10 Actors Who Played The Same Character In Completely Different Movies
3. Ralph Bellamy & Don Ameche - Randolph & Mortimer Duke
The Characters: Randolph & Mortimer Duke
The Movies: Trading Places and Coming to America
In John Landis’ 1983 comedy Trading Places, Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche play a pair of scheming super-rich brothers who conspire to switch the lives of their privileged soon-to-be great-nephew-in-law Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) and street hustler Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) in a Prince and the Pauper-style set-up for their own amusement.
Winthorpe and Valentine soon figure out what’s going on, however, and hatch a plot that culminates in Randolph and Mortimer Duke losing a massive $394 million and falling from financial grace.
In a brief cameo in Landis’ 1988 comedy Coming to America we learn what became of the now destitute brothers Duke when wealthy African prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy again in a role unrelated to his Trading Places character) walks by them panhandling homeless on the streets of New York City and gives them a very generous wad of cash.
Funnily enough, the pair don’t seem to notice that Prince Akeem bears a striking resemblance to the man who caused their downfall a few years earlier. Strange that.