Cameo appearance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A cameo role or cameo appearance (often shortened to just cameo) is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television. Such a role needs not be filled by an actor: short appearances by film directors, politicians, athletes, and other celebrities are common.
Cameos are often uncredited due to their brevity or because of a perceived mismatch between the celebrity's stature and the film or TV show he or she is appearing in. Many are publicity stunts. Others are acknowledgements of an actor's contribution to an earlier work, as in the case of many film adaptations of TV series, or of remakes of earlier films. Others honor artists or celebrities known for work in a particular field.
Mike Todd's film Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) was studded with cameo roles and gave the term wide circulation outside the theatrical profession. The frequent cameo appearances of Alfred Hitchcock in his films also helped popularize the term.
M. Night Shyamalan appears in some of his movies, such as The Village, in which he is shown in the glass reflection of the sheriff (who is only otherwise filmed from behind, hiding his face), and also as a shady fan Bruce Willis searches at a stadium in Unbreakable. In The Sixth Sense, he is shown to be the doctor at the hospital and has a brief appearance in a short scene with the child's mother. Also, he plays a central role as a struggling writer with bigger ideas in Lady In the Water. Some directors often cast themselves in cameo roles in their films. Quentin Tarantino often plays roles (sometimes slightly larger roles than what would usually be considered a "cameo") in his own films, such as Jimmy in Pulp Fiction and Mr. Brown in Reservoir Dogs.
Some cameos feature celebrities who are not associated with the film industry but who are known for a particular field of work. For example, the 1999 film October Sky, set in 1950s Appalachia, featured photographer O. Winston Link in a brief appearance portraying a steam locomotive engineer. Link became famous in the 1950s for chronicling the last days of regular steam locomotives service in the region. A role such as this is designed to honor the person's accomplishments.
Cameos are also common in novels and other literary works such as comic books, although such cameos focus on characters rather than celebrities. Such "literary cameos" usually involve an established character from another work who makes a brief appearance to establish a shared universe setting, to make a point of some sort, or as an homage. One of the best examples of this is John Byrne's work in Marvel Comics' Iron Fist #8 (though taken, perhaps unintentionally, to comic effect), which features himself, Howard the Duck (on a poster), Peter Parker and M.J.Watson, Sam McCloud (although Rafe Scarfe's resemblance to him is said to be coincidence), Fu Manchu, and Wolverine. Another notable case is d'Artagnan in Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac.
