Howard Stern has never shied away from taking credit for the success of the cast of his biopic Private Parts.
The notoriously raunchy media personality made his big screen acting debut in the 1997 adaptation of his memoir of the same name. In between scenes of total debauchery and plenty of nudity, Stern, now 71, impressed critics with his acting chops as well as his sweet homage to real-life first wife Allison Berns that underscored the movie. As it turns out, Private Parts also helped launch the careers of some major stars.
Director Betty Thomas‘ blockbuster provided crucial early success for future two-time Oscar nominee Paul Giamatti with his portrayal of Stern’s exasperated radio boss Kenny “Pig Vomit” Rushton. Mary McCormack had her own breakthrough playing Stern’s wife Allison years before she was a mainstay on The West Wing and Heels. But that’s not all! Thomas and her creative team cast a bevy of famous faces, including four-time Emmy award winner Edie Falco before she joined The Sopranos in a blink-and-you-missed it cameo.
The love story at the heart of Private Parts may not have stood the test of time – Howard and Allison divorced in 2001 and he later married model Beth Stern – but the true legacy of the film may actually be the unexpected career breakthroughs for its cast.
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As Private Parts celebrates its 28th anniversary on March 7, keep scrolling for a look back at what the star-studded cast said about working with Howard:
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Although Louis-Dreyfus, 64, wasn’t in the film, she was one of director Thomas’ early picks to play Allison. At one point, it looked as if a deal was close to being reached but because the actress was still committed to her TV sitcom Seinfeld, she ultimately backed out of Private Parts before filming started and was replaced by McCormack.
On The Howard Stern Show in December 2021, the host spoke in detail for the first time about why Louis-Dreyfus turned down the leading female role in Private Parts.
“She’s terrific,” he said. “We actually did a screen test together. The truth is, she would have had the part but she had something going on in L.A. She’s being nice. And then [the producers of Private Parts] said, ‘Well, we got to go find someone.’ And then Mary got it because, you know, she was so good. She was really good. But that’s true. Julia Louis-Dreyfus. I got film of us actually doing some scenes together. But she’s a lot shorter than I am too.”
Allison Janney
Janney, 65, pops up early in Private Parts as one of the many radio executives who butted heads with Howard over his risqué on-air persona.
“He was offensive. He was obnoxious. He was disgusting. Do you want me to go on?” her character Dee-Dee asks the director in a documentary-style scene.
Janney went on to have a hugely acclaimed career with seven Emmy award wins and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar win for I, Tonya. Following her 2018 Oscars success, Janney jokingly referenced Private Parts during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Ellen DeGeneres asked why Janney hadn’t thanked her on the Oscars stage, to which Janney sarcastically quipped: “I have a speech together of all the people I didn’t thank and you were at the top of the list because you really started everything for me. And Howard Stern also. The two of you really started my career.”
Sarah Hyland
The Modern Family star had her first significant role in a Hollywood blockbuster at just 5 years old when she played Howard’s middle daughter, Debra, in Private Parts. (Howard’s eldest daughter, Emily, was played by Sasha Martin and his youngest daughter Ashley wasn’t depicted due to the time period in the film.)
Hyland, 34, reflected on her experience making Private Parts during a 2012 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where she mentioned how protective Howard was of the young cast.
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“He was so nice,” she remembered. “I remember him taking his glasses off and I remember thinking he had the bluest eyes I had ever seen in my life.”
Hyland went on: “It’s actually funny in retrospect, looking back at everything, what his show is like and stuff, but a crew guy cursed in front of me, I was 4 or 5 and he, like, yelled at him,” Hyland said. “He was like, ‘Don’t curse in front of the children! It’s disrespectful.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, he’s so nice!’”
Leslie Bibb
The White Lotus star appears briefly in Private Parts as a tour guide working at WNBC studios in New York City, where Howard first made a name for himself nationally in the mid-1980s. Bibb’s tour guide leads visitors past Howard’s studio where they are horrified to see his guest swallowing a 13-inch kielbasa.
This shocking scene turned out to be Bibb’s feature film debut and one of her first professional acting credits. Despite her relatively short screen time in Private Parts, Bibb, 50, said the role was a pivotal moment for her career because she was still in acting school at the time.
“Howard, because he was doing the show and doing this [movie], he had an apartment almost. He could sleep there or live there because he was just working,” she told Collider in 2022. “He was very serious. I remember being very nervous about meeting him.”
Bibb continued: “I just remember being scared he was gonna ask me something that my 19-year-old brain would be nervous about or I didn’t know, and he was so generous and so kind. And Robin [Quivers] was so lovely. And my mom really loved Howard Stern and she thought it was such a cool job. And Betty Thomas was directing and I think [I] sent her flowers. I was such a nerd. I was like, ‘I’m gonna send Betty Thomas flowers!’”
Kelly Bishop
Before she became an iconic TV matriarch as Emily Gilmore in Gilmore Girls, Bishop, 81, played Howard’s mother, Ray Stern, in the 1997 comedy. Bishop had one of the more challenging roles in Private Parts as Howad’s mother was already one of the most beloved people on his radio show.
Bishop later admitted to Entertainment Weekly that she was “not eager” to audition for Private Parts because she’d never been “a fan of Howard Stern.” She credited Allison Janney’s involvement in Private Parts with convincing her to go for the role.
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“When people said, ‘What is Howard really like?’ And I don’t know what he’s like now, but I’d say, ‘[He’s] like a teenager,’” she admitted. “Not a bad guy, but just like a kid … He wasn’t an unpleasant fellow.”
The bizarre and often-times lewd antics in Howard’s radio studio were certainly a long way from where Bishop ended up in Stars Hollow only three years later on Gilmore Girls.
Mary McCormack
McCormack, 56, was a relatively late addition to the Private Parts cast, as she was picked to replace Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Howard’s wife Allison shortly before production started.
While McCormack had worked steadily in TV previously, Private Parts was by far the biggest project of her career up to that point. She told reporter Bobbie Wygant in 1997 that she felt Howard was often misjudged by the public.
“I think, from knowing Howard, and I hate to talk about how they run their family because it’s so separate, but my understanding of Howard is that he’s a wonderful father,” McCormack said. “He’s nothing if not honest … That act [on the radio] is something else. It’s just a separate thing from what [his family] know.”
McCormack was so impressed with her costar that she picked him as an “an Oscar contender” for Private Parts. While an Oscar nomination never materialized for the shock jock, he did win a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Best Newcomer in 1998.
Paul Giamatti
A huge part of Howard’s mythology is his notorious battles with various radio executives who sought to censor and control him early in his career.
Giamatti, 57, played an amalgamation of several of Howard’s bosses as a radio executive nicknamed “Pig Vomit” by the DJ. Many contemporary critics singled out Giamatti’s explosive performance as one of the highlights of Private Parts.
“It was an opportunity for me … I hadn’t done this much on film, so I was nervous too and I didn’t want to screw it up,” Giamatti revealed on The Howard Stern Show in 2024, before telling the host: “You were effortless, so it actually made it easy for me.
“The whole thing was exciting … The part was great, and it was like I couldn’t believe that I was going to get to do this thing … Betty Thomas was great — she let me just do whatever I wanted to do, which was amazing.”
Giamatti subsequently had a hugely successful film and TV career, earning two Academy Award nominations and winning three Golden Globes. He even gave Howard a shout-out while accepting his Golden Globe award in 2024 for The Holdovers.
Private Parts is available to stream now on Apple TV+, Prime Video and Pluto TV.
