I’d say anything pre-Nanny would count for Drescher; UHF also has pre-Seinfeld Michael Richards.
Found another obscure film chock full of future stars: Glory Daze.
The main stars were Alyssa Milano and Ben Affleck, but the supporting cast included Sam Rockwell, Matt Damon, a pre-George of the Jungle Brendan Fraser and a young Matthew McConaughey.
Paul Giamatti making out with his girlfriend in public in Singles.
A little while back I watched the original '60s version of Psycho to the end for the first time, having only caught the shower scene before. I was shocked when at the very end as Norman was being locked in his cell, the jailer shutting the cell door was of all people Ted Knight of Mary Tyler Moore and Caddyshack fame.
I mentioned a couple of years ago in a similar thread that it’s Richard Dreyfus as one of the students responding to Katherine Ross’ scream in the tennament building when she learns her mom and Dustin were having an affair in The Graduate.
Courtney Cox was a total unknown before she went dancing in the dark with Springsteen
I watched Superman (1978 with Christopher Reeve) recently and noticed John Ratzenberger, cast as “Controller 1,” with two or three lines.
O.J. Simpson shows up uncredited in an old “Dragnet” ep. IIRC, Sgt. Friday has a classroom full of inner city youths in an attempt to recruit them to join LAPD. O.J. is in the class, and has a full-screen shot of him with his one line “Are the tests hard?” Also, in that same class, there’s a guy that has a slight similarity to Samuel L. Jackson, but I’m pretty sure it’s not.
He was also in “Goodfellas” as Stacks Edwards. Michael Imperioli was Spider, the kid that Joe Pesci’s character shoots in the restaurant.
Zac Efron played young Simon Tam in “Serenity”.
And the mother of all Lawrence Fishburne before-he-was-famous roles- as Tyrone in Apocalypse Now.
Tom Hardy played Janovec in “Band of Brothers”.
Oh, and Bradley Cooper as the villain in “Wedding Crashers”. (not sure if that counts or not; I hadn’t heard of him at that point)
In A Bridge Too Far, Robert Redford leads a harrowing river crossing to take the bridge at Njimegen. In the crossing scene, the paratrooper directly behind him is a pre-Cheers /pre-Pixar John Ratzenberger.
One I forgot: Jackie Chan is a henchman who gets his neck snapped by Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon.
And, of course, John Ratzenberger has a bit part in The Empire Strikes Back.
Just watched it on Netflix a couple of nights ago. I had to have Ms Hook come in and watch it again with me.
Richard Dreyfuss also appears at the end of “Valley of the Dolls”
There are several episodes of the “Combat!” tv series where Ted Knight appears as a German soldier. When he speaks German, I always wonder if he is saying “it all started with a 5,000 watt station in Heidelberg”. The DVDs have a 1999 radio interview with Rick Jason on one track where Jason praises Knight’s ability as an actor, saying the often-repeated thought that actors will tell you that comedy is hard. Of course very few Academy awards go to actors in comedy roles.
Robert Blake as the Mexican kid who sells a winning lottery ticket to Humphrey Bogart in “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”
I was in the room when a rerun of The Andy Griffin Show was on and heard a very familar voice. “That’s Jack Nicholson’s voice” I said. Yes, it was him in a very early role.
Blake was Mickey in the Our Gang shorts well before that.
And in Gandhi. He was the king of bit parts back then.
[QUOTE=Spoke]
And in Gandhi.
[/QUOTE]
In Gandhi though, they dubbed over his lines with someone else’s voice, which is jarring if you’re expecting his normal voice.
I assume it was a bad sound recording that had to be fixed in post-production, and Ratzenberger was busy elsewhere. (But I’m just guessing.)
Actually, that was in the Firefly episode, “Safe.”
I’ll see your Elm Street and raise you Apocalypse Now. He played ‘Clean’ Miller, the kid on the boat and was fourteen (having lied about his age).
cough Lance Hendrickson cough