- Segard, Derrière la façade, France, 1938. On the run from Nazi Germany, Sam Spiegel set up camp as a producer in London – running to cover in Paris before the immigration authorities and/or cops nabbed him for rubber papers or cheques. He swiftly joined the French film village (Fouquet’s etc) and formed another instant combine, Mira-Films, to make this star-packed whodunnit: Carette, Jules Berry, Gaby Morlay, Michel Simon, Gabrielle Dorziat, Marguerite Moreno, Erich von Stroheim. But not Aumont as the son of an unfaithful judge…
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Paul Henreid, Casablanca, 1941.
- Jean Marais, Orphée (US: Orpheus), France, 1950. It is always a shock to realise that Jean Cocteau never wrote Orphée for his longtime lover Jean Marais but for the older Aumont. The poet and auteur had asked his Jeannot if he’d mind Cocteau making a film with Aumont. Not at all. Reading the “fantastique” scenario, Marais offered to play the second lead, Heurtebise. Aumont was not so keen after this news. Then, the producer quit. Marais’ agent, Lulu Watier, suggested Cocteau produce the film his way – with a cast taking points rather than salaries. Marais became Orphée, after all (“my greatest happiness as an actor!”) and when Gérard Philipe also fled from such stellar opposition, Heurtebise was accepted by François Perier. and Cocteau’s current lover, Edouard Dermithe was Cegeste.
- Jean-Pierre Cassel, L’armée des ombres (US: Army of Shadows), France, 1969. Part of realisateur Marc Allégret’s 1946 plans for the Joseph Kesselbook about the French Resistance. He found it easier to financeFernandel in Pétrus (with Marcel Dalio, also intended for L’armée). Jean-Pierre Melville made the masterly ’69film.
- Laurence Olivier, Marathon Man, 1976.“Is it safe?”
Birth year: 1911Death year: 2001Other name: Casting Calls: 5