I might have brought this up before when it comes to at least one of them, but how often was an actor being cast on the show due to a particular other role they'd played? Not necessarily their actual role in the COLUMBO episode, but just something else they appeared in making someone think of them.

First there's Bradford Dillman. In COMPULSION (a fictionalized version of Leopold and Loeb), he helps commit a kidnapping that was really a murder plot, period. In THE GREENHOUSE JUNGLE, he's the VICTIM of a fake kidnapping that includes murder (except that this one really IS about the ransom). And in COMPULSION, he also does what countless COLUMBO murderers do - he pretends to being trying to help the police solve the case!

Then Brett Halsey. In a movie that's little-known (except as an MST3K episode), called THE GIRL IN LOVERS' LANE, he's accused of murdering a woman after stringing her along. And of course, in DEATH LENDS A HAND, he's the tennis pro who's the best suspect in Lenore's murder for similar reasons.

And there's Gene Barry. He murders his wife in an ALFRED HITHCOCK HOUR called DEAR UNCLE GEORGE (which I think was written by Levinson and Link), and of course he also does it in PRESCRIPTION: MURDER. Even though it's only that OBVIOUS thing that puts the two stories together, it still makes you wonder.

Grant, I know this isn't what you meant, but I can't resist. Watching "Fade Into Murder" the other night, I saw an actor credited as Frank Emmett Baxter play a role exactly the way he played a role in "Lady in Waiting", where he was credited as Frank Baxter.

In both he played the "annoyed executive"---exact same demeanor and facial expressions, except in "Fade Into Murder", no one slapped him down like Beth Chadwick did.

The episodes were five years apart.

I don't recognize him from any of his other work, so I don't know if that was his specialty.

Ray Milland in "Dial M for Murder" and "Columbo: The Greenhouse Jungle". They also managed to cast John Williams in a Season 2 Columbo episode as well.

The senator in Godfather Two and Abigail Mitchell's lawyer - same actor. Same type - important, authoritarian. Many senators were lawyers. Someone mentioned them in a different thread.