[quote]Who’s the biggest former A-list superstar to appear on M,SW as a guest star? Besides Cesar Romero.
R14, I don’t your definition of “A-list superstar” but here are a few big(ish) names that I remember:
Van Johnson, June Allyson, Lynn Redgrave, Martha Raye, Jose Ferer, Jean Simmons, Roddy McDowall, Marsha Hunt, Leslie Nielsen, Lee Meriwether
[quote]* Van Johnson as the inventor of a driverless car that’s mowing people down all over Cabot Cove and June Allyson as the woman who pines for him. Patti D’Arbanville is there too.
[quote]* Jean Simmons as Eudora McVeigh, a mystery writer jealous of Jessica. Eudora is married to Hank Shipton (Ken Howard) who is having an affair with Shelley Fabares who is married to David Hedison. This was a two part episode.
[quote]* Roddy McDowall as the author of a book about a witch burned at the stake in Cabot Cove some odd years ago, Dee Wallace Stone is a librarian distantly related to the witch and Bill Maher is something like a PR agent for McDowall. McDowall was also in another episode that I don’t like very much.
[quote]* Leslie Nielsen was in two episodes, in one he’s a shady ex-boyfriend of Jessicas searching for sunken treasure in Cabot Cove, in the other he’s a cruise ship captain and Jessica pretends to be drunk.
[quote]* Martha Raye and Eddie Bracken as patients at the Texas hospital Jessica is sent to after she’s knocked over at the airport, Kevin McCarthy is a lawyer who wants her to sue the airport.
[quote]* Lynn Redgrave as Jessica’s cousin who trains horses for a man who dies and leaves everything to his dog. Cathryn Damon is one of the deceased’s flaky daughters and Dean Jones is an estate lawyer who rides a bicycle.
[quote]* Marsha Hunt as Elvira, an elderly woman with arthritis who rents a room to a hairy foreigner (Paul Benedict) who only pretends to be foreign. John Astin is a realtor turned sheriff of Cabot Cove and Parker Stevenson is a travel writer who drinks scotch, eats butter and pretends to be drunk.
[quote]* Jose Ferer as a hypnotist at a Lake Tahoe hotel owned by Robert Loggia. Loggia hates Ferer because he slept with his wife (Michelle Phillips) and Ferer ends up dead in a room full of reporters under hypnosis. Diana Canova and the guy who was Jackie’s boyfriend Gary on Roseanne are there too.
[quote]* Tony Dow is a guy allergic to cats and married to Colleen Camp in an episode where a bedridden Jessica hears a plot to kill someone because her phone lines are crossed. Seth gives her a medic alert necklace, Grady brings her soup and a man is murdered.
[quote]* Anne Meara as Seth’s sister Winnie who takes phenobarbital for an ulcer and has just left her husband Elmo, Donnelly Rhodes is the P.I. Elmo hired to follow her. Henry Gibson is Elmo’s pharmacist brother who shows up with Elmo, their half brother and his wife and then someone is murdered. Colleen Camp is a wannabe deputy. This is one of my favorite episodes.
[quote]* Lee Meriwether as an innkeeper on a lake near Cabot Cove with John Astin as the realtor trying to sell her the property, Lauren Tewes as the married woman who's hot for Meriwether’s brother and the guy who was the priest on MASH as a birdwatcher.
[quote]* Rue McClanahan the librarian and her professor husband Larry Linville are on a bus with Jessica, Amos, pregnant Linda Blair, retired mailman David Wayne, a jewelry salesman, a recently released criminal, Linda Blair’s dark haired husband and a sailor - I think I may be forgetting someone. This is one of my favorite episodes.
There are other episodes that feature bigger superstars than the last few people I mentioned but they’re episodes I don’t like. Oh, and formatting on this site sucks so I post lists in quote format because it looks better.
I tried to find the intro for "Murder Takes the Bus" but the best I could do is this quick summary.
