- Montgomery Clift, From Here To Eternity, 1952.
- James Dean, Giant, 1955.
- Paul Newman, Harry & Son, 1983. LA lawyer Ronald Buck tried to interest Quinn, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, even Telly Savalas in his script about a widowed, blue collar father and his ”bookish, sensistive” son. They all passed. Buck gave a script to Joanne Woodward to interest her (oh, yeah, sure!) in the lady highly smitten by Harry. She showed it to hubby and he called Buck: “Can I direct?” It was another two years before Newman (who lost his own son, Scott, to drugs at age 28, in 1978) had the rewrite he wanted. But the studios didn’t care… “That pissed me off and I find I work very well when I’m pissed off. So I finally agreed to act in it.” Although he had sworn off the double chore since Sometimes A Great Notion, in 1971, when he likened actor-directing to putting a gun in his mouth.
- Billy Zane, I Woke Early The Day I Died, 1997. Ed Wood’s 29th, favourite and last (unmade) script. Ray was set as the madman escaping a sanitarium dressed – but of course, as a nurse. Pure Wood: death, cemeteries, burlesque and no dialogue, just sounds.
Birth year: 1926Death year: 1991Other name: Casting Calls: 4