- Bruce Bennett, There’s Something About A Soldier, 1942. Tarzan replaced the future Mr Sea Hunt among the new GIs in officer school helping to steer Larry Parks’ cocky soldier Williams into, well, adulthood.. Audiences spent more time admiring Evelyn Keyes. And Shelley Winters in her movie debut.
- Joseph Calleia, Touch of Evil, 1957. Orson Welles wrote Menzies for Lloyd, “a marvellous actor.” Universal disagreed. Welles was delighted with Calleia, having fallen in love with him at ten in a New York play, 24 Hours To Kill. “I could never forget that performance.”
- Ricky Nelson, Rio Bravo, 1958.
- William Shatner, Star Trek, TV, 1966.
- Donald Pleasence, Halloween, 1978.
The Hitchcock fan auteur John Carpenter searched high and low for his shrink, Dr Sam Loomis. Peter O’Toole and the Hammer horrors, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee versus Charles Napier, Lawrence Tierney, Abe Vigoda. The $300,00 shoestring budget couldn’t afford any of them! Same for Lloyd Bridges, David Carradine, Kirk Douglas, Steven Hill, Walter Matthau… even such off-the-wallers as John Belushi, Mel Brooks, Yul Brynner, Edward Bunker, Sterling Hayden, Dennis Hopper, Kris Kristofferson… and Dick’s brother, Jerry Van Dyke. Pleasence said he only made the film because his daughter told him to! She loved Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13… He also told Carpenter he’d never read the script, nor Loomis. “Only later,” said Carpenter, “after [we] became close friends, did I realise he was finding out how much I loved the movie I was making.” Incidentally, Loomis was named after John Gavin’s Psycho character; his screen lover was Janet Leigh, mother of Carpenter’s heroine, Jamie Lee Curtis. So it flows. - Michael Caine, Escape To Victory (US: Victory), 1980. Bridges had been in the penalty box – before John Huston’s most preposterous project became a vehicle for Sly Stallone and every retired footballer known to World Cup fans. I mean Brazilian superstar Pele in a German POW camp, c’mon! As difficult to swallow as an American like Sly knowing anything about soccer.
- Alan Arkin, The Rocketeer, 1990. In the Disney mix for Peevy, inventor of Bill Campbell’s amazing rocket backpack. A flop. Of course. It was science-fiction, a subject Disney knew nothing about. That’s why they bought Lucasfilm!
- Tom Skerritt, A River Runs Through It, 1992. Before Robert Redford made such a sumptuous job of directing it, writer Norma Maclean’s story – fly-fishing equates life – had been due as a Bridges family get-together. For Lloyd and his boys, Beau and Jeff.
- John Mahoney, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, 2000. Disney science fiction has never gelled until this animated feature from the Lion King/Hunchback of Notre Dame/Beauty and the Beast trio: producer Dan Hahn, directors Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise. They all agreed who should voice the reclusive billionaire Preston B Whitmore… but Bridges died just as production began.
- Jeff Bridges, The Giver, 2013. Jeff has the title role – at last! He was first to win rights to Lois Lowry’s novel in the 90s and spent 20 years trying to achieve his goal – of directing his father, Lloyd, in the lead. And Jeff did so, in a home movie test piece. “Somewhere in some garage, ” Jeff told the Nerdist Podcast, “there’s a version of this movie with my father, playing The Giver. Bud Cort narrates the whole thing. Beau’s kids: one is shooting it, one is playing Jonas. We did the whole book, so that’s around. Somewhere.”
Birth year: 1913Death year: 1998Other name: Casting Calls: 10