When it comes to Stephen King’s cameos in his own work, he seems to have free reign to pick and choose as he wants. “I generally pick the cameo,” King told author Tony Magistrale in the book “Hollywood’s Stephen King. “I picked, for example, the pizza guy in ‘Rose Red,’ the weatherman in ‘Storm of the Century.’ I gave myself a bigger role in ‘The Stand.’ It’s fun.” Magistrale specifically asks if the idea of the King cameo is something King picked up from legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, and King replied in the affirmative. “I’m playing Hitchcock here; I’m just a frustrated actor,” the author said.
Hitchcock’s cameos became rather famous throughout his long career. The master of suspense has cameos in 40 of his 53 surviving films, a concept that Hitchcock said first arose from necessity. “It all started with the shortage of extras in my first picture. I was in for a few seconds as an editor with my back to the cameras. It wasn’t really much, but I played it to the hilt,” Hitchcock is quoted as saying in a 1945 issue of The New York Times (via The Hitchcock Zone). He added: “Since then I have been trying to get into every one of my pictures. It isn’t that I like the business, but it has an impelling fascination that I can’t resist. When I do, the cast, grips, and the camera men and everyone else gather to make it as difficult as possible for me. But I can’t stop now!” Hitchcock’s cameos became so famous that he began putting them very early in his films to get them out of the way, because he was worried audiences would be distracted from the story if they kept watching to see when he’d pop up.
As for King, his cameos are always a hoot. When I was growing up as a Stephen King-obsessed kid, I always got a huge thrill whenever the very nerdy author would show up for a moment or two. I suppose you could argue that King’s cameos can be distracting — he tends to stick out like a sore thumb. But they never bothered me. In fact, I wish he made more of them. There are no shortage of King adaptations on the horizon, so here’s hoping we get at least one more cameo from the author.