Or a serious death wish =)
I just spotted Gwyneth Paltrow as a student (who gets murdered) in Malice. She has a walk-on part and a bit of dialog.
Oh! And Sarah Michelle Gellar is a student (with no lines, IIRC) in the Chevy Chase “comedy” Funny Farm.
I mentioned this in a previous thread but there is an episode in “I Love Lucy” when the Ricardo’s and Mertz’s are driving to California. They stop in a gas station in Tennessee to ask directions from a country bumpkin gas attendant. That actor is Aaron Spelling, later famous for many trashy prime time soap operas.
This one requires a pretty generous definition of ‘famous’, but I just learned it today, so I’ll share. Faith Salie, who is a panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (just this last weekend, IIRC) was Bashir’s genetically engineered girlfriend on an episode of DS9.
Harrison Ford as a bellhop in The Graduate, which also had a young Richard Dreyfuss as one of the tenants in the boarding house that Norman Fell managed.
Damon Wayans was the gentleman that handed Eddie Murphy the bananas for the “banana in the tailpipe” bit in Beverly Hills Cop.
And, according to IMDB, Robin Givens has a bit part in The Wiz as a dinner guest.
Similarly, Samuel L. Jackson was in the skit before the stand-up portion of Eddie Murphy: Raw.
Sylvester Stallone in Woody Allen’s “Bananas.”
Mel Gibson in The Sullivans (an Australian drama/serial in the '70s)
“Working Stiffs” was a 1979 TV series that featured appearances by actors who later became more well-known: James Belushi, Michael Keaton, and Paul Reubens. It was a sort of male version of “Laverne and Shirley.” The pilot episode was even directed by Penny Marshall.
This was before Jim Belushi even appeared on Saturday Night Live. His brother John was the superstar. Keaton had yet to appear in “Night Shift,” which was his first major film appearance. And Reubens was clearly doing his Pee-Wee character, even though he played Heimlich the delivery boy, just before he appeared in “Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie,” then in his own show on HBO.
Mike Farrell of MAS*H is the first person to say “Hello, Mr. Braddock” when Benjamin goes into the hotel with Elaine.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a boring friend of DJ on Roseanne right before hitting it big on 3rd Rock from the Sun.
“Throw me the rope, I throw you the idol.”
Marg Helgenberger appears really quickly in a party scene in “Tootsie.”
Samuel L Jackson in “Coming To America” as the guy who attempts to rob the fast food place where the main characters work.
Amy Adams as the duped fiancee in Catch Me If You Can.
Elijah Wood as a little kid playing a video game in Back to the Future 2.
I rewatched the comedy horror Eight Legged Freaks a few months ago, and saw a teen Scarlett Johannson as one of the main characters.
Paul Reubens is the voice of the alien in Flight of the Navigator. At first you don’t recognise him, until he gains a personality.
Raul Julia is also in an MST3K film. (Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.) I suppose he’s not as famous though.
Does he at least yell, “You f—ked with the wrong Marine!” at Andy, while lunging and being barely restrained by the court officers?
Now that’s an Andy Griffith show I regret missing.
I’m not familiar with when they became famous…was it before This Is Spinal Tap that Fran Drescher, Bruno Kirby, Billy Crystal and Dana Carvey became well-known? I didn’t know Fran until UHF, and Dana Carvey from SNL. Billy Crystal was in Soap. What about Bruno Kirby?
I mean, I was born in 1973. Soap was first aired in 1977, so I only have vague recollections of its start. Billy Crystal could have been well-known in the stand-up comedy circles before then.
Just because I didn’t know them doesn’t mean that others didn’t.
At the time Julia made that (it was a PBS film, and a tragic misfire) he was pretty well known on Broadway, if not at the movies. I saw him onstage as Dracula (He took over after Frank Langella’s departure from the stage role) He wasn’t exactly an unknown.
Right now I’m seeing Banya (from Seinfeld) in In The Line of Fire, the Eastwood flick.