- Ryan O’Neal, Love Story, 1970.
- John Savage, Steelyard Blues, 1973. Co-producer Julia Phillips managed to get Donald Sutherland to read with Carradine – but Sutherland was “too threatened by his looks” and vetoed him. Keith had been part of off-and-on Broadway’s Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical 1968, with Diane Keaton, Ben Vereen, Barry Maguire, Meat Loaf, even Heather MacRae, whose father, Gordon MacRae, came from Oklahoma and Carousel – Rodgers and Hammerstein, not Rado and Ragni .
- Allan Nichols, Nashville, 1974. “I wasn’t even supposed to be Tom. Originally, I was going to be Bill. They wanted Gary Busey for Tom, which was much more on the money in terms of Gary’s energy and personality. It would have made much more sense on first blush.” When Busey was busy, Altman moved Carradine up to leader of the band: an amoral rocker. Every woman in the audience felt his I’m Easy was aimed at them]. “Never felt right. I did not like him. What you see is a guy who doesn’t like himself. It’s brilliant. It’s the truth. I wish I could say I was such a good actor. It had nothing to do with acting. It’s the genius of Bob putting me in a circumstance that made me really uncomfortable…” Nicholls was one of the three writers of Altman’s A Wedding, 1977.
- Malcolm McDowell, Voyage of the Damned, 1975. In a Nazi propaganda exercise – “Nobody loves Jews – so leave them to us”- Germany ships Jews to Havana, in the full knowledge that Cuba won’t accept them. Nor will any other nation. They return home, by which time WWII has begun, and of the 937 passengers, more than 600 die in concentration camps! ThIs is no retread of Katharine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools, although similar and both featuring José Ferrer and Oskar Werner (in his final film here). No, this is a terrible true story, stuffed with stars, too many to deal with. Denholm Elliott has one scene, Orson Welles, four; luckier than the jettisoned Janet Suzman and Jack Warden. A good guy this once, Malcolm McDowell was among the crew instead of (take a breath)… fellow Brits Jon Finch, Anthony Hopkins, Simon MacCorkindale, Ian McShane, John Moulder-Brown. Martin Potter and Hollywood’s Keith Carradine, Jeff Conaway, Raul Julia, Martin Kove, Joe Mantegna, Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford, John Ritter, John Travolta, Jon Voight.
- John Savage, Hair, 1979. “They were panicking about the person chosen to play Claude was tied up with another film and asked me. I really had my doubts about what it could be as a film… Ironically, after graduating from high school, my closest friend was in the army and I was in Hair.”
- Max von Sydow, Flash Gordon, 1980. UK director Nicolas Roeg’s choice for Ming The Merciless before Mike Hodges made it. “It was like Churchill having the right to burn the Sutherland painting,” Nic told me in London.. He had an agreement with Dino De Laurentiis: “Do you want me to go on the way I’m going? We got through a year like that and were within a month of starting when he said: “This is not the Flash Gordon I wanted to do. Therefore, you go [he mimed signing a cheque] or stay. Produce it with me!” Nic Roeg said: “Dino, I’m for hire but I’m not for sale.”
- Edward Albert, Galaxy of Terror, 1981. One son-of-the-famous for another as Eddie Albert’s lad beat John Carradine’s for Cabren, hero and senior officer of the spacecraft Quest on a rescue mission to the mystery planet Morganthus. Bill Paxton was the set dresser and the art and second unit director was James Cameron – in fact, this gig won him a contentious helming debut, Piranha II: The Spawning, 1980. “I was replaced after two-and-a-half weeks by the Italian producer.”
- Gary Busey, Lethal Weapon, 1986. There were 39 possibles for Mel Gibson’s suicidal cop. Just seven for his bad man target, Mr Joshua. John Saxon was first choice – but he was having A Nightmare on Elm, Street: Dream Warriors. Next up: Carradine, Scott Glenn, Tommy Lee Jones, Ron Perlman, Christopher Walken, James Woods… and a slimmed-down Busey. He said the role rescued his career.
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Brad Davis, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial., TV, 1988.
“In retrospect, I should’ve done it.” recalled Carradine. “After Nashville, Bob never invited me again until… he called me to play Queeg. I was absolutely terrified by the ghost of Humphrey Bogart. Frankly, I didn’t have the balls to confront that. At the same time, I was married, I had two kids, and I was offered another project, also for television, with Glenn Close. I could either do [Stones For Ibarra] for $250,000 or I could do this with Bob for $60,000. I called him and I was absolutely straight with him. ‘Bob, I can’t afford it. I got kids to feed, I got to make some money, and I’ve got this thing and they’re going to pay me a lot of money.’ And he said: ‘Oh, I understand, I understand.’ He didn’t understand. Nobody turns Bob Altman down. And that was the last time he asked me. And in retrospect, I should’ve done it… I regret to this day that I didn’t do it. He got Brad Davis, who was terrific. But hey man, you make your choices and you live with them, If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t make the same choice.” - Dwight Schulz, Fat Man and Little Boy, 1989. The A-Bomb father Robert J Oppenheimer was perfect for Carradine, but went to “Howling Mad” Murdoch of TV’s A Team – a B-actor.
- Joseph Fiennes, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, 2002. In the DreamWorks voicing mix for Proteus were Fiennes, David Arquette, Paul Bettany, Keith Carradcine, Jeff Goldblume and Robin Williams.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 11