Billy Idol

  Chris Jagger, Lifeforce, 1984.     Robert Englund, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, 1989.        A bad motorcycle smash nearly wiped out Idol – and certainly meant he couldn’t play Smiley.Finnish director Renny Harlin called up Englund to take over – they’d got on well while making the fourthNightmare On Elm Street …
Continue reading Billy Idol

Billy Wilder

Jared Jussim, Jerry Maguire, 1996.  A great fan of Wilder, The Apartmentand Shirley MacLaine in it,  Crowe wanted the iconic  director as the  conscience of the movie –  Jerry’s mentor, Dicky Fox.  A meet was arranged. Wilder instantly  said: “I am sorry, but I have to piss ice water on you right now and say I …
Continue reading Billy Wilder

Blackie Lawless

Robert Patrick, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, 1990.       A rock singer drops out of a film – particularly a James Cameron film – for one of two reasons. Drugs. Or a motor-cycle smash. Idol crashed his bike… but Arnold Schwarzengger’s choice of the heavy metal WASP singer was out for a whole new …
Continue reading Blackie Lawless

Blake Edwards

1. – Sydney Pollack, The Player, 1992.   When one director could not, as planned, do   fellow director Robert Altman a favour, another   obliged.    Pollack, shanghaied back into acting   in Tootsie by   Dustin   Hoffman,   continued with bits for A to Z – Woody Allen to Robert Zemeckis – before subbing Harvey Keitel in the Kubrick finale, …
Continue reading Blake Edwards

Bobby Darin

Richard Beymer, West Side Story, 1961.        Among all the   guys seen for   Jets and Sharks, only two were singers. Darin and…   Elvis! Kevin Spacey made no mention of this in his biopic about the singer with a dodgy heart. Rock Hudson, Send Me No Flowers, 1963.   Jayne Mansfield, The Wayward Bus, 1957.  …
Continue reading Bobby Darin

Bobby Rydell

Frankie Avalon , Grease, 1977.       The show’s high school was named for Bobby Rydell. Yet he was rejected for the Teen Angel, which went to Frankie Avalon. Well, director Randall Kleiser had been an extra in Avalon’s Fireball 500, 1966. So it blows.  Birth year: `194Death year: 2022Other name: Usual occupation: SingerCasting …
Continue reading Bobby Rydell

Bono

Val Kilmer, The Doors, 1991.  During the 20-year convoluted struggle to put Jim Morrison’s short, empty life on film, Charlie Sheen contacted Jerry Hopkins, co-writer of the leading source book, No One Gets  Out of Here Alive, to set up a movie starring the Irish U2 rocker.  Seven producers and $2m of development  hell later, …
Continue reading Bono