Crawley's Casting Calls

Main Menu

A work in progress...
© Tony Crawley 2019
Maintenance by:

TC by GM - back in the day when this fetish started.

Who's Online

CHAMPIONS' LEAGUE

Brando

There are 7,769 actors detailed on the CCC website. Some have missed a single film. Others, many more. Then, there are the champions. Like these … and look how Nicholson is closing in on Brando … (Exciting huh?!)

1. Brando - bypassed 159 movies
2. Nicholson - 156
3. Cary Grant -146
4. Paul Newman - 143
5. Robert De Niro- 125

Highest Brit Sir Sean at 108.
Highest lady is Bette Davis, 89 items; Jodie Foster, 77; Liz Taylor, 68; Nicole Kidman and Michelle Pfeiffer are level at 76; likewise Julie Christie, Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep at 66.
Newer Brigade: Tom, 126; Brad, 107; Johnny, 99; Julia, 64; Jim Carrey, 62; Leo, 61; Madonna, 59; Jennifer Aniston, 22; Jennifer Lawrence, 21.

(You'll find the full list at Champions in the Main Menu)

He said title

"80% of directing is casting - the rest is choreogaphy." - Peter Fonda

"Films are like life with the boring bits cut out" - Alfred Hitchcock

"Hollywood is like a fizzy drink." - Antonio Banderas

"Sometimes death can be a good career move." - Woody Allen

"Look at the puddings that come out of this guy’s oven, man. He’s a star!" - Jeff Bridges on director Hal Ashby.

"I think he was the guy in school that could never get the girl and so he extracted revenge over four decades." - Dennis Quaid on Harvey Weinstein.

"My big four idols were Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, Richard Pryor and Elvis." - Eddie Murphy

Pacino

"I see myself kind of like a tenor. And a tenor needs to hit those high notes once in a while. Even if they’re wrong. So sometimes they’re way off. There’s a couple of roles that, you know, the needle screeched on the record." - Al Pacino

The New Yorker critic Anthony Lane agrees and comments further on Pacino’s "tic." "Whatever the role, he stretches out a word of one syllable into two, or even three, and declaims each syllable at a different pitch. … He doesn’t say "fraud," He says "frahr-aud." Call it irritable-vowel syndrome."

"Like Larry Olivier, Orson Welles has a different nose in every movie." - Dick Cavett

"Money is honey." George Harrison

"The films that you used to get - Three Days of the Condor and those kind of films - you couldn’t make now. Even Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would be hard to make. Because the guys die in it." - George Clooney

"Hollywood is like a fizzy drink." - Antonio Banderas

"We’ll all be able to act for another 30 years.” - Robert De Niro on The Irishman de-ageing, (Not unless they improve it).

“I’m not done with the Mad Max story… There’s certainly another Mad Max coming down the pike.” - George Miller

"Don’t you know there’s a secret to getting along with everybody? You just make believe that they’re all on acid. Then it’s easy not to take anything too personally." - Robert Altman

"There’s Jack Nicholson - and then there’s everyone else." - Robin Williams.

ALIAS SMITH AND JONES

	Those married assassins, Mr and Mrs Smith, were Scott Bakula and Maria Bello in a 1996-1997 series that begat the hit 2004 film introducing Brad Pitt to Angelina Jolie. That begat a sequel, except the now-wed Pitts passed ... by the divorce court. To keep the kettle warm, the Smiths returned to the tube as Martin Henderson and Jordana Brewster. The series tanked but led to the Brangelina script finally being retitled Keeping Up With The Joneses for Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot. Jim Carrey sussed that Gadot had the best role, so he didn’t marry Isla Fisher as the dormousey couple, shocked to find their neighbours were, well, Mr and Mrs Bond! They were not unlike Fisher’s husband, Sacha Baron Cohen, in The Brothers Grimsby, 2015, as the gormless brother of an 007-ish spy.

WHAT'S UP DOC

Timothee and Elle in A Rainy Day in New York

A Doc Ron run ran.

