- Bette Davis, Watch on the Rhine, 1942. Rosemary, Edna Best, Irene Dunne, Helen Hayes, Margaret Sullavan were shortlisted but Bette won the American wife of a German patriot Paul Lukas hounded by Nazis in Washingtpn DC. It was a support role, almost a thank you to Lilian Hellman for also writing Bette’s 1941 fjlm, The Little Foxes. Bette Davis thanking someone?!
- June Lang, Nancy Steele Is Missing, 1936. Exploiting the Lindbergh baby kidnapping in a convoluted manner, the drama had Nancy meeting her kidnapper 20 years later and believing him to be her father. (I did say convoluted!). Among the potential Nancies were: Dee, Francis Farmer, Jean Parker and Jane Wyatt.
- Irene Dunne, Life With Father, 1946. Mary Pickford won the rights to the Broadway hit, even agreed to test but, hell, she hadn’t made a movie for 13 years! So the Warner suits looked at DeCamp, Bette Davis and Rosalind Russell. Director Michael Curtiz agreed that Dunne had more box-office pull (in her only colour film), although he really wanted Bette.
- Viveca Lindfors, Adventures of Don Juan, 1948. Change of the titular Errol Flynn’s lover – Queen Margaret of Spain, no less – in the swashbuckling romp. Flynn first tried to make the film in ’45 until thwarted by an industry strike.
- Nina Foch, The Ten Commandments, 1954.
- Penny Santon, That Girl, TV, 1965. The first mother of Marlo Thomas’ struggling New York actress in the never screened pilot. While Marlo starred in the full 135 shows, Momma II appeared in a round dozen. (Rosemary and her husband escaped injury when an XF-11 plane crashed into their and neigbours’ houses on July 7, 1946 – all but killing the pilot. Howard Hughes).
Birth year: 1910Death year: 2001Other name: Casting Calls: 6