What Was So-and-so's First Film? The Answer May Surprise You

Al Pacino debuted in 1971's Panic in Needle Park. Jennifer Beals had her coming-out party in Flashdance. And Drew Barrymore made her premiere in the Hollywood biggie E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Having engaged in more than a little cinematic detective work, New York Post film critic Jami Bernard has come up with First Films, a book just out

from Citadel Press that documents a raft of "illustrious, obscure and embarrassing" movie debuts. In its pages is everyone from Sharon Stone (a fleeting sequence in Stardust Memories) to Harrison Ford (Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round) to Sylvester Stallone (whose bio lists Woody Allen's Bananas as his first credit when, in fact, it was the 1970 soft-core flick A Party at

Kitty and Stud's).

Pacino's inaugural effort, reveals Bernard, was 1968's Me, Natalie, in which the recent Oscar winner propositions Patty Duke. "It was this tiny, tiny scene," reports the author. "He stole this cameo, and that's how he got the role in Panic in Needle Park, which everyone thinks is his first movie."

Beals, it turns out, debuted in My Bodyguard, Tony Bill's sweet 1980 teen pic, playing a classmate of the film's star. Her famous construction worker/ go-go girl role didn't come along until 1983.

And Barrymore played one of William Hurt's kids in Altered States, the Ken Russell mind-bender that preceded '82's E.T. by two years.

"In many cases you can see early signs of talent. You can trace their development over the years," says Bernard, who interviewed many of First Films' 100-plus debutantes. "But in other cases, some of them weren't good at all. They had to overcome considerable limitations."

Submitted as evidence in the latter category: Jessica Lange in the 1976 remake of King Kong, and Michelle Pfeiffer in Floyd Mutrux's 1980 classic Hollywood Knights, in which Pfeiffer plays a carhop and girlfriend of screen giant Tony Danza.

"Pfeiffer is a really strong actress," says Bernard. "I've seen her get better over the course of a few movies. But that first one - she's terrible. She looks ordinary and her acting is unexceptional. . . .

"It's heartening to know that you don't always start out as a big star. Some people have to work at it."