Taentino also turned up on Golden Girls playing one of a group of Elvis impersonators.
Masochistic patient.
One of my favorite show biz anecdotes comes from Harrison Ford (it could be in relation to this role, but I can’t remember).
Harrison Ford is sitting in the office of the head of one of the studios, telling Ford that he (Ford) will never amount to anything because he’s not believable, and doesn’t embody “movie star” type.
The studio head tells Ford that Tony Curtis’ first screen appearance was playing a grocery delivery boy (I think it’s Curtis, anyway).
The studio head says something to the extent of, “when you look at him (Curtis), you just see ‘movie star’.”
Ford looks at him and says, “I thought you were supposed to see ‘grocery delivery boy’.”
I remember hearing that Treat Williams was a Storm Trooper in Return of the Jedi.
Dana Carvey as a mime waiter in This Is Spinal Tap. For the longest time I didn’t know it was him.
“Mime is money!” (Which is not his line, but whatever.)
Jack Nicholson does have a connection to the dentist’s office in the musical remake of Little Shop of Horrors, though: The scary-looking dental implements wielded by Steve Martin in that film were also used by the hack plastic surgeon to transform Jack into The Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman. How cool is that?
Just realized this the other day, in “Mars Attacks” the “redneck brother who joins the army and dies by alien fire when the clip falls out of his gun” was played by none other than Jack Black.
-lv
One day back in 1998 a friend and I popped in a tape of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. One scene in the middle takes place during a high school basketball game. One of the players on Buffy’s team has been turned into a vampire and uses his fangyness to intimidate an opposing player, played by 19-year-old Ben Affleck. He only has one line, and it sounds like it was looped by someone else.
Clint Eastwood plays a lab assistant in Revenge of the Creature, the sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Wasn’t the actor who played Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington from “Welcome Back Kotter” one of them too?
He turns up in the funniest places. I didn’t realize until recently that he was one of the gay ventriloquism students in Cradle Will Rock. Not a bit part, but still a pretty small one.
Ooh, I just thought of another one! In Back to the Furure II, when Michael J. Fox goes into the “Cafe 80s,” two little kids are playing video games. One of them is our future Frodo, Elijah Wood. You have to look fast, though – he’s only on screen for a few seconds. I think it was his first part.
Harrison Ford had a small part in Apocalype Now.
He’s also one of Sean Penn’s brothers in Dead Man Walking.
John Ratzenberger, aka Cliff Clavin, was in The Empire Strikes Back.
Oh, and Nightwatch Trailer, Dana Carvey’s boss in that scene (the one who says, “Mime is money”) is Billy Crystal. And Fran drescher hosts a party for the band.
The Stonehenge prop (the one that the dwarves danced around) was made by Angelica Houston (well, her character did, anyway).
I just saw this last night:
In Ghost Story (1981), Ken Olin, later a star of the TV show thirtysomething, played one of the main characters a a young man.
This game is fun: go to imdb and search for a favorite actor, then scroll down to their first few credited gigs, and see if you can remember them.
In the late 80s, there was a Steve Martin/Jason Robards/Rick Moranis movie called Parenthood with a late teenage Keanu Reeves and an early teenage Joaquin Phoenix (I think he was still Leaf Phoenix back then).
Robert Duvall as Boo Radley, in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Leonard Nimoy was in the movie Them!, about the giant ants. He’s in one scene I think, playing an Army lieutenant in a communications room.
Rob Morrow, who later starred in Northern Exposure was an extra in a Saturday Night Live skit.
I was watching Mahogany (Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Perkins – it’s phenomenally bad) today – Bruce Vilanch appears as a clothing manufacturer who rejects poor Diana’s designs.
I didn’t know he wasnted to be an actor!
What I enjoy is when I’ve seen a movie dozens of times, but not since the actor had become famous. I almost always recognize actors from a bit part I’ve seen them in and follow their careers from that point on, so when it happens it’s quite a hoot. (For example, Kevin Spacey will always be Mel Profit, Melissa George will always be the hooker from Dark City, Tom Hanks was the kid that the Fonz picked on that taught himself karate, etc).
The most recent example of this for me was when I rewatched Manhunter a couple weeks ago. Of course I remember the blind woman that unfortunately shows interest in Dollarhyde…but I didn’t remember that it was Joan Allen. :eek: