- Annabella, Hôtel du Nord, France, 1939. The great Louis Jouvet agreed to realisateur Marcel Carné’s fourth film on onecondition.His co-stars would include his wife. Fine, said Carné. And then signed Abel Gance’s 1927 Napoleon discovery and Tyrone Power’s new wife: the ex-Suzanne Georgette Charpentier.
- Jacqueline Delubac, Volpone, France, 1940. When a Paris version of the Ben Johnson classic was first promulgated in 1937, realisateur Marcel L’Herbier’s cast – Raimu, Louis Jouvet, Marion Dorian, Ozeray – never left the drawingboard. The following year, Jacques de Baroncelli’s version – Harry Baur and Delubac replacing Raimu and Dorian – was cancelled for lack of cash after two weeks’ shooting – some of which wound up in the final attempt, helmed by Maurice Tourneur, with Baur. Jouvet, Delubac and Dorian.
- Madeleine Cheminat, Tout feu, tout flamme (All Fired Up), France, 1981. Not easy finding Isabelle Adjani’s grandmother, who is also Yves Montand’s mother. With help from Jean-Claude Brialy and Marlene Dietrich’s pal, Sacha Briquet, Euro casting icon Dominique Besnehard met various old lady actresses: Danielle Darrieux, Jane Crispin and Margo Lion. It was, he said, like being dropped into a live history of cinema. He first contacted Ozeray, his poetry prof at drama school. But Adjani not keen, because Ozeray had created Adjani’s recent stage role of Ondine… yet refused to see her in it, waiting instead for a performance by Catherine Salviat. Adjani didn’t help matters by giving Ozeray, of all things, a hat stand. “She thinks I wear hats!” – which she took as insulting her age (73). She left the meeting in high dudgeon. Or a taxi.
Birth year: 1908Death year: 1989Other name: Casting Calls: 3