- Norman Chappell, Carry In Cabby, 1962. Ken was in the first and last of the 30 Carry Ons, and in fact made more than any one else – 25. Nearly 27, but… Not. This. One… The script, he said, was bad. (Hell, they were all bad!) Good enough, though for the debuts of Jim Dale and Amanda Barrie – the 1964 Cleopatra in Carry On Cleo.
- Gene Wilder, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, 1970. Author Roald Dahl’s original choice to play his eccentric chocolatier was BBC radio Goon Spike Milligan. Next? Spike’s co-Goon Peter Sellers was too expensive. LA’s choice, Joel Grey, was “not physically imposing enough.” Ron Moody would have frightened the horses – and the kids. UK comic Frankie Howerd was into two film farces. Jon Pertwee was wed to Doctor Who. Carry On stars Williams and Sidney James were as keen as (a way too old) Fred Astaire. One by one, all six Monty Pythons (John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones Michael Palin) were judged not international enough (and Howerd, Milligan and Pertwee were?!) Cleese, Idle and Palin were offered the 2005 re-hash; Chapman had died and Gilliam and Jones turned director.
- Peter Jones, Carry On England, 1976. Nor. This. One… Same film, different title… “They’re even starting to justify the bad scripts now… What hogwash! You can only call a mess a mess.” In from the 1958 start, Williams knew if a script was not up to snuff. It failed miserably at the box-office – closing in many UK cinemas after three days.
- Vincent Price, The Princess and the Cobbler, 1993. The greatest toon that never was… Across 52 years, 1961-2013, Canadian animation genius Richard Williams (Roger Rabbit, etc), toiled on his life’s work, a toon version of Mulla Nasrudin tales. Promised and denied aid by Disney, Steven Spielberg, Warners, etc, ripped off by collaborators using his ideas when returning to Disney (see Aladdin!), inspiring other toons and eventually having the movie snatched away from him, re-cut, re-voiced and released by almost as many outlets as he’d had titles. Carry On Ken was booked to voice the villian Anwar (later Zigzag) but replaced by Price, who started his recording sessions as early as 1969. In his final film, Williams voiced two other characters, Goblet and Tickle. In 2013, Richard Williams said his May 1991 workprint was saved – digitally archived by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He subtitled it wth typical irony… A Moment In Time!!!
Birth year: 1926Death year: 1988Other name: Casting Calls: 4