Ten Big Stars Who Led Small Screen Movies
By Michael Jones | October 22, 2022
To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, TV movies get no respect. (And yes, Rodney Dangerfield appeared in at least one TV movie: NBC’s 1977 caper Benny and Barney: Las Vegas Undercover.)
Though most made-for-TV films are more National Enquirer than National Board of Review, these entertainment treasures were a staple of network television from the 1960s through the 1990s. They peppered TV schedules with “ripped from the headlines” fare, or “Dang, did you see what this wife did to her ex-husband?!” gossip. And they were vehicles for countless actors—from up-and-coming teen stars to aging Hollywood icons, and everything in between, like leads of hit TV shows looking for extra projects.
And though TV movies are still a dime-a-dozen on streaming platforms and cable networks (Hello, Lifetime!), there’s something special about the TV movies that the big three networks generated that made the genre “must watch television” for the last 35 years of the 20th century.
Here’s a look at 10 famous stars who surprisingly helmed a TV movie (or movies!) in this golden era.
Leslie Nielsen
He won’t let you call him Shirley, but Leslie Nielsen will let you call him a TV movie star. And the reason I’m starting with Leslie: he starred in what many consider to be the first made-for-television movie, 1964’s See How They Run on NBC. Long before he was Lt. Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun, Nielsen starred alongside Jane Wyatt and John Forsythe in a TV thriller about three orphans bound for the U.S. who have knowledge of an international cartel.
Vanna White
If it were a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune the category would be “Title” and the answer would be Goddess of Love, a 1988 made-for-TV movie that saw everyone’s favorite letter turner, Vanna White, inexplicably playing the daughter of Zeus sent down to Earth from the heavens to find her one true love. Camp abounds in this comedy, including that Vanna’s character should be named Aphrodite but is actually named Venus. A favorite line? Vanna’s Venus telling earthlings: “I’m not here for your cold roast chicken. I am here for your love.”
Sandra Bullock
It’s easy to think that Sandra Bullock has been a movie star since day one, with Demolition Man and Speed propelling her to superstardom in the 90s and onwards. But in the late 80s, the future Oscar winner was no stranger to television. She not only starred in the short-lived TV sitcom Working Girl (yes, based off the movie of the same name), but she also got big-time billing in Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, a TV movie on NBC in 1989 that reunited two beloved 70s franchises for one of their many TV movie installments. This was one of Bullock’s first big roles, and she also gets to be bionic!
Denzel Washington
Wilma Rudolph was a 20th century sports legend. One of the fastest runners to ever live, she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympic games. In 1977, NBC aired a made-for-television biopic of this icon that in addition to telling the story of this amazing woman, also gave Denzel Washington his very first acting gig. In Wilma, Washington plays Robert Eldridge, the high school sweetheart and eventual husband of Wilma Rudolph. What’s even more wild? On the set of this movie, Washington met his future wife, Pauletta Washington, who co-starred as Mae Faggs, a fellow sprinter who was teammates with Wilma Rudolph in the 1956 Summer Olympics.
Brad Pitt
Most folks think Brad Pitt got his start as the flirty and horny thief who steals all of Thelma and Louise’s money in Thelma and Louise. But a couple years before that blockbuster film, Pitt was in an even more bleak story (as hard as that might be to imagine), NBC’s A Stoning in Fulham County, as a teen belonging to a rowdy clique that hurls rocks at an Amish family and kills their infant son. I suppose to his credit, Pitt’s character (Teddy) does show some remorse. Though he’s also only in this TV movie for just a few minutes (despite filmmakers putting his now-famous face on all the advertising).
Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey in a TV movie? Allllllllriiighty then! In fact, before his fame blew up, Jim Carrey starred in several made-for-television movies: a few for the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) in the early-to-mid 1980s, and then in a CBS-produced Mike Hammer TV movie in 1989. But if you want to see a very different side of Jim Carrey, check out 1992’s Doing Time on Maple Drive, which aired on FOX and brings family dysfunction to a new level. Carrey plays the alcoholic son of a conservative father figure whose uptightness and severe control problems have the entire family on the brink of chaos. Look for a young Lori Loughlin in this movie as well, and 90s cutie William McNamara (who plays Carrey’s younger brother).
