- Omar Sharif, Lawrence of Arabia, 1961.
- Rajesh Khanna, Aaj Ka MLA Ram Avtar, India, 1983. When you fancy a satire about corruption in Indian politics, three come along… so Dasari Naryana Raohe had to rush the remake his 1983 Telugu political satire, MLA Yedukondalu. Particularly after Dilip Kumar passed on the eponymous rôle. Rao turned, but of course, to Bachchan (and wanted to cast his wife as his screen spouse). But Bachchan was in one of the other two projects. Rao ultimately turned to the star of the huge Avtaar hit, Azmi) and he gave his village barber entering politics the same character name and adding Avtar to the new title. Didn’t help. All three movies (the others were Yeh Desh and Bachchan’s Inquilaab) flopped. Director Rao had played the role in his first version. (Chaplin also played a barber in his 1939 satire, The Great Dictator).
- Ambitabh Bachchan, Baghban, India, 2003. Dilip (the Bachchan of his day) and Raakhee were Punjabi director BR Chopra’s headliners when first planning the film some 30 years earlier, long before Bollywood was Bollywood. And Bachchan was Bachchan.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 2