- Lionel Stander, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, 1935. “Mr Capra told me that he wanted Ned Sparks to play the role but that Harry Cohn had insisted on me,” Stander told the authors of The Films of Frank Capra. The reason was obvious. Money! Stander was under contract to Columbia, while the Canadian Sparks was a freelance and, therefore, more expensive. “After he [Capra] saw the rushes, even though my concept of the role differed from his, he liked what I did and kept me in the film… Sparks would have been excellent in the role but naturally with a different quality than mine. It was a good part and any competent actor would have given it gloss.” In his Spectator film critic days Graham Greene called it “Capra’s finest film.”
Birth year: 1883Death year: 1957Other name: Casting Calls: 1