- Vivien Leigh, Gone With The Wind, 1938.
- Ella Raines, Corvette K-225, 1942. Or Corvettes in Action, when director Howard Hawks wanted to use the cast of Arthur Lubin’s impressive Eagle Squadron, 1942. Including Barrymore or Evelyn Ankers as Joyce Cartwright, sole woman in the piece. However, Robert Rossen made the WWII thriller. Either way, the Corvette was part of the Royal Canadian Navy’s fleet.
- Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ladies Courageous, 1944. She lost the star role of the WWII women pilots and settled, as throughout her career, for something smaller.
- Marion Hutton, In Society, 1944. Betty Hutton’s sister won the Abbott & Costello quickie when Diana refused to “sell the Barrymore name cheaply.”
- Gale Sondegaard, The Spider Woman, 1944. Wouldn’t sell out to Sherlock, either. Although (or because?) her father John had been the 1922 Sherlock Holmes. (She was estranged from John ever since he asked her to hire a call girl for him). Diana was under contract to producer Walter Wanger at the time – and he immediately suspended her.
- Martha O’Driscoll, Ghost Catchers, 1944. If Abbott & Costello didn’t suit, fat chance for Olsen & Johnson and their Ghostbusters forerunner. And so, Ladies Courageous, proved the swansong of her Universal contract – and of her Hollywood career. “So much promise,” she said. “So much waste.”
- Susanna Foster, This Is The Life, 1944. “Winnipeg’s Sweetheart,” Deanna Durbin, rejected small musicals like this adaptation of the Angela Is 22 play by… Sinclair Lewis and Fay Wray! So Barrymore turned up her nose at it, as well. And Foster just… shone!
Birth year: 1921Death year: 1960Other name: Casting Calls: 7