David James Elliott is still very much around, but his career has kind of hit a plateau now and then as he’s been climbing through the years and then just marching along trying to stay relevant like a lot of other folks. Thankfully he’s found a way to do that but it would almost seem like some of his best roles are behind him, though hopefully that’s not the case and we’ll see some real magic coming up eventually. There are always shows and movies coming out that could use a face we haven’t seen a lot of in a while and the hope is that we might see the perfect person for the perfect part. His story is a little bit interesting at least since it plays out as a kind of cautionary tale that turns into a success story and then continues onward as his career started to take shape the longer he stuck around.
When he was younger he actually quit high school thinking that he was going to reach fame and fortune with the band he was playing with at the time. When that didn’t happen however he made his way back to school and applied himself once more to gaining an education. It’s always great to have dreams and to push yourself to reach new limits but in high school the average person won’t just up and become a rock star, a famed musician, or even a Hollywood star overnight. That kind of fame isn’t the norm and it’s certainly not always something that lasts since the more someone grows and develops the more things tend to happen that might change their mind, their attitude, and their outlook on life. Or, worse than that, people will get bored with them if they do become famous and what little popularity they had going in will up and vanish like a puff of dust in the wind. It’s a good thing to be sure that David’s dreams were unfortunately dashed back in high school, since it seems likely that he wouldn’t have enjoyed the level of success he’s had in his career to date.
His real name is David William Smith, and the only reason he changed it was that there was another actor with the name David Smith and he didn’t want anyone to keep getting him confused with someone else. That makes sense right? It didn’t take him long to hit his stride as he started out on Melrose Place and then made guest appearances in shows like Seinfeld and a few others before he moved on to J.A.G. He’s been an active celebrity for a while and he knows how things work around the industry for the most part, which could be why we don’t see enough of him that often. Some actors tend to get burned out, others get disillusioned with job or the lifestyle, and some just need a quiet moment now and again. A lot of us might state that it’s not as though they have a hard life because of the fame and the fortune, but when you really think about it they might not always be doing the heavy lifting but actors do have a rather difficult schedule at times since they do tend to work long, sometimes very long, days and nights in order to get the right shots and make sure everything is the way it should be.
So to be honest the fact that he skips around from show to show at times isn’t a big deal, and it doesn’t mean that he’s gone anywhere. It could be he’s waiting for that one big role that will put him back where he wants to be or he could be happy with the pace things are going now. Honestly there’s no way of knowing without asking the man and unless he’s willing to consent to an interview a lot of people just won’t know. But what we do know is that he can act, and so long as he can do that he’s definitely going to be worth keeping around.
Trumbo
Why this clip out of so many? Well that’s easy, it’s not just any man that can play the Duke, John Wayne. The story of Trumbo is a biographical piece about none other than Dalton Trumbo, a man that was blacklisted thanks to his Communist ties and made to be an example of what would happen to those that didn’t cooperate with the American government when they said jump. In this clip however, Elliott plays John Wayne about as well as anyone possibly could, which is to say that with just a little more inflection and sneering he might have been perfect. But what we got was still as close to the mark as anyone’s ever come.
He’s still around, and thankfully so.
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