Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#18288
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Harvey Korman represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 38 years in, and Harvey is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Harvey Korman appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Harvey. Blazing Saddles is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, comedy, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Brian Levant, Steve Binder, Mel Brooks and others, Harvey Korman helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Blazing Saddles (1974) as Hedley Lamarr · High Anxiety (1977) as Dr. Charles Montague · The Man Called Flintstone (1966) as Chief Mountmore / Additional Voices (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #18288 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1962–2000
Career length
38 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Blazing Saddles
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Blazing Saddles
Most frequent director
Brian Levant
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Brian Levant
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.5
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1960s
6.3 average MV
The 1960s are where the work and the material meet. The Man Called Flintstone, Gypsy — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1960s
6.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1960s
6.4
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1960s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Man Called Flintstone, Gypsy.
Most productive era
1970s
3 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1960s | 1970s | 1990s | 2000s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.31 film | — | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.32 films | 6.82 films | 6.02 films | 4.81 film |
| Romance | — | — | — | 4.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1962Gypsy
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Phil (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1974Blazing Saddles
7.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2000The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
The current state of the argument, as Colonel Slaghoople.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
8 of 8 films
as Hedley Lamarr
Directed by Mel Brooks
as Dr. Charles Montague
Directed by Mel Brooks
as Colonel Slaghoople
Directed by Brian Levant
as President
Directed by Brian Levant
as Ali / Dicabird / Blossom's Adopted Doll Son Ali
Directed by Brian Levant
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Hedley Lamarr
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Hedley Lamarr gives Harvey Korman a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dr. Charles Montague
High Anxiety (1977)
Performance score6.6
High Anxiety asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Charles Montague is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Colonel Slaghoople
The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000)
Performance score6.5
The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Colonel Slaghoople is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
President
Jingle All the Way (1996)
Performance score6.5
Jingle All the Way asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. President is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Hedley Lamarr
Start here. Blazing Saddles is the clearest statement of what Harvey Korman does — accessible, 93 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Harvey at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
High Anxiety (1977)
Same director as Blazing Saddles, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Flintstones (1994)
Keeps the comedy register of High Anxiety but asks for a colder reading of it.
Jingle All the Way (1996)
Same director as The Flintstones, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000)
Same director as Jingle All the Way, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Brian Levant
Director
3 films together
Notably Jingle All the Way
Mel Brooks
Director
2 films together
Notably Blazing Saddles
Mervyn LeRoy
Director
1 film together
Notably Gypsy
William Hanna
Director
1 film together
Notably The Man Called Flintstone
Steve Binder
Director
1 film together
Notably The Star Wars Holiday Special
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Brian Levant
Director
3 films together · 5.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Jingle All the WayMel Brooks
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Blazing SaddlesWilliam Hanna
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Man Called FlintstoneMervyn LeRoy
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GypsySteve Binder
Director
1 film together · 4.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Star Wars Holiday SpecialSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Blazing Saddles
as Hedley Lamarr
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Man Called Flintstone
as Chief Mountmore / Additional Voices (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Blazing Saddles
as Hedley Lamarr
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Gypsy
as Phil (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Blazing Saddles
as Hedley Lamarr
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Harvey Korman has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
38 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
7 catalogue titles in comedy, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
Blazing Saddles
as Hedley Lamarr
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
High Anxiety
as Dr. Charles Montague
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
as Colonel Slaghoople
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
High Anxiety
as Dr. Charles Montague
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Blazing Saddles
as Hedley Lamarr
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Blazing Saddles
as Hedley Lamarr
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Man Called Flintstone
as Chief Mountmore / Additional Voices (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Star Wars Holiday Special
as Chef Gormaanda / Amorphian Instructor / Krelman
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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