In the spring of 1989, Michael Jackson pulled off something no other pop star of his day could. He called in more than 30 famous faces for a single music video, and almost all of them said yes.
The song was “Liberian Girl,” a soft, dreamy track from his “Bad” album. The video was filmed over two days that April on a studio stage in Los Angeles, directed by Jim Yukich. Look closely at the crowd and you’ll spot Steven Spielberg the director, the actor John Travolta, Whoopi Goldberg, Paula Abdul, Olivia Newton-John, Dan Aykroyd, Danny Glover, the comedian “Weird Al” Yankovic and Quincy Jones, the producer who’d made “Thriller” with him. Even Bubbles the chimp was there.
It was the kind of room where you could turn your head and see another legend.
And then, near the back, there was a girl. She was 13 years old. Most people watching the video never give her a second look. But that quiet kid would grow up to be one of the most familiar faces on American television.
So who was she?
Her name is Mayim Bialik. If you don’t know the name, you almost certainly know the face. About a year after this shoot she landed the lead on “Blossom,” the sweet, funny TV show about a teenage girl growing up in a house full of men, which ran from 1990 to 1995. Years later she played Amy, the smart and awkward girlfriend, on “The Big Bang Theory,” one of the most-watched comedies on television. She later hosted “Jeopardy!,” the famous quiz show, too.
Not bad for the kid standing off to the side in a Michael Jackson video.
Bialik was born in December 1975, which made her just 13 when these cameras rolled. She’s written about that day herself, and she doesn’t pretend she was anything but starstruck. Everyone was packed in tight, shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the man himself. “One of those celebrity sardines was … me!” she said.
She has reportedly called being in the video one of the top five greatest things that ever happened to her. For a girl who’d go on to do so much, that’s saying something.
You can find her yourself if you look. Fans say she turns up around the two minute and twenty second mark, so keep your eyes on the young faces in the crowd.
The star-packed “Liberian Girl” video, with a teenage Mayim Bialik somewhere in the crowd
Watch it once just for the song, then watch it again and play spot-the-star. Half the fun is realizing how many of those big names were really just fans that day, showing up because Michael asked.
Bialik was one of them. A kid who loved to perform, a few short years from her own big break, standing in a room full of people she’d grown up watching on screen. She never forgot it. All these years later, neither have the fans who finally know to look for her.