- Dorothy Comingore, Citizen Kane, 1940. Cinematographer Gregg Toland shot a test of Warrick as the luckless Susan Alexander – alongside Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles – on June 24, 1940. One week after Evelyn Meyers tested as Susan. Comingore, then called Linda Winters, had her turn on July 1, 1940. Warrick, who played the first Citizeness Kane, worked with Welles‘ Mercury Theatre group’s stage and radio shows.
- Jane Wyatt, Week-End For Three, 1941. Cary Grant lost four potential wives – Dorothy Comingore, Irene Dunne, Ginger Rogers, Ruth Warrick – and then the ubecame Dennis O’Keefe and Jane Wyatt in a rapidly downsized production.
- Laraine Day, Mr Lucky, 1942. Or Bundles for Freedom when Cary Grant asked RKO to buy the Milton Holmes story for him – even though the role was a shady gambling operator called Joseph Bascopolous. (Joe, for short). Ruth Warrick, the Missouri miss) tested for his girl. But ‘twas Laraine Day who he introduced to London’s Cockney rhyming slang… “Hand me the fiddle-and-flute. Get your tit-for-tat.” Aka, his best suit and her hat. (In 1956, a musical re-make nearly took off with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin).
- Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951. The Blanche Dubois potentials on producer Irene Mayer Selznick’s list included the past Mrs Citizden Kane and the future – and, of course, manipulative – Phoebe Tyler Wallingford ruling the daytime soap, All My Children, from the 1970 debut to her death.
Birth year: 1915Death year: 2005Other name: Casting Calls: 4