- Jane Wyman, The Yearling, 1945. Director Victor Fleming refused to have UK star Flora Robson as Spencer Tracy’s wife. – and called up Revere. “Fleming was violently pro-Nazi,” she told Selden West. “Thiswas ’41, we hadn’t entered the war… and he was violently opposed to the English.” Everything else went wrong…Tracy was over-weight and Revere was built up to help make him look smaller! The project was postponed and totally re-cast four years later – still using some ’41 location footage. Waste not, want not.
- Beulah Bondi, It’s A Wonderful Life, 1946.
- Elsa Lanchester, The Razor’s Edge, 1946. When George Cukor was due to direct, he got a letter from the head Fox, Darryl Zanuck, suggesting Revere as Princess Novemali’s secretary. No, he preferred Mrs Charles Laughton. in the W Somerset Maugham classic. Final casting was delayed until the film’s star, Tyrone Power, completed his WWII military service in January 1946.
- Mary Astor, Little Women, 1949. A rapid change of Marmee, when producer David O Selznick sold his show to MGM to inaugurate its 25th anniversary schedule. Revere’s daughters would have been Rhonda Fleming (Meg), Jennifer Jones (Jo), Diana Lynn (Amy), Bambi Linn (Beth), Revere was blacklisted, 1951-1960. She insisted she was set up – with a Communist Party card, minus a most important detail. Her signature.
- Jane Wyatt, My Blue Heaven, 1949. In a memo to producer Sol C Siegel about the third Dan Dailey-Betty Grable musical, Head Fox Darryl F Zanuck suggested Revere (everybody’s Ma, from Gregory Peck to Elizabeth Taylor) and Pery Kilbride (aka Pa Kettle) as The Pringles. Siegel read it, binned it and booked Wyatt and David Wayne.
Birth year: 1903Death year: 1990Other name: Casting Calls: 5