- Guy Kibbee, Don’t Tell The Wife, 1936. Acting as if it had no actors under contract, RKO dropped circus star Stone and loaned Kibbee from Warner Bros. Plus Una Merkel from MGM and Lynne Overman from Paramount. Stone was the Wizard of Oz Scarecrow on stage for nine years from 1902 – greatly influencing Ray Bolger’s work in the movie classic.
- Warner Baxter, Barricade, 1938. Talk about Meet Cutes… The journalist and singer meeting on a train attacked by bandits were supposed to be Stone (in a rare lead) and Joan Bennett. They gave up their seats to Warner Baxter and Alice Faye. A jack-of-all-trades in circus, vaudeville and Broadway, Stone made just 18 films ranging from being Katharine Hepburn’s father in Alice Adams, 1934, to The Westerner with Gary Cooper (stolen by Walter Brennan as hanging judge Roy Bean).
Birth year: 1873Death year: 1959Other name: Casting Calls: 2