Amazing Thread of A-Listers in Miami Vice 'Before They Were Famous'

Al Bundy as a Miami Vice Coke Dealer (1984) pic.twitter.com/Ql6Vrk5UWa

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Bruce Willis playing arms dealer extraordinaire Tony Amato in Miami Vice’s first season.
Four months later, he was trading barbs with Cybill Shepherd as P.I. David Addison in Moonlighting pic.twitter.com/w9NClkIizv

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Season 4 is when Julia Roberts made an appearance as Polly Wheeler, an art gallery manager/drug dealer’s assistant with a penchant for bad boys. And Sonny is just her type. pic.twitter.com/sZ0XOAoMjl

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Season 4, Chris Rock plays an eager young records clerk who the squad tasks with researching UFOs and aliens, as you do.... pic.twitter.com/1vtfvyPxfG

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Here we have Ben Stiller playing a small-time con named Fast Eddie Felcher in season 4 episode 2.
Miami Vice was his third acting gig. pic.twitter.com/KIoVxwwqgr

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

In season 3 Steve Buscemi was the middleman for a Bolivian drug lord who sort of got his ass kicked by Willie Nelson. (Yes that Willie Nelson) pic.twitter.com/Ti1oposV39

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Nelson plays a semi-bad guy who takes the law into his own hands before biting the dust at the end of the show. pic.twitter.com/7cW8MZAji9

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Phil Collins even turned up in Miami Vice to play game show host/con man Phil “The Shill” Mayhew, who moved to Miami from London and quickly set about depleting the bank accounts of the city’s richest residents with a shady drug deal. pic.twitter.com/3C4ZsMs43l

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Benicio del Toro at around 20 had a bit part on Miami Vice in 1987 as Pito, an ex-con-turned-thespian with a local theater group, Mi Vida Loca. pic.twitter.com/E24kJSxfNg

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

In season 3 Viggo Mortensen partnered up with Lou Diamond Phillips to play two junior detectives working a case with Crockett and Tubbs. But when a deal goes bad and Viggo is killed, his partner becomes convinced that Tubbs is dirty. pic.twitter.com/A6DKnaK22g

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

In its 3rd season, “When Irish Eyes Are Crying,” Detective Gina Calabrese (Saundra Santiago) falls for an Irish philanthropist—played by Liam Neeson—who turns out to be a former IRA member and current terrorist. pic.twitter.com/tVnjUxRl65

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

For the Seinfeld fans Michael (Cosmo Kramer) Richards turns up in season 2 playing a sleazy bookie. #GiddyUp pic.twitter.com/VqWsQkOVpv

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Stanley Tucci with hair (ish) appeared in season 3 of Miami Vice as crime lord Frank Mosca.
He’d appeared previously on the show as the adoptive father of a smuggled baby and that went so well they asked him back to be a bad guy. pic.twitter.com/hmMXv4n7kw

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

In season 3 Sonny Crockett is in love. And with a lovely young ER doctor named Theresa Lyons, played by Helena Bonham Carter.
There’s just one problem: she also happens to be a heroin addict, which causes a bit of friction in the relationship pic.twitter.com/FrabMIFHhP

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Back when he was still going by Larry, Laurence Fishburne played a prison guard sizing up Tubbs, who was sent to the clink undercover in order to bust up an in-house drug operation.

Turns out that Larry is one of the guys behind it!! 😱 pic.twitter.com/RTTBVN44a3

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

While the men are out busting up drug deals, the ladies of Miami Vice can usually be found in hooker attire, working undercover as prostitutes. So it’s only befitting that the show would feature a few pimps in its time, John Turturro among them.
1980’s tv was insane. pic.twitter.com/S4fur7Q3Ur

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

If there’s one thing an undercover cop should never do, it’s fall in love with a prostitute. Which is exactly what Bill Paxton, as Vic Romano, does. Much to the dismay of a pimp named Silk, played by Wesley Snipes pic.twitter.com/DgiXT0fYyj

