- Jean Seberg, Lilith, 1963. Yvette discovered the JR Salamanca book and sent it to various directors, including Robert Rossen. Unfortunately, her dream role was thwarted by his lengthy decision-making – and Warren Beatty advising him to see Seberg. “When, after much dispute, many tests, decisions and counter-decisions, Rossen chose me, Yvette arranged for a large bouquet of lilies to reach him without any other comment.”
- Julie Christie, Doctor Zhivago, 1965. Kirk Douglas chased after the Russian novel winning the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. However, Rome producer Carlo Ponti secured the rights to Boris Pasternak’s book, based not only on Russia’s revolution and Stalin’s Great Purge of freedom, but the married writer’s long affair with the poet Olga Ivinskaya. Ponti signed David Lean to direct Mrs P, Sophia Loren, as Olga. Or Lara by now. “Too tall,” snapped Lean. They then looked at Jane Fonda, not keen on spending nine months in Spain (Rod Steiger was there for a year), Sarah Miles (soon to wed Lean’s scenarist, Robert Bolt – twice!) and, when MGM was trying to to cut costs, the Metro starlet Yvette Mimieux. Fonda changed her mind, but too late (and how she regretted it ever after) because John Ford called Lean about the British girl in his Young Cassidy, while everyone else (and soon enough, Lean himself) were entranced by the same girl in Billy Liar… with her Darling Oscar around the corner. The incandescent Julie Christie! (Billy Liar, himself, Tom, Courtenay, became the young revolutionary Pasha).
- Katharine Ross, The Graduate, 1967.
- Elke Sommer, The Venetian Affair, 1967. Bondsmith Guy Hamilton was due to make MGM’s lightweight spy drama with Peter Fonda and Yvette. Instead, it became (an even lighter) Jerry Thorpe directing Robert Vaughn and Elke. No wonder Yvette quit acting to make her name in real estate and… anthropology.
- Linda Harrison, Planet of the Apes, 1967.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 5