- George Barbier, 24 Hours, 1931, Just before the Russian-born Marion Gering, started shooting, Pallette was replaced by Barbier. They were a trusty pair of character actors. Palllette, a funny gruffian, had the longer career, starting in 1913. He scored 262 screen roles to Barbier’s 88 since 1930.
- Guy Kibbee, Footlight Parade, 1932. They were both stalwarts among the character players known as the Warner Brothers Stock Company. On this occasion, Kibbee trounced Pallette. Five years later, it was vice-versa for Friar Tuck in Errol Flynn’s Adventures of Robin Hood.
- Ted Healy, The Casino Murder Case, 1934. Four films as SS Van Dine’s (actually, Willard Huntington Wright’s) snobbish, cynical, bored, supercilious, dilettante detective Philo Vance was enough for William Powell. This put Metro into a panic. Otto Kruger topped the list, followed by Columbia’s magician-actor Fred Keating, Warren William (he had Vanced the previous year), Ricardo Cortez and Paul Lukas – with Ted Healy succeeding Edward Bropby who was succeeding Eugene Pallette as Sergeant Heath of the NYPD Homicide Bureau. Pallette was fired by director Oto Premiger from In the Meantime, Darling, in 1943, for tefusing to sit at a kitchen table with Clarence Muse. “You’re out of your mind,” rasped Pallettge. “I won’t sit next to a nigger!”
- Basil Sydney, Hell Below Zero. 1953. The veteran Hollywood character star passed on Bland in Alan Ladd’s second of three Warwick Films – produced by Cubby Brococli and Irvingh Allen. They had a successful plan. Hire fading Hollywoodians for $200,000 a movie. The deal also won (and brought) over Rhonda Fleming, Rita Hayworth, Van Johnson, Victor Mature (six times), Ray Milland, Jack Palance, Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark (twice).
Birth year: 1889Death year: 1954Other name: Casting Calls: 4