10 Actors Who Didn't Want To Be Credited For Movie Roles

In Tootsie, Dustin Hoffman plays Michael Dorsey, an out-of-work actor with a bad reputation for being difficult, who decides to take a risk and 'reinvent' himself as Dorothy Michaels, a flamboyant, southern-belle TV celebrity. When he is cast in a successful daytime TV soap opera, the relationship he has formed with Jessica Lange under false pretences is thrown into jeopardy.

While this is unquestionably a Hoffman/Lange film, the appearance of Bill Murray as Jeff, Hoffman's playwright roomie, threatens to steal the show. In a film that was already about deception and show-stealing, Murray decided to throw the spotlight where it belonged and politely refused an opening credit for his work in the movie.

When asked why, Murray simply said he thought of it as a "fun practical joke" and that Hoffman had pleaded with him to be a part of the production.

Bear in mind that Murray was not yet the star he was to become in the 80s and beyond, his major roles at that point were Saturday Night Live, Meatballs (1979) and Caddyshack (1980) so perhaps Murray knew something that 80s audiences didn't - that he would become one of the most recognised faces in Hollywood only a few years later with Ghostbusters.

It was also noted that Murray improvised most of his lines and in a film that had at least seven different writers, that's a real skill.