TCDB Tracking: Actors with Iowa Connections

 When I started collecting back in the day, it was exclusively baseball and football cards.  Basketball cards moved in a little bit later, especially with the 1992 season containing the Shaq and Zo rookies.  Everything else was junk.  Hockey, racing, and soccer were not readily available, and I had low interest at the time.  But Hollywood cards were complete junk to me.  That was the stuff kids collect.  Alf cards, He-Man cards, A-Team card were not worth the cardboard they were printed on.

How wrong I was!

The stage I'm at in life, I'd love to see more things represented on cardboard.  I'd love to see a year end set that captures the pop culture.  Ted Lasso cards, Shang-Chi cards, Adele cards, Disney World 50th cards, Succession cards, anything that capture the year 2021.  Of course, I'd love to see these in a Topps like set, so that it was available in reasonably priced blasters, but a person can dream.

Regardless, since I wasn't collecting these cards, my collection has a big hole in it for Iowa Connections.  I don't have the cards that I collected as a kids, plus its hard to trade for them when you don't have any others to trade.  So, in today's post you'll see some pretty poor collection numbers.

Complicating things further, you'll see someone like Ashton Kutcher, an actor you probably recognize, whom I have zero cards of and likely won't for a while as his only cards now are autographs.  (No That 70s Show cards)  In fact, many of the actors on this list I won't have any cards of because they are either all autographs or are older that 1960 and I just don't find many of those when flipping through dime boxes :) 

Let's start with the collections that I have some cards of.  Which is a whole 5 collections.  (Yikes!)

Gene Hackman

4 / 41 (9.8%)

47th place (25 cards back of 1st)

Danai Gurira

3 / 221 (9.8%)

??th place (?? cards back of 1st)

Elijah Wood

1 / 129 (0.8%)

24th place (21 cards back of 1st)

Johnny Carson

1 / 28 (3.6%)

8th place (2 cards back of 1st)

Jeremy Piven

1 / 39 (2.6%)

1st place 

Some notes:

Actor cards are difficult to track.  Gene Hackman played Lex Luthor, and some of the cards are listed as Lex Luther, not Gene Hackman.  But you can't search Lex Luthor, because you get every version of that character.  

Often, the cards you find of an actor are unrelated to the art you know them from.  My Jeremy Piven card is a First Pitch card, not Entourage.  Gene Hackman cards are mostly Superman cards.  There are tons of actors listed below that their only cards are from a guest stint on Star Trek or The Twilight Zone.

First place!  On Jeremy Piven. With 1 card.  Once again I will ignore all logic and declare that I have the definitive Jeremy Piven collection.  

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Next, here's the list of celebrities I definitely should have cards of and definitely don't.  To shorten this section, it'll be name and number of attributed cards, and maybe the things you should know them from.

John Wayne - 349 (The Searchers)

Gary Cooper - 182 (High Noon)

Walter Koenig - 179 (Star Trek)

Jerry Mathers - 110 (Leave it to Beaver)

Lori Petty - 72 (A League of Their Own)

Gene Wilder - 70 (Young Frankenstein)

Tom Arnold - 58 (True Lies)

Brandon Routh - 55 (Superman Returns)

Jason Momoa - 52 (Aquaman/Game of Thrones)

Donna Reed - 48 (It's a Wonderful Life)

Kate Mulgrew - 46 (Star Trek: Voyager)

Annabeth Gish : 31 (X-Files)

Cloris Leachman - 19 (Last Picture Show)

Robin Lord Taylor - 14 (Gotham)

Fred Grandy - 11 (Love Boat)

Terry O'Quinn - 7 (Lost)

Michael Emerson - 6 (Lost)

Jeremy Davies - 2 (Lost)

Tony Danza - 5 (Who's The Boss)

Lara Flynn Boyle - 3 (Twin Peaks)

Ben Foster - 2 (X-Men)

Ashton Kutcher - 1 (That 70's Show)

Some more notes:

I'm leaving off a ton of actors here, but these are the biggest names.  There are the David Yost's (the Blue Power Ranger) and Hill Harper (CSI: NY) types, but I'll be here all day if I list them out.

Yes, I bunched the three Lost actors together.

There have been two Supermen from Iowa. Routh in Superman Returns and George Reeves who portrayed him on TV in the 50s.

How do I not have a John Wayne???

The numbers are going to be short on a bunch of these actors, especially Jason Momoa (Thrones/Aquaman/Stargate), Kate Mulgrew (Star Trek), Robin Lord Taylor (Gotham), and the Lost trio.