1. – Rod Taylor, Young Cassidy, 1965. While director John Ford debated Harris v O’Toole, to play Sean O’Casey, the dying playwright recommended Donal Donnelly or Norman Rodway to play his early days. Both had prestigious films in their future. Rodway was Hotspur in Orson Welles’ Chimes At Midnight, 1965; Donnelly was the cunning Vatican Archbishop Gilday in The Godfather: Part III, 1990. Fortunately, O’Casey died in 1964 and never saw the mess – finished by director Jack Cardiff.
2. – William Morgan Sheppard, Max Headroom, TV, 1985. Sheppard’s mellifluous bass voice beat off the Irishman to the role of Reg Blank. Writer-directors Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton asked if he’d shave his head, Mohician style? He said: “For an extra thousand quid I’ll go to bed with both of you’!” And, at 53, the Londoner’s careers was changed in a trice. “Without Max I wouldn’t have ended up in America playing – most of the time – bigger roles than I was playing back home in England” – mainly aliens, vampires and robots, klingons” in American Gothic, Babylon 5, Charmed, The Prestige, Seaquest DSV Star Trek (Next Generation, Voyager and the 2009 movie), Transformers, Wild At Heart…
Birth year: 1992Death year: 2001Other name: Casting Calls: 0