THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH (1960) - This is future Best Screenplay OSCAR winner (CHINATOWN) Robert Towne. He also wrote the movie under that name, but he's billed for his acting role as 'Edwin Wain'. Famously thrifty director Roger Corman made the most out of his location shoot in Puerto Rico by filming two other movies while there. Robert Towne also starred and wrote one of the other two films CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA. © Filmgroup

Co-screenwriter Buck Henry as the Hotel Clerk in THE GRADUATE (1967). © Embassy Pictures © United Artists

In VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967) the book's author Jacqueline Susann plays a reporter (in the white suit) asking Anne Welles questions about Jennifer North. Susann was as famous for her trashy bestsellers as for her wardrobe of loud-colored prints and, in the words of Truman Capote, resembled 'a truck driver in drag'. She once said "I don't think any novelist should be concerned with literature." © 20th Century Fox

The host of the local talk show on the right, is played (uncredited) by the movie's screenwriter Waldo Salt, who had been a victim of the Hollywood blacklist, before winning the Oscar in 1969 for Best Adapted Screenplay for MIDNIGHT COWBOY and again in 1978 for COMING HOME. His daughter Jennifer Salt also has a small role in COWBOY, as Buck's former girlfriend back in Texas. © United Artists

"Jaws" author Peter Benchley as a news reporter in JAWS (1975). He developed the idea of a man-eating shark terrorizing a community after reading of a fisherman catching a 4,550 pound great white shark off the coast of Long Island in 1964. He also drew some material from the tragic Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. © Universal Pictures

An uncredited Truman Capote as himself, passing by after Alvy's comment "Oh, there's the winner of the Truman Capote Look-Alike Contest" in ANNIE HALL (1977). In the ’60s, Capote was close with it-girl Mia Farrow, who attended his famous Black and White Ball, but the Allen connect may have come through Diane Keaton, whose Hollywood home she rented in 1976. “She never bothered to change her number,” Capote said. “I would have the most intimate conversations with the people who called her. ‘Well, Diane’s not here right now, would you like to leave a message?’ Then the person would go into a deep psychoanalysis of Woody Allen. Ho, ho, ho.” © United Artists

NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE co-writer Douglas C. Kenney as Stork leading the Faber University marching band down an alley. Kenney later co-wrote the screenplay to CADDYSHACK with Brian-Doyle Murray. When CADDYSHACK opened to negative reviews in July 1980, Kenney became extremely depressed. At a press conference, Kenney verbally abused reporters and then fell into a drunken stupor. After a prolonged cocaine binge, Kenney's friend Chevy Chase took him to Hawaii to relax him. It was there on August 27, 1980, at aged 33, Kenney fell from a thirty-foot cliff called the Hanapepe Lookout. © Universal Pictures

Co-screenwriter Carl Gottlieb is Iron Balls McGinty in THE JERK (1979) © Universal Pictures

CADDYSHACK (1980) co-screenwriter Douglas Kenney in the black tux & glasses as Al Czervik's (Rodney Dangerfield) dinner guest. When Caddyshack opened to negative reviews in July 1980, Kenney became extremely depressed, though director Harold Ramis joked that the film was "a six-million-dollar scholarship to film school". At a press conference, Kenney verbally abused reporters and then fell into a drunken stupor. Concerned friends began asking Kenney to seek professional help, but by that time he was out of control, joking about previous suicide attempts, driving recklessly, and using increasing amounts of cocaine. Soon after the release of CADDYSHACK, Kenney committed suicide. © Warner Bros.

The tall morgue attendant in THE HOWLING (1981) is the screenwriter John Sayles, who had gotten his start in the movie industry working for Roger Corman. Besides writing the script for director Joe Dante's previous movie, PIRANHA, Sayles is also known for acting in occasional bit parts, as well as directing such acclaimed films as EIGHT MEN OUT, MATEWAN, and LONE STAR. © Avco Embassy Pictures

In 1982's THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP author John Irving is the wrestling referee in Robin Williams victorious match. Irving was in the Phillips Exeter Academy wrestling program both as a wrestler and as an assistant coach, and wrestling features prominently in his books, stories and life. © Warner Bros

CREEPSHOW was a 1982 American black comedy horror anthology film written by Stephen King. King himself stars in the second story, "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill," about a dimwitted backwoods yokel, thinking that a newly discovered meteorite will provide enough money from the local college to pay off his $200 bank loan. Instead, he finds himself being overcome by a rapidly spreading plant-like organism that begins growing on his body after he touches a glowing green substance within the meteorite. © Warner Bros.

Based on her original novel, THE OUTSIDERS (1983) author S.E. Hinton makes a cameo as Dallas Winston's (Matt Dillion) nurse. © Warner Bros.

In 2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT (1984), author Arthur C Clarke has a very brief uncredited appearance as the man feeding the pigeons in front of the White House. Clarke wrote the original sci-fi novel, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and its three sequels; 2010, 2060 & 3000. © MGM

One of 20 cameo's in the 1985 John Landis film INTO THE NIGHT. Waldo Salt, two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter of MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969) and COMING HOME (1978), as the derelict who informs Ed (Jeff Goldblum) of his car having been towed. Salt also wrote the screenplay for SERPICO (1973) © Universal Pictures

Jonathan Lynn, writer of the BBC series YES, MINISTER, as the tailor who fits the SAVAK agents in INTO THE NIGHT (1985). © Universal Pictures

Co-screenwriter Phil Hartman as a reporter at the end of PEE WEES BIG ADVENTURE (1985). Hartman co-wrote the script with Paul Reubens and Michael Varhol. © Warner Bros.

Co-Screenwriter Michael Varhol as the tourist photographer on the left in PEE WEES BIG ADVENTURE (1985). © Warner Bros.

Kurt Vonnegut’s appearance in the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield comedy BACK TO SCHOOL. As nouveau riche buffoon Thornton Melon, Dangerfield is, well, back at school, and when he is assigned an English paper on Vonnegut, he hires the man himself to help him with it. Vonnegut has just one line of introduction, although when the resultant paper gets an F (shades of the famous Marshall McLuhan cameo in ANNIE HALL) with his teacher (Sally Kellerman) fuming, “Whoever did write this doesn’t know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut,” the “Slaughterhouse Five” author gets an irate call from Dangerfield, who threatens to go with Robert Ludlum next time. Interestingly, Keith Gordon, who played Dangerfield’s son in the film, went on to direct a an adaptation of Vonnegut’s novel “Mother Night” in 1996. © Orion Pictures

Director Alan Rudolph must have great powers of persuasion that he can get such unusual non-acting people into his films. Present in MADE IN HEAVEN (1987) is author Tom Robbins as 'Mario the Toymaker'. Robbins' books are known for their playful comedic elements, flights of surrealism, and bizarre obscure facts. His books include EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES, STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER, JITTERBUG PERFUME, and a childrens' book, B IS FOR BEER. Even more amazing, making his one and only on-screen appearance in MADE IN HEAVEN is prolific cartoonist and creator of THE FAR SIDE Gary Larson. Unfortunately its very difficult to get a still due to the fact that he's kept such a low profile. Recently, he was on THE SIMPSONS as himself, but I'm still not sure what his non-yellow human counterpart looks like. © Lorimar Pictures