- Sam Jaffe, Lost Horizon, 1936. The Boston Herald was right. From the outset, casting The High Lama was “dogged by disaster and difficulty.” But The LA Examiner, New York Telegraph, etc, were wrong, not to say downright stupid when reporting the 200-yer-old ascetic was being offered to such fat guys as Walter Connolly, Charles Laughton and Thomas Mitchell..! “Pure speculation,” said director Frank Capra. He set the record straight in The Films of Frank Capra book. “The test business was as follows. A test of AE Anson: he died after the test. A decision to test Henry Walthall: he died before we could test him. A test of Sam Jaffe: he survived and got the part. No other tests were made.” Walthall had starred in DW Griffith’s Birth of a Nation in 1914.
Birth year: 1878Death year: 1936Other name: Casting Calls: 0