Angela Bassett
I’ve previously noted that one of Angela Bassett’s earliest roles was a guest spot on 80s hit Spenser: For Hire. But before Bassett would go on to score Oscar, Emmy, and Golden Globe nominations in her career, she starred in several TV movies, most notably 1990’s historical epic Challenger. The ABC movie retold the story of the space shuttle disaster, and starred a laundry list of actors: Karen Allen, Barry Bostwick, Joe Morton, Richard Jenkins, and of course Bassett herself.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
The man has delivered some of the most epic lines in movie history. “I’ll be back.” “It’s not a tumor.” “Hasta la vista, baby.” “If it bleeds we can kill it.” But long before he killed Predators, terminated Terminators, or taught Kindergartners, Arnold Schwarzenegger was… Mariska Hargitay’s dad? Sure was! It was 42 years ago this month in 1980 when CBS premiered The Jayne Mansfield Story, starring Loni Anderson as Jayne and Arnold Schwarzenegger as her husband Mickey Hargitay. It’s pure camp, so much so that the TV movie appears in The Official Razzie Movie Guide: Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst as one of the most enjoyably bad movies ever made.
Richard Gere
When you’re in a production of something called Strike Force, it can only be one of two things: a show on Cinemax After Dark, or a TV movie about cops. And sure enough, Richard Gere starred in the latter, a 1975 NBC crime saga about an NYPD detective teaming up with a federal agent and a state trooper to bust up a drug ring. Gere was 25 when this was released, which made him barely eligible to rent a car. Yet he still manages to pull off an ambitious (and maybe slightly arrogant?) crimefighter pretty well.
OTHER Big Screen Legends
Okay, so I’m cheating with this last one and making it more of a potluck of icons. Everyone else on this list starred in TV movies at the start of their career, but these Hollywood legends starred in made-for-television movies at the end of their screen years. Which is yet another thing TV movies are known for, because so many stars of the 1930s-1950s who practically built the entire entertainment industry became reliable TV movie cast members from the 60s-90s. There’s a bunch to choose from, but if you find yourself on Tubi or YouTube wanting to go down a rabbit hole of performances by Hollywood royalty, check these out.
Bette Davis in an Emmy-nominated performance for CBS’s 1979 TV movie Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter. Davis stars alongside Gena Rowlands who plays her daughter in this pre-Terms of Endearment style heart-tugger .
Did you know the United Nations has been involved in producing TV movies? That’s the case with 1966’s The Poppy is Also a Flower, an anti-drug made-for-television movie that premiered on ABC with boatloads of stars, from Rita Hayworth to Angie Dickinson to Yul Brynner and even narration by Grace Kelly .
Nearly two decades after her Psycho scream, Janet Leigh co-starred in a very October-appropriate TV movie, Murder at the World Series. The thriller also stars Bruce Boxleitner in one of his first roles, as a maniacal baseball player out for revenge against the team that cut his career short .
More than 35 years after she should have won an Oscar for Double Indemnity, Barbara Stanwyck became a fixture of TV movies and miniseries. She took home Emmy gold for The Thorn Birds mini-series in 1983, but in the early 1970s she also helmed a Halloween TV movie for ABC, The House That Would Not Die. This one has exorcisms, ghosts from the Revolutionary War, and even a teleplay by the author of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
And of course, a list that starts with Bette Davis by law has to end with Joan Crawford. So here’s a treat: Crawford starred in a 1969 NBC TV movie, Night Gallery, that was broken up into three distinct chapters. Crawford’s segment, titled “Eyes,” is directed by non-other-than a young Steven Spielberg in his directorial debut, and it has the vibes of a killer Edgar Allan Poe short story. Crawford plays a wealthy blind woman named Claudia who finds an indebted gambler to donate his eyes for a controversial surgical transplant procedure that would allow Claudia to see for a few hours. Let’s just say it doesn’t go well!
Want more?
We’ll be talking more made-for-TV movies from the 60s-90s on the third season of the Pop Trash Podcast. Listen in as we uncover a ton of trivia about these infamous guilty pleasures. Whether your jam is vengeful housewives, kitschy comedy, athletic heroism, murder mysteries, holiday family fare, or passionate romance, there’s a TV movie for you. Subscribe to be notified when a new episode drops every two weeks!
An unabashed 80s & 90s pop culture junkie, Michael Jones is a Brooklyn-based writer and co-host of the Pop Trash Podcast.