- Ann Blyth, I’ll Never Forget You (aka The House in the Square), 1950. The Irish actress never forget her Hollywood debut… She had just wed actor-scripter Bryan Forbes in a welter of headlines due to her Fox contract and casting opposite Tyrone Power in the Berkeley Square re-make, when she read she was being replaced. For lack of experience. “Nobody bothered to tell her,” recalled Forbes. “She was totally unprepared to deal with the aftermath” of a suspended contract, no more weekly cheques and being ordered back to Hollywood. He followed, nothing worked out, the marriage quickly died and when meeting years later by chance in Rome, she devastated him with her line: It’s Bryan Forbes, isn’t it? “Not even Groucho Marx could’ve followed that.” (Except he could have).
- Dianne Foster, The Kentuckian, 1954. In July, producer-director (and star) Burt Lancaster and Harold Hecht tested the Irish Smith and mused over Kim Novak for Hannah Bolen. Except Lancaster did not want anyone who might take the shine off him.
Birth year: 1928Death year: 2003Other name: Casting Calls: 2