Valkyrie
Well-known member
Suzanne remembers,
"American Graffiti." Although it was a small role, it was the stepping stone to her television career.
Somers almost gave up the movie role that launched her career because she couldn’t afford to feed an expired parking meter. When she arrived at an audition for the destined-to-be-classic 1973 movie “American Graffiti,” directed by future “Star Wars” legend George Lucas.
In a roomful of other unknowns, Somers had other things on her mind besides imminent fame. “I was in the waiting room with a bunch of other blondes, and the [audition panel was] running behind,” Somers recalled to us. “I almost left because my parking meter was running out, and I had no money to extend it.”
She said that, “the casting assistant asked me to wait, and indicated ‘Mr. Lucas liked my photo.'” “When I got in the room to see him, all he said was, ‘Can you drive?,'” she recalled of her first meeting with Lucas. “I said, ‘Yes.’ That was it. I was shocked when my agent said I got the part,” she says.
In “American Graffiti,” “I only had three words in the entire film, ‘I love you,'” Somers says. “I practiced all day in the mirror. I waited all night on set and met the other actors – a bunch of no-names,” she laughed, “Little did I know!”
Somers’ says her small part was made even smaller on the set by Lucas. “When the time came to shoot my scenes, I drove around in a white Thunderbird. Now for my big line! George Lucas said, ‘Just mouth it,'” she recalls.
“I didn’t even get to say the three words! I think I was on screen for a total of five seconds… But those five seconds gave me my career.”
