Austin Pendleton

 

  1. Gary Burghoff, M*A*S*H, 1969. Choosing Catch 22 instead was the biggest mistakeof Pendleton’s career. Then again, it didn’t stop himwinning a further 100-plus screen roles.And he looked so much like Burghoff.
  2. Ken Howard, Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, 1969. For his   sixth consecutive flop, producer-director-ogre Otto Preminger – totally out of whack with the 60s/70s public – skated between Howard, Pendleton and a third Otto film with John Philip Law as the seizure prone Arthur. Even Paramount vp Peter Bart said the drama – about three hospital patients, physically, mentally or sexually scarred, moving in together – was “intrinsically down beat and depressing.” Right.
  3. Bud Cort, Brewster McCloud, 1970. Another no to director Robert Altman… Scenarist Doran William Cannon said he wrote the then Brewster McCloud’s Amazing, Sexy Flying Machine for Pendleton – who had been in his Skidoo, 1968.
  4. John Cazale, The Godfather, 1971.
  5. Reg Rogers, Lovely By Surprise, 2006. Auteur Kirt Dunn asked him to be Bob – and then made him Jackson when Frank Langella refused the role.
  6. Steve Carrel, Horton Hears A Who, 2007.   Pendelton and Michael Keaton were also up for Mayor Ned McDodd – among the many refuting Horton’s claim abput finding a microscopic world… in a speck of dust. Jim Carrey voiced the elephant, his first toon gig. “A 15-minute picture locked in an 85-minute narrative,” complained The Guardian critic Philip French.

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  6