"Let me do right to all, and wrong no man ..." Dwayne Johnson is still hoping to be Doc Savage. His movie has been on the cards for two years and may not happen for another two. Tele-cowpoke Chuck Connors was to be the first Doc in 1974. However, the rights battle was not settled and as the cast, crew and locations had been paid for, the script was quickly churned into a Western, Ride Beyond Vengeance. (Who's kidding). George Pal later obtained the rights. He chatted up Steve Reeves but signed tele-Tarzan Ron Ely as Lester Dent's heroic adventurer, detective, doctor, explorer, inventor, musician researcher and scientist! Film flopped as did 1991 plans for Arnold, and Chris Hemsworth in 2014. The Rock touts his take as “the world's first superhero” as he was around five years before Superman in the 30s. Incidentally, Doc was once called a superman - and his name happens to be Clark. Ring any bells?

SUPER HEROINES

Now you see her, now you don’t. Margaret Sullavan felt above such trifles as The Invisible Woman in 1939 but Elizabeth Banks is prepping a new version this year. (Perhaps). During the 70s’ run, The Incredible Hulk producer Kenneth Johnson talked about a Hulkette series and I‘m sure that by 2024 or 2025 there will be a female Joker. African-American, Asian, or if we really get there, Martian.

WHEN CASTING IS DAFT

TIME IS NOT ON HIS SIDE

Baltimore Police Sergeant Jay Landsman was rejected for The Wire character based on... Baltimore Police Sergeant Jay Landsman! A year later, he joined the series as Lieutenant Dennis Mello. Jay was also the model for Detective John Munch, played in all variations of Law & Order by Richard Belzer in his signature shades.

Sir Mick had made his 12th movie. Just a cameo. He’s the rich art collector responsible for everything happening in The Burnt Orange Heresy - an art fraud caper. There are bed scenes but Jagger, at 76, is not in them. Elizabeth Debicki’s lover is played, instead by the appropriately named Claes Bang.


SWEET MARILYN She lost Baby Doll, Can-Can, Freud, Harlow. So what! She was sublime in Some Like It Hot.	BEST SELLERS "What role?" "All of them!" said Stanley Kubrick. Sellers never finished this fourth ...	LITTLE SHIRLEY After lavish tests of Shirley Temple for 1949's Little Women, MGM chose Janet Leigh as Meg.	GODPOP Shakespeare icon Laurence Olivier as Mafia Godfather Don Corleone – fuhgeddaboudit!

ALL SHOOK UP

In 1966, Julie Christie won an Oscar for Darling. And a Hollywood rôle eventually played … by Elvis! Most surprising news since I found out that the another Oscar-winner, the French Simone Signoret, nearly played his shrink five years earlier in Wild in the Country. The trouble with Double Trouble was, as per usual, E’s mis-manager, "Colonel" Tom Parker. He routinely rejected anything good - The Defiant Ones, Rio Bravo, West Side Story, Midnight Cowboy, True Grit, A Star Is Born, - but actually approved this pap with The King of Rock singing … Old McDonald Had A Farm!! Co-star Norman Rossington scored his own special double. He's the only actor to film with Elvis and … The Beatles.

DOC HOLLYWOOD

Once upon a time, Hollywood decided to make a Doctor Who film. (Even Spielberg tried to get involved in 1996). The idea was a pilot for a USeries to exhume the BBC science-fiction cult, buried in 1989 after 26 seasons. And who do you think the suits at Universal contemplated for the eighth version of the Beeb’s venerable Time Lord. Oh, just about everybody… Take a deep breath… First, Jim Carrey, Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks. And the co-producing BBC looked at 60 others… from the oldest, Peter O’Toole, 64, to the young New Yorker Scott Weiner, 21.
OK, that leaves 58 others but you don’t want a lengthy scroll of actors, do you? OK, just a few then… Two Bonds: Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan. Two Caligulas: John Hurt, Malcolm McDowell. Two future Game of Throners: Sean Bean, Liam Cunningham. Two brothers: Mark and Paul McGann. But enuff, enuff! I don’t have the space here. You’ll find all the surprises on the Doc’s page in Special Movies. (Russell Crowe, Rutger Hauer, Rob Lowe, Ian McKellen, Eddie Murphy… ) What? Oh, Paul McGann won the role).

TUT, TUT !

Didja know… that for its UK release, the harmless 1948 Hollywood comedy, BF’s Daughter, had to rapidly change its “tastless” and ”disgusting” title to Polly Fulton.

MAY I INTRODUCE YOU TO ...

Susan Hampshire in Swingin' London, circa 1965.

