Quentin Tarantino is known for his many strange cameos in his own films, but one of his first acting jobs happened to be a cameo role as an Elvis Presley impersonator on The Golden Girls. An instant hit, The Golden Girls was NBC’s number one Saturday lineup series, which meant a chance to guest star would be instrumental for one’s budding entertainment career. Before his cameo, Tarantino was an aspiring actor working as a production assistant for Dolph Lundgren’s exercise video Maximum Potential. Just a few years after the episode aired, Tarantino would receive critical acclaim and notoriety for his independent movie Reservoir Dogs.
Over the course of its seven-season run, The Golden Girls featured several celebrity cameos. Some of the guest stars - like Tarantino - wouldn’t go on to be famous until well after their appearances. Before his breakthrough with ER in 1994, George Clooney made a notable cameo in a 1987 episode as an undercover detective. Up-and-comer Mario Lopez also made an appearance as one of Dorothy’s students before he was cast in the hit series Saved by the Bell. While these weren’t breakout roles by any means, appearances on Golden Girls seemed to assist in networking within Hollywood’s industry.
Tarantino’s cameo was seen in the 1988 two-part Golden Girls episode for Sophia’s wedding. Tarantino plays an unnamed Elvis impersonator who is at the wedding because Rose mixes up the wedding invitations with the invitations to an Elvis Presley fan club meeting. The scene featured Tarantino, among other Elvis impersonators, singing Elvis’s song “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” as Sophia gets married. While the cameo was small, it was what helped him get the money he needed to start his career as a major Hollywood director.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tarantino explained he got the small Golden Girls role without an audition; all he had to do was send in a picture of himself looking like Elvis Presley and the role was his. The director revealed that his fashion in the 1980s was based on Elvis’s rockabilly look. To support his Elvis approach, he would even go to a rockabilly barber to get the signature pompadour style.
The Golden Girls cameo gave Tarantino enough industry experience and some of the money to finance his debut film Reservoir Dogs. He revealed that he was initially paid $600 for the role, but because it was featured heavily on “best of..” Golden Girls episodes lists, he received about $3,000 from residuals over the next three years. Reservoir Dogs began production in 1991, so his Golden Girls paychecks and the money he got from selling his True Romance script allowed him time to fund the movie.
Tarantino's Elvis Presley fandom has remained since his Golden Girls stint, as exemplified by the many Elvis references in his screenplays. His screenplay for True Romance focused on Christian Slater’s character Clarence who was an Elvis fanatic. Tarantino has stated he felt embodied by Clarence, indicating the Elvis obsession was influenced by his own love for “The King.” There is also a deleted scene from Pulp Fiction where Mia Wallace explains to Vincent Vega that every man is an “Elvis man or a Beatles man,” and that Vincent is the former.