Cameo appearance
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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 need 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.
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). 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.
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. A notable appearance of this sort is that of d'Artagnan in Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac. Another is the short appearance of Michael Corleone from Mario Puzo's The Godfather at the beginning of another of Puzo's books, The Sicilian.
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