Craig Zadan on stage, featured prominently in Zadan's televised version. Chita Rivera appears in "Chicago" as "Nickie"; she played "Velma Kelly" in the original 1975 production. The film adaptation of "Hairspray" featured John Waters (writer/director) as "the flasher who lives next door;" Jerry Stiller ("Wilbur Turnblad") as "Mr. Pinky;" and Ricki Lake ("Tracy") as a reporter. On the soundtrack, Lake joins Nikki Blonsky and Marissa Jaret Winokur ("Tracy" from the Broadway production) to sing "Mama I'm a Big Girl Now" over the closing credits, and Harvey Fierstein (Broadway's "Edna") can be heard briefly soon after. Mink Stole ("Tammy" in the original film)
Spencer Tracy "The Murder Man" (1935), which included the feature film debut of James Stewart. Thalberg then began a strategy of pairing Tracy with the studio's top actresses: "Whipsaw" (1935) co-starred Myrna Loy and was a commercial success. "Riffraff" (1936) put Tracy opposite Jean Harlow. Both films were, however, designed and promoted to showcase their leading ladies, thus continuing Tracy's reputation as a secondary star. "Fury" (1936) was the first film to prove that Tracy could make a success on his own merit. Directed by Fritz Lang, Tracy played a man who swears revenge after narrowly escaping death by a lynch mob.