Didn't I See You Before Friday?

In His Girl Friday (1940), Bruce Baldwin is about to lose his girl to the conniving newspaper editor, Walter Burns.

Throughout the movie I kept thinking that Baldwin looked and sounded familiar. However, I could not put my finger on it. Toward the middle of the movie, Burns (Cary Grant) gives Evangeline* (Marion Martin - see Sinners in Paradise, Lady of Burlesque: The G-String Murders, Angel on My Shoulder) directions to help her identify Baldwin to prank. Burns (Grant) says, "He looks like Ralph Bellamy."  I scribbled down a note to look up Ralph Bellamy.

Lo and behold, guess who played the character Bruce Baldwin? None other than Ralph Bellamy. So of course Bruce Baldwin looks like Bellamy. LOL!

Why did Bellamy seem so familiar to me? I knew him as the character Randolph Duke from the movies Trading Places (1983) and Coming to America  (1988). Ralph Bellamy had an extremely long career!

* Evangeline was Louie's blond associate; also referenced as "the albino" by Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell).