Linda Cardellini Launched Her TV Career on ‘The Price Is Right’ and Took Home a Prize She Still Has
Linda Cardellini’s Netflix series Dead to Me is slated for a fall 2022 release date. The actor delivers a heartfelt performance that digs deeper into the mystery of her character Judy. While she has been on several projects, many of which were hits, Linda Cardellini had her first taste of life in entertainment at 19 when she appeared and won on The Price Is Right.
‘The Price Is Right’ was Linda Cardellini’s first time on TV
Before she found fame with Freaks and Geeks, Linda Cardellini appeared on The Price Is Right. According to Good Housekeeping, the actor was 19 years old when she and her friends attended a taping of the popular game show.
She said in an NPR interview in 2017 that she was one of the first people called to the contestants’ row. The actor said that moment was “maybe one of the most exciting things that has ever actually happened to me.” Then, after bidding $1,000, Cardellini won a gas fireplace.
The actor told John Oliver in 2013 that she never got rid of the appliance and kept it as a reminder of the first time she was on TV. She said:
“I had kept it for years in the box in my garage because it was the very first time I was on television. So once I was ya know, really an actress, I was going to put a plaque on it that said, ‘My first time on television’ and be very proud of it.”
Linda Cardellini’s successful career
Cardellini appeared on Bone Chillers in 1996. She then had guest stints on programs including 3rd Rock from The Sun, Step by Step, and Boy Meets World. Her breakthrough came when she landed a part in NBC’s Freaks and Geeks, which first aired in 1999.
Linda Cardellini’s role as Lindsay Weir on Freaks and Geeks earned positive responses and shot her to stardom. She then landed a role in Scooby-Doo in 2002 playing a live-action Velma Dinkley, which she reprised for the 2004 sequel Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.
In 2003, she joined ER as Samantha Taggart for six seasons. Cardellini also appeared on Dead Man On Campus, Good Burger, Legally Blonde, and Brokeback Mountain. Her role in the latter earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Plus, she occasionally has lent her voice to various animations including Gravity Falls, The Goode Series, and the game Gladius.
In 2013, she was cast in the Jon Hamm-led series Mad Men playing his character Don Draper’s love interest. Her performance in the AMC series earned her a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.
In 2015, Cardellini joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe playing Laura Barton in Avengers: Age of Ultron. She reprised the role as Hawkeye’s wife in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which was a massive box office success, and in 2021 for the Disney+ series Hawkeye.
She also appeared in Daddy’s Home and its sequel playing Sara Whitaker. In 2018, Linda Cardellini and Christina Applegate were selected as leads in the dark comedy Dead to Me. Her performance was critically acclaimed, and she received a Primetime Emmy Award nod. In 2019 she appeared in Green Book, which won an Academy Award.
Other celebrities who’ve been on game shows
Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul came close to winning a sports car on The Price Is Right, but he guessed the price wrong. Wheel of Fortune host Vanna White also tried her hand at The Price Is Right but wasn’t too successful. She landed her hosting gig two years later.
Furthermore, Linda Cardellini’s Mad Men co-star Jon Hamm appeared on a dating show called The Dating Game in his 20s but got rejected.
