Alda

So when Odenkirk was offered the role in this production he jumped at the chance to step into the shoes worn by Jack Lemmon, Alan Alda and Al Pacino.

One reason the show keeps coming back is that there’s plenty of scenery to chew for the top-flight actors — Alda’s co-stars in the 2005 revival included Liev Schreiber and Jeffrey Tambor, while Pacino was joined by Bobby Cannavale and John C. McGinley in 2012.

Emmy winner Alan Alda was nominated for playing Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster, a politician looking to give a monopoly on international travel to Pan Am in “The Aviator”; Thomas Haden Church played a soon-to-be-married man on a road trip to wine country with his friend in “Sideways”; Foxx was also nominated as a taxi driver who picks up a hit man in “Collateral,” and Clive Owen played dermatologist Larry Gray, who was catfished and then caught up in a twisted love polygon in “Closer.”

Tina Fey, who had introduced her upcoming series adaptation of Alan Alda's 1981 movie "The Four Seasons," said, "It’s nice to be here with you all in person. I love Los Angeles and I wanna thank Netflix for this chance to come in from New York and check on my friends."

Alongside a cast that included Jane Fonda, Walter Matthau, Michael Caine, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor and Alan Alda, Smith earned her second Academy Award playing Oscar-loser Diana Barrie, who finds herself among a motley crew of guests staying at a Beverly Hills hotel in Neil Simon’s 1978 “California Suite.”