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Season one had Michael Madsen playing tougher-than-his-name-makes-him-sound drug dealer Sally Alvarado, with Terry O’Quinn (a.k.a. John Locke from Lost) as his lawyer pic.twitter.com/9wcP1EbpJI

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Miami Vice wasn't above using the same actor twice in different roles (see Stanley Tucci further up the thread)

This worked out to the benefit of Ving Rhames who plays a hapless man held hostage, and then went on to play a hardened criminal with a BRILLIANT flat-top. pic.twitter.com/xvRtzbe3Mm

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Ron Pearlman pops up as the commissioner of prisons on the Miami Vice episode "Walk-Alone." In his position, he asks the Vice team to get a man inside the prison for an undercover sting. pic.twitter.com/sLaUWvJR0I

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

In 1987 Ian McShane appeared Season 3's "Knock, Knock... Who's There?" with an amazing Latino accent.
He later played a General/dictator who plans on leaving his country, betraying the drug dealers who funded his rise to power.
Crockett & Tubbs are tasked to keep him alive! pic.twitter.com/JMX0AO6lxj

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Season 2, Episode 4 (“Out Where the Buses Don’t Run”) gives us Little Richard as Reverend Marvelle Quinn preaching an anti-drug sentiment and sending his disciples out to spread the word on the streets of South Beach. pic.twitter.com/H44lGfI296

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

This is where it starts to get REALLY surreal.
Leonard Cohen appears Season 2, (“French Twist”)
Initially the plan was for Cohen to portray the main villain but his role was cut to two phone conversations totalling a minute and a half.

Cohen as a villain? Yes please! pic.twitter.com/4abzhM1q9e

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Combine the hardest working man in showbiz with a government conspiracy and a touch of the paranormal and you’ll get probably the show’s strangest guest appearance, you'll also get James Brown in Season 4, Episode 7 (“Missing Hours”) pic.twitter.com/hXcvb2ZwBj

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

In this 1986 episode, Miles Davis played brothel owner “Ivory Jones” who cooperated with Crockett and Tubbs to help corner their man. Gun fights ensued. pic.twitter.com/fRlCcBVXuH

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Frank Zappa was known for many things but acting wasn’t really one of them. That’s why it was such a surprise to see him on Miami Vice. Here he plays an intimidatingly persistent character hell-bent on recovering a large sum of money. pic.twitter.com/1t41j61VoM

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Unpause!

In 1986 Miami Vice fan Gene Simmons appears as Newton Windsor Blade, a drug dealer, known as the "Sears and Roebuck" of controlled substances. Crockett tried to bust Blade for three years but never was able to catch Blade and the drugs in the same place at the same time pic.twitter.com/Qp902UNbvY

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Pam Grier had a reoccurring role (rightfully so) as Valerie Gordon, a NYPD Detective and on-again, off-again love interest for Tubbs in the episodes " Rites of Passage", " The Prodigal Son ", and " Too Much, Too Late ".
She also kicked ass a lot. pic.twitter.com/VPW5jRA8zL

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Episode 2 from season 3 featured a blurry eyed John Taylor from @duranduran.
Weapons were being supplied to unnamed fighters in an unnamed Central American country, the squad have to go and sort it out.
(This episode is definitely NOT about the Contras) pic.twitter.com/P9jMuNZZD0

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

In season 4 @theharryshearer makes an appearance. The squad is on the trail of a stolen canister containing priceless semen of a prized bull called Gargantua. A dangerous Cuban spy is also after the canister, but why?.... pic.twitter.com/nb1CLsdusq

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021 @DannyDutch

Penn Jillette played Jimmy Borges, Newton Windsor Blade's NY buddy and coke dealer in Season 2 premiere "The Prodigal Son". Sacco's men caught up with poor Jimmy in his NYC loft after he helped Crockett and Tubbs try to unload their stolen product. pic.twitter.com/2zaewSQ4sO

— Ralphy Malenga Esq🐋 (@arcey_p) August 5, 2021 @arcey_p