Jon Hamm Made His Feature Film Debut In An Underrated Clint Eastwood Drama

"Mad Men" was not a television ratings sensation when it debuted on July 19, 2007, nor was it the rapturously praised critics' darling it would become over subsequent seasons. While it wasn't under-promoted, AMC was best known at the time as the anti-TCM, i.e. an airer of popular contemporary films broken up by commercials. It was a big hit with dads craving casual weekend viewing from the comfort of their couch.

While I was aware of "Mad Men" during its first season, I didn't feel compelled to add it to my Peak TV diet of "The Sopranos," "The Wire," "The Shield," and a handful of other shows. But a few months later, when I saw the season 1 DVD marked way down at a Barnes & Noble, I bought it on a whim. If nothing else, I'd probably enjoy a stylish drama set in the New York City advertising world of the 1960s. Of the cast, I was only aware of January Jones, Vincent Kartheiser, and, of course, Robert Morse, but it took me only 10 minutes of the first episode for me to fall in love with the entire ensemble. And it made me wonder where the hell Hollywood had been hiding Jon Hamm for all these years.

Hamm's Don Draper was far from a lovable cad, but he was a powerfully seductive philanderer who looked spectacular in a suit and made you wish you could, if nothing else, carry yourself with such stunning èlan. Draper's other qualities — the womanizing, the alcoholism, the smoking — were not so attractive.

Nevertheless, Hamm came off as one of the handsomest men on the planet, which brings us back to the question of his discovery. How did he make it all the way to the age of 36 before breaking out as the star he was born to be? Turns out, I wasn't looking for Hamm in the right places.

Hamm made his official television debut 28 years ago as, appropriately, "Gorgeous Guy at Bar" in "Ally McBeal," but he didn't make his way to the big screen until he had the honor of being directed by Clint Eastwood in 2000. You might snicker that the film in question is "Space Cowboys," but have you watched it recently (or watched it even once)? A movie about four out-to-pasture astronauts who get tasked with repairing an old Soviet satellite before it crashes into the Earth, "Space Cowboys" offers the pleasure of watching then-aging stars Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner, and Donald Sutherland banter and bicker as they figure out how to keep the satellite — which only Eastwood's character, Frank Corvin, has the expertise to repair — from plummeting through the planet's atmosphere.

If you're tempted to watch this for Hamm, make sure you're paying close attention during the scene where a young thrill seeker arrives at an airfield looking for a pilot to give him a hellaciously scary ride full of flips and barrel rolls on his birthday. Hamm plays the pilot who informs the boy that he and his fellow aviators don't do that kind of flying because it's too dangerous and filled with legal peril. The boy asks if they know of any pilot who might fulfill his wish, at which point Hamm's character and the others over to an older pilot who's killing time reading a fishing magazine. It's Jones as Hawk Hawkins, a former test pilot and astronaut, and he's more than up for helping this kid celebrate his birthday in terrifying style.

Hamm's movie career took a while to catch fire, but he immediately found steady work on television in the shows "Providence" and "The Division." If I were more of a TV guy, I would've likely been well-acquainted with Hamm back in 2000. So, really, no one had been hiding him. I just wasn't paying attention to the medium that wound up making him a household name.