Katina Paxinou

  1. Mady Christians, Tender Comrade, 1943.    The RKO Archives Production Files at UCLA show that the Greek actress was first choice for Manya Lodge – later played by the Austrian Christians – in what became labeled a pinko film because it was scripted by Dalton Trumbo, named as a Communist by Ginger Rogers’ mother at a HUAC hearing in 1947.  Ginger (but not red) starred  but refused to say one line – “share and share alike… that’s democracy” – as she felt it Communistic. Trumbo and director Edward Dmytryk were then blacklisted.
  2. Joan Fontaine, Frenchman’s Creek, 1943.     English lady. French pirate. Love at eight bells. Or then again, why not a Greek lady with a Mexican pirate   – Paxinou and Arturo de Córdova. Also up for Dona St Columb were Irene Dunne, Vivien Leigh, Merle Oberon and Rosalind Russell.
  3. Irene Dunne, I Remember Mama, 1948.      Failing to land Greta Garbo, producer Harriet Parsons considered making the Hanson family Greek under a matriarchal Paxinou, the first non-US actress to win a support Actress Oscar – for her film (and Hollywood debut), For Whom The Bell Tolls, 1942. 
  4. Martha Scott, The Ten Commandments, 1954.
  5. Lotte Lenya, From Russia With Love, 1963.

 

 Birth year: 1900Death year: 1973Other name: Casting Calls:  5