- Woody Allen, Bananas, 1971. With his What’s New Pussycat proving a hit in 1965, Woody had all kinds of offers including adapting and directing Richard Powell’s satire, Don Quixote, USA, as an MGMorse vehicle. Allen wrote it in two weeks with Mickey Rose as: El Weirdo. Morse disapproved. It became the second true Woody movie after Take The Money and Run (which, lord help us, Jerry Lewis nearly directed in 1969!)
- Sandy Baron, The Munsters’ Scary Little Christmas, TV, 1996. Most of the cast voted themselves out of a job… Including Morse, succeeding TV’s Al Lewis as Grandpa. The reboot family from Here Come The Munsters, 1994, was due for the Yuletide sequel. Edward Herrmann, however, wanted a small pay rise for continuing as the patriarch, Herman(!). Impossible, declared the producers. Unless the rest of the family accepted a tiny pay-cut to pay for it. They did not. The film was made with all new Munsters… (An almost identical pay battle was the pivot of the Belgian entry at the 2014 Cannes Festival, Deux jours, une nuit/Two Days, One Night).
Birth year: 1931Death year: 2022Other name: Casting Calls: 2