- Cary Grant, Arsenic and Old Lace, 1941. Frank Capra is one of the great Hollywood directors…. and liars! He told Grant that he was the only actor in America who could do justice to the screwball role of Mortimer Brewster. So what did Capra tell Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Ronald Reagan (!) and Richard Travis (who? A B-filmer who replaced Reagan in The Man Who Came to Dinner that year). Shot in 1941, when Archie Leach legally became Cary Grant, the release was delayed, as per contract, until after the play closed… in 1944. Cary Grant felt his Mortimer was say over the top. .”Jimmy Stewart could have done a much better job did. He would have been wonderful… I told Frank Capra that at the time, He just wouldn’t t listen.” Capra said he’d solve it in the final edit Except he went to film WWII for his superb Why We Fight series. Travis had a few leads in 40s B-movies and continued upon that path when they became better known as TV series.
- Gary Cooper, Saratoga Trunk, 1943. Head bro Jack Warne shelled out $175,000 for the rights to the latest huge (ie rambling) novel by Edna Ferber – for yet another reunion of Errol Flynn-Olivia De Havilland. Howard Hawks wanted to direct with pal Cary Grant as Colonel Clint Maroon. Or Richard Travis from, er, Truck Busters! However, Sam Wood got the gig and used his Hemingwayesque couple from the previous year’s For Whom the Bell Tolls: Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. Trunk (a main railway lIne) was shown to the GIs fighting WWII but delayed in the US until 1945. Sam’s assistant director was… Don Siegel.
Birth year: 1913Death year: 1989Other name: Casting Calls: 2