No Overnight Success

(CBS) He has a name no one can pronounce, a career no one can match and until his current role in "Good Night and Good Luck," David Strathairn has been America's best actor you never heard of.

CBS Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith informs him that the people Strathairn works with describe him as an "actor's actor."

Slightly puzzled, Strathairn responds with a laugh and says that "You'll have to ask them what they actually mean by that. What the hell is an actor's actor?"

Here is the immodest answer. David Strathairn is a poster boy of an actor's actor. But even with supporting roles in more than 70 movies over three decades, he has remained in other actors' shadows.

There was "A League of Their Own" with Tom Hanks or "The River Wild" with Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon. Also, "The Firm" with Tom Cruise.

Strathairn learned his craft as a stage actor and set designer beginning in his student days at Williams College.

"The community of people there was really great," Strathairn says of his time at Williams. "Everybody was focused towards one thing, something that would last however long, and then it's gone. Plus, you could play with power tools, and table saws."

But Strathairn's career really got what it needed last year. He was chosen by actor/director George Clooney to play legendary CBS Newsman Edward R. Murrow in "Good Night and Good Luck." This time, George Clooney took a supporting role as CBS producer Fred Friendly, and Strathairn the lead.

The story is as neat and precise as Strathairn's hair and speech. Murrow risks his reputation by challenging Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of his power in the early 1950s, when the nation was terrorized by McCarthy's communist witch hunts.

"Good Night and Good Luck" is nominated for an Oscar as best picture… and Strathairn as best actor. Being a Hollywood star is the worst role he's had to play.

When Smith notes that Strathairn appears uncomfortable with the limelight, the actor agrees.

"Well, I can't imagine anybody being in their comfort zone at one of those things. It's a gauntlet," Strathairn says.

Yet Strathairn appreciates his brush with success, after spending so long as an unknown.

"This movie is really kind of creating its own 'wow.'Everywhere it goes, it's like this, dust devil, that just creates all this activity around it," the actor explains.

The Murrow role came out of the blue with a phone call from George Clooney. Strathairn says prior to that moment, he had never spoken with Clooney.

"He just cut to the chase," Strathairn says of Clooney. "'I'm gonna make a movie about Edward R. Murrow and I'd like you to think about doing it. We'll send you the script,'" he recalls Clooney saying.

Strathairn's reaction: "Yeah, I was, all of a sudden the room turned to Jello."