The Cannonball Run - Cast

Cast

Cannonball Run featured an all-star cast, including:

• Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise co-star as racer J.J. McClure and his buddy, mechanic Victor Prinzi. Victor occasionally slips into his character of Captain Chaos during the film.
• Roger Moore plays Seymour Goldfarb, Jr. as a self-parody of his role as James Bond. Goldfarb is a character who thinks he's Roger Moore (ironically who's playing Goldfarb in this film) and who therefore stylizes himself as James Bond. His car, an Aston Martin DB5 displaying the UK registration plate 6633 PP is the one in the original Bond films Goldfinger and Thunderball. The original UK registration plate was BMT 216A before being sold to businessman Gavin Keyzar. Molly Picon portrays his mother. Several women ride with him, including model Lois Hamilton, billed as Lois Areno.
• Farrah Fawcett also co-stars as tree-loving photographer Pamela Glover. But J.J. calls her 'Beauty'.
• Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. play aging former race car driver Jamie Blake and scam artist Morris Fenderbaum, disguised as Catholic priests, driving a Ferrari. Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder plays their bookie.
• George Furth plays Arthur J. Foyt, who tries to have the race stopped.
• Jackie Chan is credited as simply "Mitsubishi Driver #1" but is introduced by the talk show host (Johnny Yune) as "Jackie Chan", the driver of the Japanese entry (despite Chan being Chinese). The entry is actually a Subaru GL (not a Mitsubishi) filled with gadgets. Michael Hui plays the Japanese engineer and navigator.
• Jamie Farr appears as Sheik Abdul ben Falafel, a wealthy Arab determined to win the race even if he has to buy it. Bianca Jagger makes a brief appearance as his sister. Farr's racer is a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. This character is the only one to appear in all three films in the Cannonball Run movie continuum.
• Terry Bradshaw and Mel Tillis are Mel and Terry, a couple of "good ol' boys" driving a thinly-disguised Chevrolet Malibu NASCAR stocker painted like Donnie Allison's NASCAR racer from 1979.
• Adrienne Barbeau and Tara Buckman appear as Marcie Thatcher and Jill Rivers, Spandex-clad "hotties" in a black Lamborghini Countach. The same Lamborghini was used in the opening credits of the movie as it was being pursued by a Nevada Highway Patrol car. Valerie Perrine has an uncredited cameo appearance as a state trooper who stops the duo later in the film as the only female officer to pull over the duo, she was immune to their feminine wiles. (Though their character names were not mentioned during the story, they are mentioned in the end credits. Their character names, however, *are* mentioned in the sequel, though the parts were re-cast)
• Peter Fonda has a cameo role referencing his character in The Wild Angels. The appearance of Fonda and his motorcycle gang during a halt in the race caused by a road closure was the perfect excuse for Chan to demonstrate his martial arts skills during the fight sequence. Fonda's big, bald biker buddy is played by Robert Tessier.
• Bert Convy plays wealthy but bored executive Bradford Compton who planned to run the Cannonball by motorcycle with the help of an old friend, Shakey Finch (played by Warren Berlinger), once the world's greatest cross-country motorcyclist. The two planned to disguise themselves as newlyweds. His ally weighed heavily, forcing them into a wheelie for the entire race.
• Jack Elam appears as Doctor Nikolas Van Helsing; based on the famous vampire hunter. This Van Helsing is a Proctologist and graduate of the University of Rangoon, and the Knoxville, Tennessee College of Faith Healing.
• Rick Aviles and Alfie Wise play Mad Dog and Batman, the tow truck drivers who jump the train flatcar.
• John Fiedler appears as the desk clerk.
• Joe Klecko plays the Polish driver in the van who gets pulled over by Mr. Foyt.
• Brock Yates, the creator of the real-life Cannonball Run, plays the organizer of the race who lays down the rules at the starting line.
• Director Hal Needham appears uncredited as the ambulance EMT.