Saturday night, I went around the corner to have sushi for my dinner. The restaurant is owned and operated by a family, and on Saturday nights they pop a movie into the DVD player. This week’s movie was Superman III (the one with Richard Pryor). I tried to interest my daughter in the antics on screen, but she was more interested in texting at the time.
I noticed that the actress who played Robert Vaughn’s sister looked a LOT like Ayn Rand, and when I got home, I fired up wikipedia to see if that might have been a deliberate choice on the part of the producers. I didn’t find out anything about that but imagine my surprise when I found out that the part had been played by ANNIE ROSS!
Yes, THATAnie Ross. Coulda knocked me over with a feather; I hadn’t known she ever did any acting.
Who have YOU unexpectedly found in the cast list of an old movie or TV show?
Do guest shots count, like the time (a just starting-out) Michael Keaton appeared on the Mary Tyler Moore show? Sure, why not?
I don’t have much to add except I had that exact same thought process a couple of years ago after re-watching Superman III. “Twisted” is the most awesome song ever, and it blew me away that that was her. And then I found out she does a weekly jazz set here in NYC. I should really go… I wonder if she’d be insulted if I said I loved her in that movie…
Back in the '80s I saw a porn movie called Take Off that was basically an X-rated version of The Portrait of Dorian Gray that had Peter Scolari (you know, the other guy from Bosom Buddies) in a non-sex role.
Jack Black is in Dead Man Walking in a small but notable part. He’s Poncelet (Sean Penn)'s younger brother in the last family visit scene. He’s actually pretty good in the serious and sad role, which seems odd now given his history of roles since.
A week or so ago, Sampiro posted a link to this “acting reel” for Giancarlo Esposito, who is currently known as the straight-laced yet bad-assed two-faced drug boss on Breaking Bad.
Here’s the reel. I watched the whole thing going “Woah! He was in that?!” and “Woah! That’s him?!” Amazing.
Fess “Davy Crockett” and “Daniel Boone” Parker as the crazy pilot who saw *Them! *He wasn’t wearing the coonskin cap, which must be why I never noticed.
I was watching Big Trouble in Little China the other night. (Yeah, I’m one of those.) And the Margo actress seemed a bit familiar. After a long while it hit me, it’s Kate Burton. She has done a ton of 1-hour drama appearances, usually a guest star or limited run. And here she is early on in Big Trouble. Wow.
I think I saw each of the Scream movies once when they first came out.
I had just remembered them as having Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette in them. Scream2 was on TV a few weeks ago and a bunch of people caught my eye.
Jada Pinkett Smith, Heather Graham, Liev Schreiber, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Timothy Olyphant, Jamie Kennedy, Jerry O’Connell, Laurie Metcalf, Porti de Rossi, Tori Spelling, Luke Wilson.
The most recent one for me was watching the remake of The Italian Job. At one point they have to talk their way past the security guard at the gate to Edward Norton’s house. The guard? Oscar from The Office.
Also recently saw Blue Steel. That movie is chock full of these - Clancy Brown as the detective, Kevin Dunn (Dad from Transformers) as her boss, Richard Jenkins (dead Dad from Six Feet Under) as Ron Silver’s attorney, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) as the mom, Elizabeth Peña as the best friend…and Tom Sizemore in his first role as the guy that robs the convenience store.
I realized many years ago that two of the guys from Taxi were in One Fllew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But I’m not sure who played Billy. Color me surprised when I found out it was Brad Dourif.
A few years ago I was watching Night Court, and it was a Very Special Episode in which a confused young man was holding everyone hostage. The footage was kind of blurry, so I couldn’t see the young man’s face, but it was cleary a very young Don Cheadle.
In retrospect, I’m still not quite sure how I overlooked this, but even after seeing the Star Trek TNG episode “Dark Page” three times I didn’t realize that Hedril/Kestra was played by Kirsten Dunst.
I recently re-watched “Ghandi” and laughed as I recognized Daniel Day-Lewis as one of the street thugs that tried to harass Ghandi in South Africa in the beginning of the film.
The other day I watched Sneakers, an early 1990’s movie about computer hackers starring Robert Redford. One of the characters sounded very familiar, and I finally looked him up on IMdB. it was the actor who plays Dr. Rosen on Alphas.
I was talking about Dourif recently with a very film-literate co-worker, who as it happens to be relevant to the story is maybe 10-15 years older than me. She said the first thing she had seen him in was something from the 80s or early 90s (don’t remember what now) and I said, “I’m willing to bet that you’re wrong about that!” then “Did you see Cuckoo’s Nest when it first came out?”
I’ve been watching a bunch of “Rawhide” episodes on MeTV lately, and there are quite a few guest stars who went on to greater fame. The episode I watched yesterday, from 1959, had a 31-year old Dick Van Patten. The one I watched today had June Lockhart, who was beginning her run as Ruth Martin on “Lassie,” and DeForest Kelley, seven years before playing Bones on Star Trek.
