- Haya Harareet, Ben-Hur, 1959. Sword and sandal epics were in. And producer Sam Zimbalist, who’d made one of the biggest – Quo Vadis, 1950 – was back in Rome in charge of the re-make of the 1923 silent Ben-Hur, racing chariots and all. Sam even considered retaining his Vadis trio: Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Stewart Granger. However, the battle for Esther was between Italian Pier Angeli, Santa Barbara’s unknown Carolyn Craig Swiss Liselotte Pulver. Liselotte won but was contracted to Germany’s Gustav Adolfs Page. Enter: Israel’s Haya Harareet.
- Sophia Loren, El Cid, Italy-UK-US, 1961. Poor Lilo… As Oscar Wilde wouid have phrased it: “To lose one Charlton Heston epic, Ms Pulver, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” Actually it was about her contract with German producer Paul Goldbaum. Also in the mix: German teen Christine Kaufman (15; living with Tony Curtis at age 16), Jeanne Moreau, Moira Shearer. “The biggest disappointments of my career.” She later went Hollywood in A Time To Love And A Time To Die, 1958, Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three, 1961, and A Global Affair, 1964 with… Bob Hope! After which, she never strayed again!
- Maggie Smith, The VIP’s, 1963. Or… The Burtons! Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor are re-enacting an episode in Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh’s tumultuous life. All the other players were also-fans. Apart from Louis Jourdan as Taylor’s new lover, and, indeed, Maggie Smith in the role first offered to Lilo – private secretary to Rod Taylor’s tycoon Maggie all but stole one Burton scene. Not sure Pulver could have managed that.
- Claude Gensac, Le gendarme se marie (US: The Gendarme Gets Married), France-Italy, 1968. Now this is an insulting – to suggest Lilo should be the wife of the terrible stutter, splutter, mutter, nutter comic Louis De Funès, who ate scenery as if it were ratatouille. Maybe Germany was trying to buy into the French Gendarmefarces. Truth is they did not travel that well.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 4