Don’t you just love those early 80s movies that you rewatch only to discover that they are loaded with actors and actresses who became A-list later in the decade? Like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Outsiders?
In my effort to have the best cheese-tastic teen flicks of the 80s on DVD—and to have every 80s teen movie featuring my favorite ignored 80s actress/singer E.G. Daily—I picked up No Small Affair, starring pre-St. Elmo’s Fire Demi Moore and pre-Pretty in Pink Jon Cryer. Not one of the most memorable teen flicks of the 80s, it is a definite who’s who of “before they were stars” and “never really stars” of the 80s. It has Tim Robbins, Jennifer Tilly, Tate Donovan (who dated Jennifer Aniston in the 90s, scoring a temporary role on Friends), Peter Frechette from one of my all-time 80s faves, Grease 2, Rupert Holmes, who has a cameo in the film because he scored it but is most famous for singing a song that ushered us into the 80s…“Escape (The Pina Colada Song),” Ann Wedgeworth, who played the bizarre neighbor Lana on the 1979-1980 season of Three’s Company, and George Wendt of Cheers.
And then there’s E.G. Daily, most known by guys who grew up in the 80s for showing her boobs in Valley Girl. Funny thing about E.G. As a singer, she had a minor recording career in the 80s, releasing two albums, working with master producer Giorgio Moroder (responsible for all of Donna Summer’s disco hits) on soundtracks like Scarface and Thief of Hearts. “Love in the Shadows” from Thief of Hearts is one of my favorite songs by E.G.
She also had songs on teen soundtracks The Breakfast Club, Summer School, and Better Off Dead, in which she was featured briefly as a singer, with no spoken parts.
E.G. also acted in 80s films such as Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, One Dark Night (my blog about this awesome horror flick is here), Loverboy, horror comedy Wacko, and Bad Dreams. She had a bizarre, irrelevant, small role in Streets of Fire, and while she is actually a singer, it was Diane Lane who played a rock star in the film, lip-synching to other vocalists. And in No Small Affair, E.G. once again had a small acting role, while Demi Moore lip-synched in the lead role as a struggling rock singer. E.G. couldn’t cut a singing leading lady break! Heck, they didn’t even let E.G. do the vocals for these leading ladies, although it would have been weird to have her in the movie while someone else was performing her song.
Meanwhile, E.G. also appeared on two episodes of Fame back to back, but only sang in one of the episodes…showcasing her voice on approximately two lines of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” before Doris Schwartz barged in on her rehearsal. E.G. also didn’t get to show off her vocals while playing Patty, the girl who gave birth to a ten pound baby bo-oi-ey in the Rod Stewart video “Young Turks.”
Like Tate Donovan, E.G. would later go on to appear on an episode of Friends, as a singing friend of Phoebe, and has made a career out of being the voice of a Rugrat, but to me she’ll always be the underappreciated girl who dominated teen movies and soundtracks in the 80s.
And here’s E.G lip-syncing to someone else’s song! Bonnie Hayes’s “Girls Like Me” in the movie Valley Girl!
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