Just found out that *Body Heat *was Kathleen Turner’s first movie. Then thought of Brando/Street Car.
Any others? Leads or supporting or movie-stealing roles. Ie, not the first appearance of so-and-so in a bit part, who you realize was great in that and it makes sense I know who he is now.
Also, “debut” can be pretty lax. Perhaps Turner was in some student film.
Even not so famous films; I’m thinking of ex-marine Harvey Keitel in one of Scorcese’s pre-*Mean Streets *movies, which I can’t remember :)…
Woody Allen’s first film appearance in What’s New Pussycat? got a lot of attention. Hell, his first appearance in the film was memorable (he’s playing chess and he casually throws one of his opponent’s pieces away when the opponent isn’t looking).
Yul Brynner’s first film performance (not counting an obscure B-film) was in The King and I.
James Cagney was cast as the second lead in The Public Enemy; he had made three small films previously. During shooting, they gave him the lead, and he was a sensation.
The Marx Brothers became instant stars with their first feature, The Coconuts, but they were established Broadway stars before that.
To be fair, both Brando and Brynner were big Broadway hits in the plays that were the sources of their first movies. So the casting choice was not particularly surprising, nor was it surprising that they were good in those roles.
I’ll vote for Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins. She was already a Broadway star but not in that role (and her famous Golden Globes acceptance speech certainly pointed up that fact). There was no stopping her after that.
Roddy
Wilder and Hoffman, sure, but the rest were far fro their first roles. Gable was a big star before It Happened One Night, Bogart was an established actor, if not a star, and Wayne had been the star of dozens of films (though they were B pictures).
