According to Wikipedia, she’d only done modeling work up to that point and had no acting experience, so the “introducing” credit was totally on target, I guess.
The credits to the Ocean’s 11 remake ended with “introducing Julia Roberts as Tess.”
It would have been nice to spoiler-box that bit of James Earl Jones, or not to include the plot spoiler. Some of us haven’t seen the episode yet and have been avoiding the House thread and other places that might have that information.
“And Starring Tom Bosley as Howard Cunningham”
“And Andy Kauffman as Latka Gravas” (not at the end, but before the “Special Guest Star” billing of Christopher Lloyd and the non-entities of this episode.
St. Elsewhere had an interesting mix: two top bills, a long list of “in alphabetical order” folks and finishing with “also starring Williams Daniels as Dr. Mark Craig”.
I remember when Star Wars came out it was unusual because they had no credits at the start of the movie. Now that is much more common. The directors union got upset about that and I think Lucas didn’t care since that movie made him such a star director.
The Other Waldo Pepper said:
I think they originally did it with Anthony Head as Giles, but when he left they bumped Alyson Hannigan.
Um, because when a show is created, a screenplay is written containing character names, and then the roles are cast?
Let us not forget, François Truffaut, as “Lacombe”
Or Sir Stewart Wallace as Himself
And Jerry Mathers as The Beaver!!
The agents representing the actor negotiate this with the producers of the show.
There are limits, based on union contracts, and based on contracts with the regular players in the case of an ongoing series.
I’m too lazy to go look at one of my DVDs to make absolutely certain, and YouTube is full of nothing but stupid alternative credits, but you’re right that Anthony Head always got final billing until he left in the sixth season. I’m just not certain if it was “and Anthony Stewart Head as Giles” or if he was just the last listed.
Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior. Emil Minty as the feral kid.
Is this to make up for not having any lines?
And Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck as Victoria Barkley.
Both Martin Landau and Barbara Bain had special credits on Mission: Impossible because they had signed individual contracts with Desilu, an arrangement that suited all three parties. They were never considered permanent members of the cast, which is why it was so easy for them to leave after three seasons.
On Hill Street Blues, Charles Haid got a special credit as Renko because the character was supposed to have died in the pilot but was brought back because test audiences liked him so well. They also had to reshoot the scene in the pilot where Sgt. Esterhaus reported a DOA at the hospital.
One year after this post, the movie Frozen listed “And Introducing Emma Bell” in their title credits. She’d already had minor roles on many things; probably the highest profile was playing Andrea’s sister who died in season 1 of Walking Dead. But Frozen was her first lead role.
So it’s apparently still a thing.
EDIT: Actually, looks like Frozen (March 2010) came out before season 1 of Walking Dead (October 2010) so she really hadn’t done much of anything before Frozen.