Hollywood was dealt a terrible blow on October 11, 2025 when it was announced that Diane Keaton was dead at 79. As it always goes when an actor dies, especially one with as storied a career as Keaton had, it’s natural to look back to the beginning of their professional history. For Keaton, that journey began in 1970 when she made her big screen debut in the romantic comedy “Lovers and Other Strangers.” 

Keaton certainly wasn’t the star of the film, and was in fact quite a ways down on the cast list, but it was clear even then that her talent and charm were going to be a steady presence on movie screens for many years to come. In fact, though it might not get brought up as much as some of her better-known films, “Lovers and Other Strangers” has been called one of Diane Keaton’s greatest movies. Interestingly, Keaton wasn’t the only big name to play a small part in the movie. It also provided an early role for Sylvester Stallone, as well as a cameo by already established TV comedy great Jerry Stiller — both of whom actually went uncredited for the film. 

A little-known fact about Sylvester Stallone is that he was a bit player in a number of movies throughout the 1970s, even before “Death Race 2000” earned him his first significant attention. One of those parts was in “Lovers and Other Strangers,” in which Stallone played an uncredited groomsman. It was one of a handful of roles that the actor played in the first half of the decade where he was simply credited as an generic character type or a job title, if he was even credited at all.

As for Jerry Stiller, “Lovers and Other Strangers” also marked his own film debut, though he’d been a constant presence on television going back to the 1950s. Interestingly, he’s not even the only Stiller in the movie. His daughter, Amy Stiller, was yet another actor for whom “Lovers and Other Strangers” was her debut film — though her role as a flower girl actually did earn her a credit, in spite of her only being nine years old at the time.