Jenny McCarthy

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

  1. Sandra Taylor, Under Seige 2: Dark Territory, 1994.    McCarthy lost Kelly the barmaid because she refused Steven Seagal’s order to strip during her audition… even though no nudity had been studio-stipulated for the role. Seagal even claimed the nudity in the actual film would be “off screen.” So why did he need to see her naked?   Well, he could, said Jenny, but only if he bought the Playboy she had posed for.  Six years older than Jenny, Taylor is among the few models to appear in both Playboy and Penthouse magazines. McCarthy’s story surfaced when several actressses complained of Seagal’s inappropriate conduct with them  during auditions, some in hotel rooms  when he wore only a robe. Seagal’s legal clan denied all. [See also Rachel Grant and Lisa Guerrerio].

  2. Elizabeth Berkley, Showgirls, 1994.
    Scenarist Joe Eszterhas interviewed 50-plus exotic dancers  and, aided by Hawaiian weed, came up with All About Eve in Vegas. And Pamela Anderson, Angelina Jolie, Denise Richards, Charlize Theron and the inevitable unknown, Vanessa Marcil (too shy for nudity) fled his sexy heroine, Nomi Malone.Jenny McCarthy, Playboy’s 1994 Playmate of the Year.  was favourite, except she couldn’t dance. Producer Charles Evans then found Elizabeth Berkley, from Saved by the Bell. In one of its 2018 It Happened in Hollywood podcasts, Hollywood Reporter took unseemly delight in reporting she agreed to audition in his New York hotel room – even adding that “after being blown away by her performance,” he convinced Paul Verhoeven to give her a shot. Unable to land his dream mix of Madonna and Drew Barrymore as the 90s’ Bette Davis and Anne Baxter,  the Dutch director decided to create his own star. He failed. And ruined Berkley’s career. “If somebody has to be blamed, it should be me because I asked Elizabeth to be abrupt in that way because her character had a history of drug abuse, so I tried to express that through her abruptness.”  So Richards won Verhoven’s next flop,Starship Troopers, 1997, and not Berkley. She never made another A-List film since Woody Allen’s The Curse of the Jade

  3. Elizabeth Berkley, The First Wives Club, 1995.   Jenny passed the goods to Berkeley. Again. After refusing to be Phoebe LaVelle – opposite Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton and Bette Midler, dumped by their husbands for a younger chassis.  “They don’t get mad, they get even,” said Chicago critic Roger Ebert.  “Well, they get mad, too.“

  4. Kate Hudson, 2000 Cigarettes, 1998.     Jenny was lucky to escape what #1 US critic Roger Ebert  rated dreadful. “I suppose there will be someone who counts the cigarettes … to see if there are actually 200. That will at least be something to do during the movie, which is a lame and labored conceit.”

  5. Geena Davis, Stuart Little, 1999.     Declined an offer to voice the new mother of the tiny mouse  hero.
  6. Cameron Diaz, Charlie’s Angels, 2000.     Tele-tycoon Aaron Spelling decided to put Aaron’s angels on the big screen  (to help generate a new series on the small). His first new  trio: MTV discovery Jenny McCarthy, ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell and 007’s Hong Kong martial arts superstar. Then, Drew Barrymore showed him how to do it. with the  third  of her numerous (canny) productions. Just look at the 25 girls she shuffled to find the right  angel Alex Munday: Aaliyah (“too young”), Asia Argento, Halle Berry, Lara Flynn Boyle, Helena Bonham Carter, Penélope Cruz, Kristin Davis, Jodie Foster, Angie Harmon (stuck on Law & Order),  Salma Hayek, Ashley Judd, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nia Long, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tiffani Thiessen, Uma Thurman, Liv Tyler, Kate Winslet, Reese Witherspoon, Robin Wright, Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones… And two singers: Lauryn Hill and another  Spice Girl: Victoria Beckham.
  7. Carmen Electra, Scary Movie, 2000.    She spurned the send-up for the real thing: playing Sarah Darling in Scream 3. Britney Spears was also in the Darling loop.

  8. Nicole Kidman, Bewitched, 2004. 
    For inexplicable reasons, Hollywood kept trying to make a movie out of the  1968-1972 ABC sitcom about a good-looking witch and a Dagwood husband.  In 1993, Penny Marshall was going to direct Meryl Streep as Samantha, then passed the reins to Ted Bissell and he died in 1996 when his Richard Curtis script was planned as Melanie Griffths’ comeback.  Nora Ephron co-wrote and directed this lumbering version about an ego-driven actor trying to save his career with a Bewitched re-hash, but with the emphasis on him (of course) as Darrin, rather than the unknown he chose for Samatha because she can wiggle her nose…  (You didn’t need a nose to know it stank).  Over the years, 37 other ladies were on the Samantha wish-list. Take a deep breath… Kate Beckinsale, Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Connelly, Cameron Diaz, Heather Graham, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd, Julianne Moore, Gwyneth Paltrow, Michelle Pfeiffer, Molly Ringwald, Meg Ryan, Winona Ryder, Brooke Shields, Charlize Theron, Naomi Watts, Renee Zellweger.  Plus seven Oscar-winners:  Kim Basinger, Tatum O’Neal, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Hilary Swank, Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon… twoFriends: Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow…eleven other TV stars: Christina Applegate, Patricia Arquette, Kristin Davis, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Helen Hunt, Jenny McCarthy, Alyssa Milano, Brittany Murphy, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alicia Silverstone… even  Drew Barrymore and Uma Thurman, who had already re-kindled Charlie’s Angels and The Avengers.

 

 

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