An actor who featured in one of the most enduring films of the 1980s, and on two of its most beloved TV series, was spotted in Los Angeles this week.
His best-remembered role was in the picture that made movie stars out of Sean Penn and an actress who later became one of Quentin Tarantino’s leading ladies.
During the same decade, he played recurring characters on an iconic musical TV drama as well as a hit sitcom about a girls’ boarding school.
In more recent decades he has appeared in movies with such names as Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart and on shows ranging from Will & Grace to Family Guy to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Now aged 69, he was glimpsed this week looking sprightly as ever as he surfaced for a grocery run in a casual ensemble of jeans, a hoodie and tortoiseshell shades.
Can you guess who he is?
An actor who featured in one of the most enduring films of the 1980s, and on two of its most beloved TV series, was spotted in Los Angeles this week
His best-remembered role was in the picture that made movie stars out of Sean Penn and an actress who later became one of Quentin Tarantino’s leading ladies
He is none other than Robert Romanus, best known to movie fans as the scalper Mike Damone in the 1982 high school movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Based on a book by Cameron Crowe, the coming-of-age film proved to be a career breakthrough for Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Judge Reinhold, as well as for first-time director Amy Heckerling, who went on to make Clueless.
Born to a Lebanese family in Connecticut, Romanus first moved to Los Angeles to be a musician, working as a singing waiter in a restaurant until a patron said, in a thinly-veiled dig at his voice: ‘You know, you should be an actor,’ he told Cult Film Freak.
He enrolled in an acting class, fell in love with the profession and shortly thereafter landed his first movie, the 1980 coming-of-age drama Foxes starring Jodie Foster.
Directed by Adrian Lyne – who later made Unfaithful, Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal – Foxes featured Romanus amid a cast that included Scott Baio, Randy Quaid, Sandy Kellerman and The Runaways lead singer Cherie Curie.
Three years went by before he landed Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which he had to audition for seven times because the producers were unconvinced by his work despite the fact Heckerling was pushing for him to get the part.
He won the hearts of fans as Mike Damone, who has a deluded idea of himself as a lothario and dispenses hackneyed tips about cultivating ‘the attitude’ to attract girls.
‘Oh it was all fun, man,’ he recalled later of making the movie. ‘It was beautiful because nobody had any big egos. It was really a summer film. Wasn’t a big budget.’
He is none other than Robert Romanus, best known to movie fans as the scalper Mike Damone in the 1982 high school movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Based on a book by Cameron Crowe, the coming-of-age film proved to be a breakthrough for Sean Penn and Jennifer Jason Leigh, the latter of whom is pictured with Romanus
Now aged 69, he was glimpsed this week looking sprightly as ever as he surfaced for a grocery run in a casual ensemble of jeans, a hoodie and tortoiseshell shades
He enrolled in an acting class, fell in love with the profession and shortly thereafter landed his first movie, the 1980 coming-of-age drama Foxes starring Jodie Foster
Three years went by before he landed Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which he had to audition for seven times because the producers were unconvinced
Romanus noted: ‘All the actors were fairly new. Sean Penn, I think, who was maybe the most known at that moment, was coming off TAPS…So there was no: “I am this, I am that, I want a big trailer, blah blah blah… I’m a star.”’
He added: ‘It was only: “Let’s have some fun. Let’s shoot this movie.” And I would go down to the set and watch Sean do a scene – and I’d think: “Oh man, these guys are so f***ing good. I have to go home and do my homework.” It just made me want to make me go home and work harder because everything was looking so good.’
As the decade wore on, he landed a recurring role on the musical TV series Fame about a performing arts high school in New York – based on the real-life institution that produced stars ranging from Al Pacino to Jennifer Aniston to Timothee Chalamet.
He also had a memorable turn on The Facts of Life, a long-running sitcom about an all girls’ boarding school, in which he played the boyfriend of Mindy Cohn’s character Natalie Green, who loses her virginity to him.
Romanus has since had guest roles on a string of TV series like 21 Jump Street, Weird Science, Will & Grace, Family Guy, Cold Case and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
His movies have included American Pie Presents: The Book of Love, the fourth part in the franchise, as well as the reality show parody A Halfway House Christmas.
In a full-circle moment, he played a guitar teacher in the 2010 rock biopic The Runaways starring Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Curie – 30 years after the real Curie and Romanus made their movie debuts in Foxes.
