- Earl Holliman, Giant, 1955.
- Jeffrey Hunter, The Searchers, 1955. Walt Disney would not loan his TV star out to play… second fiddle to John Wayne, Parker never knew anything about it until several years later. When he also discovered how he’d been blocked from… Fess had to change his name for France. Fess was just like fesses (bottom, bum, butt, derriere, arse, ass, whatever…). For Francophone territories only, he became Fier Parker. Fier means proud. Wouldn’t Fred have been easier… ?
- Don Murray, Bus Stop, 1956. Elvis Presley was first choice for the dumbcluck cowpoke, Beauregard Decker – aka Bo – taking Marilyn Monroe’s Marilyn Monroe’s Cherie away from all this bar singing stuff. Elvis & Marilyn – what a wet-dream combo! Except “Colonel” Tom Parker didn’t want nobody takin’ the shine off his boy! Despite (or because of) Marilyn being all Stanislavsky at the time, Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift weren’t interested. And she only ever wanted Rock Hudson (more into Jane Wyman sob schlock). Also considered: three tele-cowpokes: Fess Parker, aka Davy Crockett, John Smith, from Laramie, and the lanky Rowdy Yates on Rawhide, a certain Clint Eastwood. Murray (the first star I interviewed at the first of my 26 Cannes festivals in 1961) won an Oscar nomination for his debut and wed his other co-star, Hope Lange.
Birth year: 1924Death year: 2010Other name: Casting Calls: 3