False Starts No One Fizzles Quite Like Costner In ‘Sizzle Beach U.S.A.,’ But Many Oscar Nominees Have Rather Inauspicious Debut Movies

For Monday night’s winners, Oscar night will be a truly memorable experience. When they bound onto the stage to claim the honor, you can bet most of the stars fervently hope that the world has forgotten how they got started.

If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, many Hollywood careers started with a pratfall. Genuine humility, always a scarce commodity in Hollywood, will be in even shorter supply when the Oscarcast airs at 6 p.m. ET on ABC. But to come down to earth, the actors and actresses in contention have only to reflect on where it all began - and very nearly ended.

To this day, Paul Newman, now 70 and a screen icon and a richly deserving nominee for “Nobody’s Fool,” cringes at the mere mention of his debut. Tom Hanks, who will be Newman’s main competition for best actor with “Forrest Gump,” would be much obliged if nobody ever again brought up a certain third-rate slasher flick that gave no hint of the meteoric rise that was to follow.

It is the cruel nature of the business that young hopefuls have to start somewhere in films that all too often go nowhere. “Getting a start and your first role is a matter of being in a certain place at a certain time,” said Damien Bona. “It basically comes down to luck, and for most of these actors it’s bad luck.”

Bona is the co-author of “Inside Oscar,” the definitive and entertaining history of the Academy Awards, and the solo writer of the equally diverting “Opening Shots” (Workman Publishing, $11.95). The book surveys the inauspicious, obscure and often hilarious debuts of 70 of Hollywood’s biggest names, both past and present. Through no fault of their own, some of Monday’s nominees are among them.

Hanks made his bow in 1981 in “He Knows You’re Alone,” a horror film penned by someone with an IQ demonstrably lower than Forrest Gump’s unimposing 75. Hanks had the seventh lead in the tedious tale of a psycho who is jilted by his girlfriend and vents his annoyance by murdering young women about to be married. Hanks played a nerdy psychology major named Elliot who befriends and then tries to analyze the heroine. His first line in movies was the immortal declaration, “I’m too tired to scream from the pain you caused me.”

The line would also describe Hanks’ feelings about his first movie. In Bona’s assessment, “He would have to be the least promising debut. He has about five minutes of screen time as the nerd. There’s no charisma and he seems embarrassed to be there - and rightly so.”

Not to be outdone in the ignominious horror sweepstakes, John Travolta, whose faltering career has been drastically boosted by his nominated performance in “Pulp Fiction,” would not object if you ignored his debut. It came in “The Devil’s Rain” in 1975 - just two years before he danced his way to the top in “Saturday Night Fever.” Travolta had a bit part in the movie, which cast Ernest Borgnine as a crazed satanist.

Newman has made so many wonderful movies that we have long since forgiven his initial foray into film as the slave Basil in the biblical epic “The Silver Chalice” (1954). The huge success of “The Robe” encouraged imitations, and it was Newman’s sorry lot to star in this secondhand robe as a pagan carver in Jerusalem. Newman had to endure reviews that dubbed him a second-rate Marlon Brando, and as soon as the picture was finished, he wired his agent with the desperate plea, “Get me back on Broadway!” His career survived, and took off when he appeared as Rocky Graziano in “Somebody Up There Likes Me” two years later.

“Paul Newman loves to dump on ‘The Silver Chalice,”’ Bona said charitably. “But it’s really not all that bad. It’s interesting visually.”

Some of the actresses vying for the Oscar this year have equally checkered professional pasts. No resume gets off to a stranger launch than Susan Sarandon’s.

Sarandon, a best-actress contender for her fine work as the defense attorney in “The Client,” was getting by as a proofreader for a law firm and as a waitress when her break came in a movie called “The Gap” in 1969.

As the title implies, the picture hinged on the generation gap, casting the 23-year-old Sarandon as Melissa, an upper-middle-class druggie who drops out to go and live with a small-time pusher in the East Village - much to the horror of her family. But after the picture was finished, the hard-hat Silent Majority came into their own as a political force and a hot-button issue. The movie was reedited to emphasize the character of a factory worker played by Peter Boyle. It was released in 1970 as “Joe.”

Jodie Foster, a perennial favorite nominated for her extraordinary work in “Nell,” is by any standard one of our major stars. She signaled her goal by playing opposite a lion named Major in her first movie, “Napoleon and Samantha” (1972). Prototypical Disney animal fodder of the period, “Napoleon” is about an orphan, played by Johnny Whitaker, a lion, a rooster, a little girl played by the 8-year-old Foster, and a hippie (none other than Michael Douglas). Many years later, Douglas was the presenter when Foster won her second Oscar, for “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991).

As Bona rightly observes, beggars can’t be choosers, and it is rare that anyone starts out with a leading part in a big feature. Two notable exceptions are Julie Andrews and Barbra Streisand, who won Academy Awards for their film debuts in, respectively, “Mary Poppins” (1964) and “Funny Girl” (1968).

Winona Ryder, a best-actress nominee for “Little Women,” was luckier than most actresses when she made her bow in 1986. For one thing she was in a good movie. “Lucas,” directed by David Seltzer, was one of the more affecting and realistic films about the pangs of adolescence that Hollywood made in the ‘80s. Corey Haim played a precocious 14-year-old kid who is mercilessly teased at school and falls in love with an older girl. Ryder is a bookish teenager who, in turn, loves Haim from afar. Ryder was born Winona Horowitz. She changed her name during the filming of “Lucas” after hearing a Mitch Ryder record.

In the long history of movies, there are undeniably many candidates for the most excruciating debut by someone who went on to win an Oscar. Bona has no hesitation in making his choice. “Kevin Costner for ‘Sizzle Beach U.S.A.,”’ he said. “His role’s not bad, but it’s a softporn movie and, unfortunately for him, it’s out there on video.”

Costner, who won an Oscar with his directing debut in the great western “Dances With Wolves,” played a rancher in “Sizzle Beach” (1986). Women take off their bikini tops at every opportunity in the movie. Costner kept his clothes but not his dignity.

In that regard, he has plenty of company, because the bottom rung is the place to start in most jobs, and the governing realities of the film industry haven’t changed that much. “I don’t think it’s any easier” to find a good debut role, Bona said. “I mean there are just as many bad movies and bad parts in Hollywood now as there ever were.”

ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by A. Heitner

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