Tony Shalhoub was also terrific as a persnickety Italian-American chef in the foodie extravaganza Big Night.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that Kenneth Tobey, aka “Chuck” on Whirlybirds, was one of the ground controllers in Airplane!
The most interesting example was Captain of the Guard in I, Claudius. Later, Patrick Stewart played a Starship Captain in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The film UHF featured Michael Richards before he was on Seinfeld.
Stewart was Russian spymaster “Karla” in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People opposite Alec Guiness.
I recently rewatched the 1984 Eddie Murphy movie Beverly Hills Cop, and Jonathan Banks plays the bad guy’s top mook.
There’s a 1978 movie called The Fury that’s a bit of a goldmine for this sort of thing. It has very early roles for Daryl Hannah, Dennis Franz, and Laura Innes, and apparently Jim Belushi is visible as an extra in a crowd scene.
And if that wasn’t enough, there’s a scene where Kirk Douglas is staying at a flophouse hotel in Chicago, and it’s the same room Elwood Blues lived in two years later in The Blues Brothers.
A few years ago, my wife and I watched the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides. A few days later we watched an old, madcap ensemble comedy called If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium on my mom’s recommendation. It took me almost half the second movie to recognize that its young and handsome tour guide (pursuing the vacationing pre-Bob Newhart Show Suzanne Pleshette) was the 40+ years younger version of the deeply weathered and very hairy Blackbeard in Pirates IV, Ian McShane.
Maybe if I’d seen anything he did in between, but no Lovejoy, no Deadwood.
Miami Vice had numerous appearances by actors and other celebrities before they became famous. Bruce Willis appeared as a wife-beating sleaze bag in the Season 1 episode, No Exit. Michael Richards of Seinfeld played a heavy in a Season 2 episode which featured basketball stars Bill Russell and Bernard King. Liam Neeson appeared in the Season 3 opener. The Phil Collins episode from Season 2 was excellent and featured an unknown Kyra Sedgwick.
He was also a TV news producer/director in St Elsewhere.
IIRC, he was Linda Grey’s love interest in the last season of the original Dallas.
And in the same film, Damon Wayans as the waiter who gives Eddie Murphy bananas to shove in the tailing cops’ tailpipe.
Yes, you’re right!
This goes back a few days, but:
The other night on MeTV, I happened to catch an episode of The Twilight Zone where Peter Falk played a Latin American revolutionary leader who has just seized power in his country–very obviously based on Fidel Castro–complete with fake beard and cheesy “Spanish” accent.