6 of the Best Cameos by Real People in Works of Fiction

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, by Helen Fielding
Fielding’s hugely successful Bridget Jones’ s Diary tapped into the very real feelings of a lot of people—perhaps most keenly in how its title character had a huge crush on actor Colin Firth based on his role as Mr. Darcy in the BBC’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. That crush definitely influences Bridget’s meeting and falling in love with a man named Mark Darcy. In the film adaptation of Bridget Jones’s Diary, Mark Darcy was portrayed by…Colin Firth. Things get a bit more complicated in the next book in the series, The Edge of Reason, wherein Jones, a writer lands an interview with…Colin Firth.

Gump and Co., by Winston Groom
The sequel to the 1985 novel Forrest Gump continues where the last one left off, with Forrest still accidentally creating or being witness to major events in world history. In Gump and Co., he invents New Coke, crashes the Exxon Valdez, and meets lots of real people, including would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley, Jr., Ivan Boesky, Bill Clinton, and a young actor filming a movie in new York City called Big. That’s Tom Hanks, of course, who portrayed Forrest Gump in the 1994 adaptation of Forrest Gump.

Funny Girl, by Nick Hornby
Hornsby’s latest novel is set in the world of 1960s British television. Barbara Parker wins a beauty contest in her dreary hometown, but what she really wants to be is a comic actress. A devotee of Lucille Ball, she changes her name to Sophie Straw and becomes a star after starring in a sitcom about a newlywed couple. At one point, she gets to meet Ball. And while the saying goes that one should never meet their idols, it goes well for Parker/Straw—Ball is a fan.

The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists, by Gideon Defoe
Defoe’s series of The Pirates! novellas are ostensibly children’s books (and were the basis of the 2012 stop-motion animation film The Pirates! Band of Misfits), but have enough naughty material in them (they are about pirates after all) that they are just as suited to silly adults. As is the case with the books’ many historical and cultural references. Each of Defoe’s five Pirates! books features a crew of inept pirates stumbling into interactions with real historical figures. The adventures they get into with these actual people are fictional, however. Well, probably. For example, Charles Dickens was likely never thrown out of London by his scientific rival and needed the assistance of pirates to help him and his companion Mister Bobo (a super-intelligent chimpanzee) return to everyone’s good graces.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon
This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Chabon is an epic tale of adventure about the Golden Age of comic books, and the influence of European immigrants on this most definitive of American art forms. While there are many stand-ins for real-life comic book industry and entertainment figures, a couple of actual historical figures do appear under their real names. One of them, however randomly, is 20th century surrealist artist Salvador Dali. Josef Kavalier actually meets him, and saves the artist from asphyxiation when he puts on a diving suit at a fancy New York City party.

Crash, by J.G. Ballard
While an author of tremendous and varied talents—he wrote the World War II epic Empire of the Sun, the bizarre sci-fi tale Super-Cannes, and the dark site High-Rise—Ballard is probably most famous for his 1973 novel Crash. It’s about a group of people who become sexually aroused by both setting up and participating in car accidents. The book is notable for two cameos. The first is the author himself. The narrator is “James Ballard,” and he tells of his interactions with a creepy guy named Robert Vaughan (who is a former TV star, but not the Robert Vaughn who starred on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.). Vaughn is the leader of a group that loves to re-enact famous car crashes that killed celebrities. Vaughan’s personal sexual fantasy is to die in a collision with a car carrying Elizabeth Taylor. (Spoiler alert: Vaughan gets his wish, but only partially—days after watching Taylor film a car crash sequence in a movie, he tries to crash his car into her limousine, but misses and hits a bus instead.)
What’s your favorite cameo by a real person in a fictional work?