Crooked mastermind? Dabbled in geopolitics? Connected to an Oliver North-like figure? When I heard the news that Kevin Spacey is set to play Jack Abramoff in a biopic tentatively titled Casino Jack, I immediately thought of Spacey's early breakthrough performance as Mel "only the toes know" Profitt on "Wiseguy." The clips below suffer from all the defects common to late-80s television (and some less common as well), but nonetheless make for an entertaining stroll down memory lane:
Interestingly, Nikki Finke reports that Spacey, who visited with Abramoff in prison a few days ago, first met the eventually disgraced con man back in the early 1990s, when he fashioned himself a Hollywood producer. Imagine the masterpiece Red Scorpion might have been if only those two had hooked up earlier...
--Christopher Orr