- Laraine Day, The Story of Dr Wassell, 1943. Day was borrowed from MGM after Hussey, Pamela Blake, Maureen O’Hara and Marjorie Reynolds were seen by CB De Mille for Madeline in the true WWII – attacked by New York Times critic Bosley Crowther as “hoopla warfare in a Technicolor blaze… True, such a thing did happen. But not this way, we’ll bet a hat!”
- Ellen Drew, Man Alive, 1944. The awful comedy’s star – and producer – Pat O’Brien changed his screen “widow” from Hussey to Drew for what had been called The Amorous Ghost.
- Jane Wyman, The Yearling, 1945. Everything else went wrong in ‘41… Director Victor Fleming refused to have the UK star Flora Robson as Spencer Tracy’s wife – and called up Ann Revere. Their son was changed and then Tracy tested with Hussey and Francis Farmer as his wife. The project was postponed and totally re-cast four years later.
- Ellen Drew, Man Alive, 1945. Pat O’Brien could not make up hgis mind about a title – The Amorous Ghost or The Passionate Ghost. Nor about a screen wife, Connie. Hussey was in, then out, as in flew Drew.
- Rochelle Hudson, Rebel Without a Cause, 1955. Director Nicholas Ray saw at least six similar age-group actresses – Hudson, Hussey, Barbara Billingsley, Adele Jergens, Jeanette Nolan, Maureen Stapleton – for the mother of Natalie Wood’s Judy.
Birth year: 1911Death year: 2005Other name: Casting Calls: 5