1. Ronald Reagan - The Killers
Okay, this pick is NOT about politics, so it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, with the Green Party, Tea Party, Lemon Party or whatever party, because Ronald Reagan was an actor before any of that had anything to do with his life. More importantly as far as we're concerned here anyway he was an actor who played mostly good guys throughout all of his nearly thirty years in the business. His most famous role was that of Notre Dame football player George "The Gipper" Gipp in Knute Rockne: All American. No wait, scratch that, that was his second most famous role. His most well-known turn on the silver screen came when he was upstaged by a chimp in Bedtime for Bonzo. Reagan bummed around Hollywood making crap like that for years, and then in 1963 the future POTUS made his last film, The Killers. Originally conceived to be the first made for TV movie, The Killers was deemed too violent for television and instead given a theatrical release (trivia!). The plot of the movie involves a pair of contract killers (the guys from the title, I'll bet), who want to know why their latest mark just stood there and took it like a man instead of running like a punk. Their investigation leads to the future POTUS as mobster Jack Browning (terrible mobster name), and reveals a tale of robbery, betrayal, infidelity, more murder and general bad-guy stuff. Also, Angie Dickinson gets slapped around hard a few times, it's disturbing. Probably had a lot to do with the flick getting rejected by NBC. Two years after the film's release, Reagan was elected Governor of California and then later went on to do that other thing he's famous for doing. You can go out and find The Killers these days, but that wasn't so back when Reagan became President. It's no secret that he wasn't a fan of the film; in fact, he despised it, and while I'm not accusing him of using his considerable political juice to make the film scarce, scuttlebutt does suggest that the movie was not shown again on large or small screens during his presidency, only seeing the light of day again after he left office. Using Executive Privilege to suppress a cinematic misstep? That's hardcore badassery right there. Which nice guy-turned evil roles are your favourite? Let us know in the comments below.