- Anthony Quinn, Heller In Pink Tights, 1959. For his first Western (by Louis L’Amour, of course), director George Cukor planned to have Warden as the partner of the titular Sophia Loren in a travelling stage troupe. But Quinn had just made Black Orchid with her. ’Nuff said.
- Hayden Rorke, I Dream of Jeannie, TV, 1965-1970. In the silly series about Barbara Eden as a Jeannie in a bottle (geddit?), both Rorke and Warden were up for the ever suspicous Dr Alfred E. Bellows.
- Carroll O’Connor, All In The Family, TV, 1971-1979. As if there could be another Archie Bunker…! Warden, Tom Bosley, Scott Brady, Jackie Gleason, Mickey Rooney – they all rejected Archie Bunker!When the ground-breaking producer Norman Lear called up O’Connor,the actor-producer-director and Actors Studio life member was living in Italy. He’d read all about the abrasive BBC show, Till Death Us Do Part, and told his wifeit couldn’t work in the US. He insisted, therefore, on a return air ticket to Rome!He lasted the 1968 ABCpilot, Justice For All (Bunker was then Archie Justice) and the second, Those Were the Days, 1969. Then ABC passed and CBs pounced. O’Connor played Bunker 305 more times (counting spin-offs) – an extremely tame version of Warren Mitchell’s iconic BBC character, Alf Garnett. O’Connor still won four Emmy awards from eight nominations.
Birth year: 1920Death year: 2006Other name: Casting Calls: 3