But the best of TV's "scene stealers" live up to the nickname, perhaps none more than two currently coaxing the spotlight their way: Becki Newton and Michael Urie, supporting players on ABC's Ugly Betty, which wraps its first season at 7 p.m. today on Denver's 7.
Newton's Amanda is the magazine's receptionist, who looks down on the less fashionable Betty. "I was just thinking about you," Amanda said in a recent episode while doodling a picture of Betty, depicting her with a massive unibrow. After Betty departs, Amanda remarks, "They're even bigger than I remember," doodling with renewed ferociousness.
"We should hit it with a bat and see if candy falls out," Marc said when Betty began working at Mode and dressed in traditional Mexican garb. Amanda and Marc are best friends who live to torment Betty. In real life, Newton and Urie have bonded since meeting on the Betty pilot.
"I generally don't go two feet without her," Urie said at a party in January while standing about 10 feet from where Newton was sitting. "I've probably talked to her four times today. We're, like, totally besties.
" Friendship aside, that's where most fictional and real similarities end. Before her casting in Ugly Betty, Newton - who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in European history - said she generally played "wholesome nice people." Urie, who initially was a recurring guest star until he was upped to series-regular status in episode No.
14, has a degree in acting from the Juilliard School of Drama. The Dallas native has extensive theater credits in Shakespearean roles. Now he's playing the comic foil on Betty.
"What's likable about him is he loses all the time," Urie said. "When you play the villain in a comedy, you have to get foiled every week." Urie said sometimes his Betty scenes are small, but he doesn't care if they're showcases or a cameo because they always seem to make an impression.
"Becki and I, we're no fools. We're definitely trying to steal every scene we can, but you can't steal anything if there's not something there already, and that's America and Eric and Vanessa, the beacons of the show. If they weren't so great and perfect, we wouldn't have anything to steal from them.
" Barney Fife (Don Knotts): It was called The Andy Griffith Show, but Griffith was smart enough to step out of the way, play the straight man and allow Knotts to get laughs as TV's most hapless, nervous lawman. Fonzie (Henry Winkler): Originally a supporting character, the Fonz didn't just steal scenes, he stole the whole show. While Happy Days star Ron Howard was generous with the spotlight, he balked when the network wanted to change the title to Fonzie's Happy Days in season two.
J.J. Evans (Jimmie Walker): Whenever J.
J. appeared to spout his catchphrase ("Dy-no-mite!"), there certainly appeared to be Good Times, except among other cast members, who felt the character was a poor role model for young black viewers.
Niles Crane (David Hyde Pierce): Fussier and more prim than even the uptight title character on Frasier, Niles offered a mix of sweet innocence and droll snobbery that charmed viewers for years. Frank Barone (Peter Boyle): Frank was a man of few words, but the words he did speak had maximum comic effect. Karen and Jack (Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes): The forerunners to Ugly Betty's Amanda and Mark, the outrageous antics of this belly-bumping pair often stole the spotlight from the title characters on Will Grace.
Kenneth the page (Jack McBrayer): The ever-optimistic innocent is content to be an NBC page with no real ambitions on 30 Rock even though network executive Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) declares, "In five years we'll all be either working for him or dead by his hand.
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