Hoop dreams as screen dreams
Sure, it helps to be a very good-looking guy who was once married to Vanessa Williams. But what surely se aled the deal for Rick Fox having a screen career - the former Celtic and Laker has his latest film role in Tyler Perry's "Meet the Browns," which opens Friday - is his having played in the National Basketball Association.
There is something about Hollywood that loves basketball. Long before "Semi-Pro," the new Will Ferrell comedy about the American Basketball Association, there were "Hoosiers," "White Men Can't Jump," "Glory Road," the list goes on.
More interesting, though, there's something about Hollywood that loves basketball players. Is it that they're larger than life, like the movie screen? That their bodies are so visible? The Jack Nicholson-courtside rub-off effect?
Whatever the reason, other players of major sports just don't seem to cut it onscreen. Oh, sure, there's Jim Brown's epic grenade-lobbing sprint in "The Dirty Dozen" or Brett Favre's brief cameo as himself in "There's Something About Mary" (Cameron Diaz chose Ben Stiller over him?). But other than a few blaxploitation roles in the '70s for the likes of Bernie Casey and Fred Williamson, that's about it.
Don't even talk about baseball players.
Ah, but consider the NBA stars who have been in the movies. The Celtics' Ray Allen more than held his own against Denzel Washington in "He Got Game." Michael Jordan had Bugs Bunny for a teammate in "Space Jam." Wilt Chamberlain proved a worthy foe for Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Conan the Destroyer." Shaquille O'Neal's sheer Shaq-ness made the bottle his genie sprang from in "Kazaam" seem all the smaller. Speaking of size, the spectacle of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scrunching his frame into the confines of a copilot's seat in "Airplane!" was an ongoing sight gag unto itself.
And that's not counting Gheorghe Muresan towering over Billy Crystal in "My Giant." Or Julius Erving playing for a team with its own astrologer, Stockard Channing (was Martin Sheen aware of this?), in "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh." Or Alex English in "Amazing Grace and Chuck" - or, speaking of Chucks, Chuck Connors, "The Rifleman" himself, who briefly played for the Celtics before embarking on his long and undistinguished career in TV and movies.
Mark Feeney can be reached at mfeeney@globe.com.
