, good and evil twins who get mixed up in murder.
Bette Davis in “A Stolen Life” (1946), as Kate and Pat Bosworth, good and evil twins who get (apparently) mixed up in murder; and in “Dead Ringer” (1964), as Margaret and Edith, good and evil twins who get mixed up in murder.
Jeremy Irons in “Dead Ringers” (1988): As Beverly and Elliot Mantle, good-and-evil twin gynecologists who get mixed up in murder.
Lee Marvin in “Cat Ballou” (1965): As stout-hearted but drunken gunslinger Kid Sheleen and his evil gunman twin, Tim Strawn.
DOUBLES
Maurice Chevalier in “Folies Bergere” (1935): As Baron Fernand Cassini, a rich French aristocrat in hot water, and his double, nightclub singer/impressionist Eugene Charlier.
Edward G. Robinson in “The Whole Town’s Talking” (1935): As meek hardware company clerk Arthur Ferguson Jones and his vicious gangster double, Killer Manion.
Ronald Colman and Stewart Granger in “The Prisoner of Zenda” (1938 and 1952): As intrepid vacationer Rudolf Rassendyl and his troubled double, Rudolf V, beleaguered heir to the Ruritanian throne, in the two straight versions of the Anthony Hope classic.
Charlie Chaplin in “The Great Dictator” (1940): As a timid Jewish barber and his dictator double, Adenoid Hynkel, Der Phooey of Tomania.
Don Ameche in “That Night in Rio” (1941): As Baron Duarte, a rich Rio aristocrat in hot water, and his double, nightclub singer Larry Martin.
Danny Kaye in “On the Riviera” (1951): As Henri Duran, famed French aviator in hot water, and his double, nightclub clown/singer Jack Martin.
Jack Lemmon in “The Great Race” (1965): As mustachioed, black-clad villain cross-continent racer Professor Fate and his wacko double, the prancing King of Carpania.
QUADRUPLES
Michael Keaton in “Multiplicity” (1996): As Doug Kinney, an over-extended Pasadena construction boss who clones himself three times, with dire results to his marriage and sanity.
TRANSFERENCE
CHARACTERS WHO SWAP PERSONALITIES OR SOULS
Gerard Philipe and Michel Simon in “Beauty of the Devil” (1952): As Faust and Mephisto in Rene Clair’s version of Goethe’s eternal cautionary fable.
John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in “Face/Off” (1997): As Sean Archer and Castor Troy, a gutsy FBI agent and a psycho crook who wind up in each other’s bodies.
JEKYLL & HYDE
AND CLOSE RELATIONS
John Barrymore, Fredric March and Spencer Tracy in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1920, 1932 and 1941): Three great actors played Robert Louis Stevenson’s good-and-evil split personality doctor (Tracy largely without makeup or effects).
Jim Carrey in “The Mask” (1994): As dweeby bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss and his jade-faced Tex Avery-style monster alter-ego The Mask.
BEST MULTIPLE ROLE PLAYERS
Peter Sellers & Eddie Murphy.
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Who is your favorite multiple role player? Send to ctc-arts@@tribune.com
