Don Keefer in Soylent Green?

This how it happens.  You're watching a movie for the 10th or 20th time, and something sets off a flash of recognition.  I think it's those blue eyes this time, and the jowls.  But no verification in the credits.  Is it him?  Is it really him?

Some of these guys and gals were in so many shows, it's like "try to not recognize them".  They were working actors, their agents would call, and boom, a few bucks for 5 minutes on Rockford or Petticoat Junction.  

Meet Don Keefer: about 4 gigs a year in TV and movies, for 50 years.  Mission Impossible, Gunsmoke, Columbo, The Waltons, Green Acres, The FBI, Bewitched, etc.

One of those competent, anonymous background guys, in the next level down from the star.

Actors such as Harlan Warde, HM Wynant, Doodles Weaver...wait a minute, how'd he get in there-

Mr Keefer's name is easy to remember, because he was the court stenographer in The Caine Mutiny, 

where Fred MacMurray plays a character named Keefer.
Unfortunately, they're not in the same shot, so we have to imagine it with the help of this re-creation.

Don Keefer did a lot of shows, yet can be pretty hard to spot (thus fufilling the two main criteria for Old TV Guy-dom).  For example, it took years for me to recognize him as the brakeman in Butch Cassidy-

but again the eyes are a giveaway.  And he usually had a mustache.  

Looks a little like Warren Oates.

Mr Keefer lived to be 98, making him one of the oldest Old TV Guys.  
He was married to Catherine MacLeod, a noted Masonite.

 

He wrapped up his career as one of those guys in the 1997 film Liar, Liar, as a panhandler. 
But his main claim to fame (I think you Twilight Zone fans might already know-)

He was Jack-in-the-Box Guy on Twilight Zone: "It's a Good Life"!  Beat that, Harlan Warde! 

 

 

As for this week's recognition-call:  

 

First, let's appreciate that it's a true unconfirmed sighting; Soylent Green isn't in his IMDB credits, and googling "Don Keefer Soylent Green" turns up something for the notes*.  But no known association between him and the film.  We're starting totally in the dark.  

 

If he was in Soylent Green, maybe he just wandered onto the set that day.  (More likely, an old buddy gave him the tip-- Brock Peters?  Edward G Robinson?)  But if, if...let's go to the tape.

 

Similar nose, lower lip, similar expression on mouth, blue eyes.  Unknown Guy has bushier eyebrows.

Here's the profile.  Ears are loaded with character.

Mr Keefer seems to have a distinctive structure in his upper ear, a kind of cartilaginous mass in the inferior crus where it joins the helix.  (Those two little ridges in the upper left.)  So does Unknown Guy.  That's pretty close.  Their ears, in fact, seem to be identical.  And the nose and chin are pretty similar.  And if those are Unknown Guy's real eyebrows, I'm David Ferrie.

Well, it ain't William Demarest.  It's just, in this game, one should always err on the side of caution.  But I think the similarities are strong enough to say, good possibility it's him.  Working actor and all.  There'd have to be a Don-Keefer-looking-guy I'm not aware of.  (We'll discuss look-alike Old TV Guys at another time.)  I'll give it a strong "possible".  

-----
* While writing up this post, I was confronted with a gross example of AI erroneously identifying character actors.  Will have more to say about that later, too.