Sally Kellerman

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

  1. Jean Seberg, Saint Joan, 1957.      She was 20, totally unknown, had not started a screen career when the tyrannical producer-director Otto Preminger was intrigued by the future Hot Lips Houlihan of M*A*S*H, 1970. Instead of Joan, Sally made her debut as Marcia in… Reform School Girl, Preminger also considered such unlikely Joans as Ursula Andress, Julie Andrews, Anne Bancroft, Claire Bloom, Carol Burnett, Joan Collins, Angie Dickinson, Sophia Loren, Shirley MacLaine, Mary Tyler Moore, Kim Novak (from Otto’s Man With The Golden Arm, 1955), Debbie Reynolds, Maggie Smith, Liz Taylor and… Mamie Van Doren!
  2. Stella Stevens, The Poseidon Adventure, 1972.   “At midnight on New Year’s Eve, the S.S. Poseidon, en route from New York to Athens, met with disaster…”   Hot Lips from M*A*S*Hsurvived by passing on Linda Rogo, the ex-hooker wife of tough cop Ernest Borgnine  .Second couple on the manifest, after Red Buttons-Carol Lynley, with an age difference beyond 20 years!  Something of an Allen tradition: The Master of Disaster and his co-producer wife, Sheila Allen, had 13 years between them.
  3. Jenny Runacre, The Final Programme Programme (US: The Last Days of Man on Earth), 1973.       A smash since M*A*S*H, Kellerman was the first choice for Miss Brunner – a mutation, absorbing the bodies of her lovers.   The science fiction novel by Michel Moorcock. The worst possible name for any writer!
  4. Jill Clayburgh, Gable & Lombard, 1976.         Of all the women seen by Canadian director Sidney J Furie, Sally was closest to Lombard’s gaeity. Yet, Furie rejected them all in favour of Clayburgh. Hmm, like Donald Duck playing Minnie Mouse.
  5. Lynn Redgrave, The Happy Hooker, 1975.        Too busy on a nightclub tour. Fortunately for her.
  6. Christine Baranski, Cybill, TV, 1995-1998.       Miss M*A*S*H auditioned for Cybill Shepherd’s ’s hard-drinking pal, Maryann.  But Shepherd was the boss – too much so for creator Chuck Lorre and CBS. They network called it quits after four stormy seasons. Then it happened all over again for Lorre – with Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men, 2003-2011.

 Birth year: 1937Death year: 2022Other name: Casting Calls:  6