Before They Were Stars: Stephen Fry in a Whitbread Best Beer Commercial

In 1982, an unknown Stephen Fry received one of the best payoffs an unknown actor could get for appearing in a commercial. After landing him a gig acting in a series of ads for Whitbread Best Beer, Fry’s agent told him he would get paid “25” for three days of work and, of course, Fry assumed he meant £25. Imagine his surprise when he found out the actual payoff was £25,000! Needless to say, unknown actors generally don’t receive that kind of money for commercials, but these ads was pretty popular in Britain during the 1980s. Incidentally, the minstrel here is Tim McInnerny, who would go on to star alongside Fry in Blackadder.