Something I am curious about regarding movie (and TV) credits. I have noticed that fairly often the credits for a show will run something like “The Straight Dope, with Cecil Adams, Ed Zotti and Slug Signorino with Nickrz as ‘the moderator’”. The last actor named has the character they are playing identified while the rest, who are usually the main stars, don’t. Is there any particular reason for this practice?
“Drink your coffee! Remember, there are people sleeping in China.”
It’s in thier contract. Like the difference between a ‘Guest Star’ and a ‘Special Guest Star’. I mean, what’s next, ‘Special Guest Star With Sugar On Top’?
Then we’ll turn our tommy guns
on the screaming ravaged nuns
and the peoples voice will be the only sound.
-P. Sky
Movie credits are basically an excuse to stroke the egos of the various actors, thats why they have all those various labels and so on.
(it’s incredible the egos in that industry)
Special Guest Poster(with sugar on top): Nu Vo Da Da
Yes, it seems as though the final person listed is usually a more well-known actor or writer, or whatever.
I’m staring at a poster of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The actor credits read: Harrison Ford, Denholm Elliott, Alison Doody, John Rhys-Davies, Julian Glover, and Starring Sean Connery as Professor Jones.
I wonder if actors get clauses in their contracts saying that they can be the final person listed in a movies opening credits.
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
-H.P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”
In the good ole days, only the 2-4 principal characters were listed in the opening credits. E.g.:[ul]
[li]“Star Trek” initially only had Shatner and Nimoy listed. Then once McCoy became a permanent character, DeForrest Kelly was listed “DeForrest Kelly as Dr. McCoy”, probably due to his agent’s work.[/li][li]Dawn Wells and Russell Johnson weren’t in the initial credits of “Gilligan’s Island”, but their agents got them listed singly, which became the standard for ensemble casts thereafter.[/ul][/li]
Now, being listed last and/or listed with your character name is preferred if you can’t be the first-listed.
What would Brian Boitano do / If he was here right now /
He’d make a plan and he’d follow through / That’s what Brian Boitano would do.
Cecil addressed this very point, but it’s a column not yet in the archives, it would seem.
The short answer is that it’s the agent, being creative for his client. So sometimes we’ll see “And Introducing Joe Blow as Det. Harry Levine,” for an actor getting his first big role. Starring, also starring, Special Guest Star… all are available to be used to help out the actor’s name recognition.
I seem to recall Cecil’s original column mentioned a movie with two famous actors who wanted equal billing. This is difficult to do, because normally whoever’s name is at the top and to the left is read first. They solved it by putting Actor #1 at the top right and Actor #2 at the bottom left.
And then there are the questions of letter height and width in ads and all the other things that consume the time of parasites, I mean agents and producers.
I don’t thing the “and _____ as _____” credit is based on star power. I mean, Nancy McKeon was “and Nancy McKeon as Jo” from day 1 and it was her first job.
tanstaafl did post that there is Something I am curious about regarding movie (and TV) credits. Well, so was “Bruce R., Riverside, California” in the original volume of The Straight Dope. Cecil’s masterful answer appears in In TV and movie credits, what do “star,” “co-star,” “guest star,” etc., mean?.
tanstaafl continued: I have noticed that fairly often the credits for a show will run something like “The Straight Dope, with Cecil Adams, Ed Zotti and Slug Signorino with Nickrz as ‘the moderator’”. According to Cecil’s column, the correct rendering is actually: “Cecil Adams in The World’s Most Fascinating Newspaper Column starring Slug Signorino”. I wonder if the current rendering would now also include the bit players?
Finally, The last actor named has the character they are playing identified while the rest, who are usually the main stars, don’t. Is there any particular reason for this practice? According to Unca Cece, “Agents for supporting actors use considerable ingenuity to try to make their clients stand out, and thus one often sees ‘introducing’ or ‘featuring’ or ‘as.’”