When working as the London correspondent for the French movie magazine, Cinémonde, in the 60s, I introduced Susan Hampshire to her first husband. Without meeting either of them …
A missive from Paris arrived in 1965 asking me to recommend some British blonde actresses for Paris au mois d’aout - Charles Aznavour falling for a lovely Brit visiting Paris in August, when the city is (almost) empty of French people and packed with tourists. I sent over some photos, adding one of Susan at, literally, the last second, as she was no particular favourite of mine. The rest is obvious. She beat Julie Christie, Veronica Carlson, Justine Lord, Edina Ronay and Carol White to the film! Plus the heart of réalisateur Pierre Granier-Deferre. They wed in 1967, had two children and divorced in 1974. Without ever knowing I had a digit in their destiny.

Photo ©redits:

All The President's Men and Godfather montages: Reg Oliver, 1976; Marlon Brando: Paramount Pictures, 1960; Elisabeth Counsell: Eon Productions, 1965; Doc Savage: Warner Bros, 1975; Susan Hampshire: Disney, 1962; Mr and Mrs Smith: 20th Century Fox, 2005; Marilyn Monroe: 20th Century Fox, 1962; Al Pacino: Saban Films, 2017; Eleanor Tomlinson: BBC, 2019; Peter Sellers: Hawk Films/Columbia Pictures, 1963; Shirley Temple: Selznick International Pictures, 1946; TC sketch: Graham Marsh, 1976. Plus enormous thanks to The Man: Daniel Bouteiller.

Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU General Public License.

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 - 8,063 actors - to click on... More than 40 years in the making!! And 2,502,855 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.

This is the film that bred this site ... after Robert Redford told me he'd planned a little black-white version - with Robert De Niro, and Michael Moriarty as Woodstein.

BOND LADY

Elisabeth Counsell tested (among the many) for Bond's masseuse Patricia Fearing in Thunderball, 1964. She had previously been in From Russia With Love. "In a punt going by with an actor called Michael Culver." She won 68 other roles since 1962 (producing two of them) in a variety of series from Doctor At Sea and Fame Is The Spur to the recent Born To Kill and Cold Call.

WHERE TO FIND ..?

STREEP KONG

Meryl v Italian producer Dino de Laurentiis. Read all about it - in her first item.

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).

PERFECT GRYSHENKA

How Hollywood ruined Marilyn Monroe's dream role in The Brothers Karamazov is on Marilyn's page - item #17

TORN APART

Why didn't Rip Torn make Easy Rider - see his blue section on his page.

Clint and Sergio's Dollars trilogy has finally entered the hallowed pages of Special Movies. So has The Sopranos! With - and it's about time, right? - Friends coming, as they say, shortly.

She said title

"I love Woody. I believe him, and I would work with him any time." - Scarlett Johansson. Way to go, girl!

"If I’m ever playing a a squeaky-clean person, then I’m looking for the darker side." - Maggie GyllenhaaL

"I‘m just going to do documentaries from now on. They’re far easier. No hair and make-up." - Helena Bonham Carter

"What is the point of Jennifer Aniston these days?" - Sunday Times TV critic Camilla Long

"I mean, I'm just borrowing this flesh suit. I’m going to give this back to the Lord anyway. Might as well share it, if I can feed my family and whatnot." Tiffany Haddish on movie nudity

Tomlinson

"If they’re looking for Jane Bond, then I’d love it. Why the hell not? It turns out I’m pretty good at kicking ass." The War of the Worlds' Eleanor Tomlinson

"If anything came up at Fox studios I’d do it. I sang a song about prunes once. I would dub in the sound of footsteps in movies." Gwen Verdon

"I was a great casting director - forever suggesting other people instead of me." - Alexandra Stewart. For example, she turned down Honey in Dr No

"Blondes definitely do not have more fun. Trust me." - Mila Kunis

"I find acting really hard and really painful." - Phoebe Waller-Bridge, collecting her Emmy

"I always chose movies that I thought would fail so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the fame thing." Barbara Harris. (Yeah, movies like ... Robert Altman’s Nashville and Hitchcock’s finale, Family Plot)

"It’s like talking to a crumpled bag of sweets." - Tilda Swinton on Bill Murray

"If I had stayed in Hollywood, I would have killed myself. Or someone would have done it for me."  - Piper Laurie

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.