"I'm not saying John played cowardly tennis, but I think his shot selection has been slightly too erratic.
His mother, Maureen Sayres Van Niel, said the family noticed his talent when he sang "If I Were King of the Forest," as a fifth grader playing the Cowardly Lion.
"It said that there was an open casting call for someone to play Jason Alexander's son in a new TV show, 'Bob Patterson,' " recalled Mr. Guidice, a 17-year-old whose only previous acting experience was playing the Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz" in junior high school.
MacFarlane directed, produced, co-wrote (with Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild) and stars in the film, playing a cowardly sheep farmer who backs out of a gunfight and loses his girl (Amanda Seyfried), only to fall for a mysterious new woman (Charlize Theron) who helps him find his courage but also has some baggage in the form of an outlaw husband (Liam Neeson).
The writer's father, Bert Lahr, played the Cowardly Lion in the movie.
Spall's mum was a hairdresser, his dad was a postman, and he played the Cowardly Lion in a production of The Wizard of Oz at school.
The poet and frequent New Yorker contributor Ogden Nash was one of these, as was Bert Lahr, the actor who played the Cowardly Lion.
Working with Mr. Lahr, the son of Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz" (a character with whom she identifies), was a kind of indirect blessing from on high.
Jeremy Davies, the pale, wispy young actor who starred in the independent film "Spanking the Monkey," and then played the cowardly soldier in "Saving Private Ryan," is the only thing I enjoyed in Steven Soderbergh's science-fiction movie "Solaris".
A stand-up comedian, impressionist and actor who learned his trade in clubs and variety theatres, Roger Kitter took his place in British sitcom history when he played the cowardly Italian officer Captain Alberto Bertorelli in 'Allo 'Allo!, complete with the plumed hat and uniform of that country's Bersaglieri regiments.
