WONDER ... FUL
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Super girls are coming. Maybe even Supergirl. Brie Larson is Captain Marvel. Joss Whedon is prepping Batgirl. And this summer we get to know Diana Prince much better ...
On Warner shelves for a full decade (not helped by David Kelley's disastrous 2011 TVersion with Adrianne Palicki), Wonder Woman is Gal Gadot - the fast 'n' furious ex-Miss Israel, soldier, law student and model. She says her Diana is "very different from the experienced, super-confident, grown-up woman" she introduced in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2015. I'm surprised she still mentions that mess ...
Her rivals for the Lasso of Truth, indestructible bracelets, etc (didn't she have an invisible car?) included Mischa Barton, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Rachel Bilson, Sandra Bullock in 2001 (and for the 2011 tele-film), Bollywood's Priyanka Chopra in 2006, US wrestler Chyna, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Eva Green (of course), Mad Men's Christina Hendricks (Nicolas Winding Refn's 2011 choice), Angelina Jolie in 2001 (ten years later she was asked to direct), Cobie Smulders (WW's Lego voice), Kristen Stewart, Elodie Yung. Among the final auditionists with Gal in November 2013, was Olga Kurylenko, who beat Gal to 007's Quantum of Solace. Not this time. |
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LITTLE SHIRLEY
After lavish tests of Shirley Temple for 1949's Little Women, MGM chose Janet Leigh as Meg.
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ALBIE OF ARABIA
When Brando said no, Albert Finney said maybe, shot a four-day test and said: Bye-bye.
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BOND BABE
The UK's Roman pin-up Gloria Paul was among the Domino wannabes testing for Thunderball.
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TOM JONES
How Indiana Jones was supposed to look. With Steven Spielberg's first choice. Tom Selleck.
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MUCH ADO
ABOUT MITCHUM
Paris auteur Louis Malle shortlisted Henry Fonda, James Mason, Laurence Olivier for Atlantic City. but the 1980 dream was Mitchum, "one of the great American actors." They met to discuss the old gangster role and Malle saw Bob's face-lift, making him look too young. Enter: Burt Lancaster. Pity! Bob could have finally got his Oscar. Except at 63, he told Malle: "I'm only playing 45 now."
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SLY AND WOODY
Talk about odd couples… Sylvester Stallone's third film was Woody Allen's Bananas, 1970. Woody rejected him for not being intimidating enough. "I was about to fold my tent and go home, but then I thought, 'OK, Sly, this is one of those serious, life-altering crossroads.'
I psyched myself up, dirtied my face, messed up my hair, built up a head of steam, went back to the set, tapped him on the shoulder, locked eyes with him, and through a crooked, semi-snarling expression said, 'Do I intimidate you now, pal?' And lo and behold, the job was forthcoming."
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MORE ADO
ABOUT MITCHUM
Robert Mitchum made Desire Me in 1946. "Nobody desired anybody," he said about the MGMess. It was bad enough when Robert Montgomery was Greer Garson's husband betrayed by Mitchum, but when Bob 1 quit (to play Phillip Marlowe - a Mitchum rôle 30 years later!), Bob 2 took his place.
Then, director George Cukor quit, Mervyn LeRoy took over, followed by Jack Conway, until it became Metro's first film without a director credit. That, Mitchum told me, is when he gave up being serious about movies ... "Around the time Greer Garson took 125 takes to say: No."
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GUESS WHO
Winston Churchill has been portrayed 103 times on screen since 1914. Some good - Albert Finney. Some not: Michael Gambon, John Lithgow, Timothy Spall. Takes more than a spotted bow-tie and a cigar ... So who's this, looking 100% perfect in his Darkest Hour? Surprise, surprise, it's Sirius Black, Lee Harvey Oswald, Sid Vicious, Commissioner Gordon ... Gary Oldman!
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I'M ALL RIGHT DRAC
Billy Baldwin, Johnny Depp, Charlie Sheen, Christian Slater were seen in 1992 for the mild-mannered. Jonathan Harker in Coppola's (full title said Bram Stoker's) Dracula. The Columbia suits voted Keanu Reeves. He was hot, the others were not. D'oh! Slater famously fled, opining: "If you're not going to play Dracula in Dracula, why bother? I'd already been Robin Hood's brother."
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READY FOR
HER CLOSEUP
Searching for an old-time screen queen to be Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, 1949. director Billy Wilder went through the ancients: Mae Murray, Pola Negri, Mae West, even Garbo. That's when helmer George Cukor suggested Gloria Swanson. And told her: "If they want you to do ten screen tests, do ten screen tests. If you don't, I will personally shoot you."
