- - Why ’70s Glam Band Said Yes to a Jodie Foster Movie Cameo 45 Years Ago

Victoria MillerJanuary 17, 2026 at 6:15 PM

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Photo by Fin Costello on Getty Images

Angel, the cult glam band discovered by Gene Simmons in the mid-1970s, recently surprised fans with news of a farewell tour. But decades after first forming in Washington D.C., the early band members will also mark the 45thanniversary of their surprise movie cameo—in a Jodie Foster film, no less.

Angel’s classic lineup in the late 1970s featured founding guitarist Punky Meadows, vocalist Frank DiMino, bassist Felix Robinson, keyboardist Gregg Giuffria, and drummer Barry Brandt. At the time, Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart wanted to find a way to promote the band.

Enter Foxes, a 1980 coming-of-age drama directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Foster, Scott Baio, Sally Kellerman, Randy Quaid, and the Runaways’ Cherie Currie. The film centered on a group of teen girls in Los Angeles and featured a concert scene with Angel, dressed all in white, performing the songs “20th Century Foxes” and "Virginia,” which were both written for the film. Foxes was released on Feb. 29, 1980.

In an interview with Vinyl Writer Music, DiMino, 74, revealed that the band received “a lot” of movie scripts at the time and thought it was “a great idea” to promote themselves in that way.

“[Neil] kept saying, ‘We’re gonna find a vehicle for you guys,’” he recalled. “And the script for this movie Foxes came out, and Neil said, ‘I wanna put you guys in this movie. You’ll just be playing live in it, they’ll be some shots to do after with Adam Faith, who’s gonna play your manager. Jodie Foster’s in the movie.’ We went, ‘Oh, Jodie Foster’s in the movie? Great. Scott Baio? Oh, great! Yeah, we’ll do that.’ So, that’s how Foxes came about.“

The singer continued, “We did a couple of songs at the Shrine Auditorium, where they shot. Adrian Lyne was the director, great director. We did a few pickup stuff down in the dressing rooms. I don’t think it was ever used, but I’m sure that film is somewhere on the floor somewhere in some director’s office.”

Robinson had a slightly different recollection of how the Foxes movie deal came about. In a resurfaced 1993 interview with American Music Press, he described the cameo as "a culmination of the record company's control over the band."

"We were told we were going to be in this movie," he said. "This was another way to break the band. We'll do some songs in the movie. The movie's going to be about us. It's an Angel movie! It just happens to have Jodie Foster in it."

"We were involved in the script, our names were mentioned, we had lines,” he claimed of an original script which a bigger focus on Angel.

Robinson also revealed that the band was filmed extensively onstage, but only two songs were shown. "I'm sure the footage is lying in somebody's vault," he added of the cut scenes.

Foxes was a box office bomb, but Angel faced a much more devastating situation two years later, when Bogart died at age 39. “The band had been built up to be completely dependent on Neil Bogart,” Robinson said. “We were dependent on him for our success and for our future. When Neil died, it was the death of Angel.”

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This story was originally published by Parade on Jan 17, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”