Watching Temple Of Doom the other day, and I was pretty shocked at one scene. Towards the beginning, Indy has just escaped Club Obi Wan and is on his way to the airplane with the diamond he’s just stolen. He has a brief conversation with a British military guy who had arranged the last minute flight. Upon hearing the military guy’s voice, I glanced up and was shocked to see that it was Dan Aykroyd. The camera is a wide shot, so you barely even see him, and that’s his only scene in the movie.
I thought this was rather odd - he was plenty famous at the time just a year or so removed from Trading Places, Ghostbusters was a year away, and this was a few years removed from his last collaboration with Spielberg - 1941 - so it wasn’t like it was some sort of career move.
Got me thinking - what other cameos from famous actors can you recall where it seemed like kind of a lark? The only two that come to mind are Christian Slater in a small scene in Star Trek VI, b/c he was a Star Trek fan, and Glenn Close unnrecognizable in Hook.
George Harrison is not an actor, but I know he had a mini-appearance in The Life of Brian (one of the Monty Python’s gang called George’s financing of the movie “the world’s most expensive theater ticket.”)
Richard Dreyfuss happened to be on the set of the filming of The Sentinel (1977), and can be seen in a brief passing shot early in the film.
In one that’s kinda weird, in The Hospital (1971), Barnard Hughes is listed in the opening credits. The first time you see him, though, he’s playing a surgeon. However. . . that’s not the role that he “really” plays. He’s wearing a hairpiece, and a fake mustache while playing the surgeon. It’s a mystery as to why, as it’s clear from watching the movie that that and his “actual” character are different people.
He wasn’t a famous actor, but Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s role in Airplane! always strikes me as an odd decision for the famously shy, hermit-like basketball player.
Aykroyd had a role as a naval officer in 2001’s Pearl Harbor that if not a cameo certainly was very minor; any actor could have played it.
Tyler Perry’s cameo as a Star Fleet big shot in the Star Trek reboot had a lot of “is that who I think it is? And why?” reactions from audiences.
Cyril Cusack, a renowned stage and film actor, was in Harold and Maude for about 5 seconds. He played Glaucus, an ice sculptor for whom Maude was posing nude. In the novelization Glaucus had a larger role so I’m thinking he may have had some deleted on screen time.
Frank Thornton, bk4 Captain Peacock on Are You Being Served? and its follow ups, had a “don’t blink or you’ll miss him” moment in Gosford Park. He played the butler of Maggie Smith’s character and appears in maybe 10 seconds; if he has a line it’s something like “the car’s ready madame”.
It was Star Trek Voyager. Shame - would have been more interesting to give him a speaking role on DS:9. The show played with a lot of themes that he would have had an interesting perspective on.
The Star Trek franchise attracts quite a few cameos: seven years after he directed The Usual Suspects, Bryan Singer appeared very briefly in Star Trek: Nemesis.
I was a little surprised to see Robert Duvall in 1978’s *Invasion of the Body Snatchers *(which also has a cameo from Kevin McCarthy, but that one makes a little more sense).
Actually that wasn’t so strange. Prior to his appearance in Airplane!, Kareem had the public image of being cold, stand-offish, and fan unfriendly. His role in the movie did a lot to improve his image.
Cate Blanchett in Hot Fuzz. Not only is she uncredited, but you don’t even see her face.
Mel Gibson in Father’s Day. He just shows up for no reason in particular in a cameo.
Joseph Cotten in Touch of Evil. He happened to be on the set one day, and his old friend Welles had him show up in one of the crowd scenes (he does get a closeup).
My favorite is the movie The List of Adrien Messenger. It is filled with cameos but all the famous actors had heavy make-up applied and were not revealed until the end of the film. The list includes Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, and Frank Sinatra.
Other oldies for me include Sean Connery popping up as King Richard in Costner’s version of Robin Hood, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope showing up as spectators in the crowd in The Greatest Show On Earth, Hitchcock in every film he made, and the handful of real politicos in Dave.
Frank Oz and Steven Spielberg both have small roles in The Blues Brothers. Oz is the guy at the prison reading the inventory of Jake’s belongings, and Spielberg is the clerk at the end who takes their payment for the taxes on the orphanage.
Airplane! is a pretty direct remake/ripoff of Zero Hour (watch it sometime; whole patches of dialog are lifted intact from the original). The co-pilot in Zero Hour was also played by a pro athlete; I think it was Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch.
There were also real life politicians and celebrity lawyers who had cameos in Pacino/Reeves/Theron movie Devil’s Advocate, most notably then Senator Al D’Amato (R-NY). I wondered at the time if they knew they they were playing associates and party guests of Satan.