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FORTIETH IS THE WORD
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Grease is 40 this year. Soft lenses were used on Olivia Newton-John, 29 and John Travolta, 23, as the over-age high schoolers. Stockard Channing was 33! If ever a film required botox!
It all seemed good idea in 1972 when flamboyant producer Allan Carr bought the rights - for Elvis and The Female Elvis! (Ann-Margret). Although their ages - 42 and 36! - made 'em more suitable for Danny or Sandy's parents. Plus Elvis was suffering from way too much grease ... Carr next thought of Happy Days' Henry Winkler with The Partridge Family's Susan Dey, and examined unknowns Peter Gallagher, Richard Gere (London's Danny), Patrick Swayze and John Travolta, a Broadway understudy. Marie Osmond, got all all holier than thou about Sandy's transformation from good to bad girl ... Silly Marie. Carr went to dinner at Helen Reddy's where sat another Aussie singer ... and Travolta agreed. Olivia Newton-John was the one. |
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WELCOME to a unique directory of what you never saw on-screen. The films the stars did not make. The movies that never were. The most definitive collation of casting stories ... Check up on all the films - of yesterday, today and tomorrow - that your favourite stars never made... A cast of thousands - 7,000 actors - to click on... More than 40 years in the making!! And 1.9 million words of spirited text. The ultimate in movie trivia ... Better! Exactly the kind of history that Hollywood deserves. Back to front. Upside-down. Inside out. Full of flashbacks, close-ups, tracking shots (and, alas some badly edited sequences - sorry about that!) forming a fascinating, new and often bizarre flip-side perspective on your treasured movies and stars.
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| FLASHBACKS |
| '60s |
SEVENTH SADDLE
Director John Sturges had trouble finding The Magnificent Seventh. Veterans like Sterling Hayden and John Ireland passed on the silent one - he only had 11 lines. (Ah, but plus the knife). Robert Vaughn eventually recommended an old schoolmate. James Coburn.
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| '70s |
THAT’S MY ROLE!
"The only really good role I’ve rejected - and I could kill myself - was The Great Gatsby," says Jack Nicholson. "Since I was 18, people said I should do Jay Gatsby. I didn’t really go after the part for well, personal reasons I don’t want printed."
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| '80s |
BEATRICE BLUE
French casting king Dominique Besnehard found Betty Blue on a magazine cover. Took one look at Béatrice Dalle and said, "Same race as Bardot and Monroe!" "He was rude, took it for granted that I wanted to be in films," Dalle told Frederic Albert Levy on a 2013 bonus. "I was afraid… But the only alternative was shoplifting."
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| '00s |
TOYS R AWFUL
UK hunk Ray Park went from Star Wars’ and X Men to such ridiculous toys-as-source-material as GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, 2008. Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers skewered it. "I don't know what to say about the acting, writing and directing ... because I couldn’t find any."
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| WHERE TO FIND ..? |
PERFECT GRYSHENKA
How Hollywood ruined Marilyn Monroe's dream role in The Brothers Karamazov is on Marilyn's page - item #17
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FULL METAL HALL
For the fullest story of why Anthony Michael Hall did not make Stanley Kubrick's 'Nam classic, go to Hall's page. (The blue section).
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STREEP KONG
Meryl v Italian producer Dino de Laurentiis. Read all about it - in her first item.
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TORN APART
Why didn't Rip Torn make Easy Rider - see his blue section on his page.
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Photo ©redits:
All The President's Men montage: Reg Oliver, 1976.
Darkest Hour: Focus Features, 2017.
Albert Finney: Horizon Pictures (II)/Columbia Pictures, 1961.
Grease: Paramount-Robert Stigwood Organization, 1977.
Tom Selleck: Belisarius Productions/Glenn A Larson Productions/Universal TV, 1988.
Shirley Temple: Selznick International Pictures, 1946.
Thunderball: Eon Productions, 1965.
Wonder Woman: Warner Bros, 2017.
Plus enormous thanks to The Man: Daniel Bouteiller.
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WHAT'S GOING ON?
Some pages have muddling changes of typefaces, colours, spaces, and somewordssqueezedtogether ... Extremely sorry! As Valmont said: "Beyond my control." This follows improving security. Long story. Corrections are happening.
Fair Use Notice: This CCC site is operated under the assumption that its not-for-profit policy constitutes a "fair use" of the copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. All photos, audio/video clips and information taken from selected videos, books, magazines and internet resources are for entertainment and educational purposes only. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond the interpretation of fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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