figurante

The poor figurante must devote years of incessant toil to her profitless task before she can shine in it. 

From Self help; with illustrations of conduct and perseverance by Samuel Smiles

Mademoiselle Prévost, alarmed at such a triumph, intrigued with such success that Mademoiselle de Camargo was soon forced to fall back to the position of a mere figurante.

From The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II by Various

She was a bookbinder's accountant all the day, and in the evening she was a figurante at one of the theatres.

From My First Book: the experiences of Walter Besant, James Payn, W. Clark Russell, Grant Allen, Hall Caine, George R. Sims, Rudyard Kipling, A. Conan Doyle, M.E. Braddon, F.W. Robinson, H. Rider Haggard, R.M. Ballantyne, I. Zangwill, Morley Roberts, David Christie Murray, Marie Corelli, Jerome K. Jerome, John Strange Winter, Bret Harte, "Q.", Robert Buchanan, Robert Louis Stevenson, with an introduction by Jerome K. Jerome. by Various

All this was true, except about the French figurante.

From Men's Wives by William Makepeace Thackeray

Her listener had drifted from attention to the soft caressing tones of the one time Parisian figurante, whose devotion was so apparent and whose nature required a certain amount of demonstration.

From The Bondwoman by Marah Ellis Ryan