- Carole Ann Campbell, I’ll Cry Tomorrow, 1955. Nearly the screen debut of Natalie’s kid sister – at age eight. Trouble was Campbell was six…. All the better to portray the infancy of alcoholic Broadway/Hollywood chanteuse Lillian Roth. Although never A Star (A Bond Girl sure, but never A Star), Lana had won 68 screen roles by 2016, compared to Natalie’s 74 – they both played Debbie Edwards in The Searchers, 1955. After this, her first movie, CAC is best known as Iola Morton in two separate mini-series of The Hardy Boys in 1956 and 1957.
- Joey Heatherton, Where Love Has Gone, 1963. We all knew where this murky melo came from. Harold Robbins’ sleazy novel, of course. More essentially from the real, raw Hollywod life he pinched it from. About poor Cheryl Crane, driven to kill the apallingly named gangster Johnny Stompanato to prevent him beating her mother, Lana Turner to death. Patty Duke, Natalie Wood’s TV actress sister, Lana, and the unknown Laurel Goodwin, Deborah Walley, were supplanted by the prettier but weak Heatherton as The Daughter. In Robbins’ version, she’s also in love with The Guy and was trying to kill The Mom when he got in the way. Yuck! Many times over.
- Jean Hale, The St Valentine’s Day Massacre, 1967. In the big time for once, director Roger Corman wanted Brando (not yet Don Corleone) as Mafia mobster Al Capone. They had talks. That was all. And suddenly Jason Robards Jr became, laughably, the thinnest Capone in Hollywood history. Deciding between Jean Hale, Mary Michael and Lana Wood for Myrtle was much easier.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 3