Nicholas Cage: Just the beginning in the ‘80s

Nicholas Cage as legendary Canadian rower Ned Hanlan in "The Boy in Blue" in 1986.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/1980s/comments/1gqfs01/nicholas_cage_the_boy_in_blue_1986/

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He has had such a prolific career with hits such as “Leaving Las Vegas”, “Con Air”, “Face/Off”, and “The Rock”, but it all began for Nicholas Cage in the 1980s. That's when he was almost typecast as kind of a cheesey sidekick in movies such as “Peggy Sue Got Married”, “Raising Arizona”, and “Moonstruck”.

We just watched “Dream Scenario”, his latest movie. He plays a middle-aged professor who has something strange happen to him that morphs into something horrifying and life altering.

I just kept thinking how far he has come since he was hanging out with Cher.

Canadian legend
Ned Hanlan may be the greatest Canadian athlete no one has ever heard of. I first heard about him in Grade 10 when I joined my high school “Reach for the Top” team. The question was, who has the longest uneaten streak in sports history. At the time, the answer was Ned Hanlan. He was a sculler who was world champion and undefeated for years. He honed his talent by either running booze or fish, there are differing accounts of his youth.

Nicholas Cage played Ned Hanlan in “The Boy in Blue” in 1986. It was a Canadian film that was just awesome, looking at Hanlan’s time in the late 1800s and how he challenged for and finally won the world championship. He was Canada’s most famous athlete in the world at the time.

It remains one of my favourite Nicholas Cage movies.

In the beginning
Cage actually got his start in films with a small role in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”, alongside Judge Reinhold in the food court kiosk in 1982.

His first starring role was in “Valley Girl” in 1983, opposite Deborah Foreman. It was a movie a former girlfriend of mine urged me to watch. She even lent me the movie on tape. That tape sat on my shelf for years from Edmonton to Vermilion and Lethbridge, and I never got around to watching it.

Cage was in three movies in 1984. In “Racing with the Moon” he plays opposite Sean Penn as two friends waiting to be Marines. In “The Cotton Club”, he plays a character based on real-life gangster “Mad Dog” Coll. The movie was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who is Cage’s uncle. Finally, Cage appeared in “Birdy”, playing opposite Matthew Modine, as two friends and how they were affected by serving in the Vietnam War.

Breakout
In 1986, after “The Boy in Blue”, Nicholas Cage broke out with “Peggy Sue Got Married”. He plays the husband of Kathleen Turner’s character who, on the verge of divorce, travels back in time to their high school days. Turner garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. The film was again directed by Coppola, and grossed just over $41 million in the U.S.

The next year, 1987, Cage appeared in “Raising Arizona”, another comedy where he plays a dum ex-con. His character marries an ex-cop. When discovering she is infertile, they decided to kidnap one of a set of quintuplets to raise as their own, and things spiral out of control from there.

Cage’s true breakthrough came later in 1987 in “Moonstruck”. Cher plays an Italian widow in love with her fiancé’s younger brother, played by Cage. The film was directed by Canadian icon Norman Jewison, and was the fifth highest grossing movie of the year. The role earned Cage a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

The years after
Cage’s career slumped as the 1980s came to a close, with two movies in 1989 – “Vampire’s Kiss” and “Time to Kill”. Neither was really of note.

He went on to appear in “Wild at Heart” and “Fire Birds” in 1990; and “Zandalee” in 1991 which went directly to video. In 1992, he turned in a solid performance as a goof in “Honeymoon in Vegas”. In 1993, he was in “Deadfall”; “Amos and Andrew”; and “Red Rock West”. Then in 1994, he was in “Guarding Tess”; “It Could Happen to You”; and “Trapped in Paradise.”

His career surged in 1995. After an acclaimed performance in “Kiss of Death”, he was absolutely amazing as a man hell bent on drinking himself to death in “Leaving Las Vegas”. The role earned him an Oscar for Best Actor and the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama.

That touched off a string of great box office hits starting with “The Rock”; then “Con Air” and “Face/Off”. Then came “City of Angels”; “Snake Eyes”; and “Bringing Out the Dead”.

He has kept on acting to this day, with his latest role in “Dream Scenario”.

Parting thoughts
Nicholas Cage’s performance in “Leaving Las Vegas” is touching, chilling, haunting and just amazing. It really was the role that made a lot of people take him more seriously, and set him on the road to becoming a critically acclaimed actor.

Yet looking back, Nicholas Cage did start out as that cheesy, goofy, dufus character and could have been typecast right there at the end of the ‘80s.

But, in the end, that was just the beginning.