- Robin Williams, Happy Days #110: My Favourite Orkan, TV, 1978. The stars hated the script. “it’ll get better.” It got worse. The words didn’t matter. The problem was finding the right Mork from the planet Ork (remember My Favourite Martian?) De Luise rejected andf voice-over king John Byner producer Garry Marshall’s invite. Joanthan Winters, who would have been perfect, was touring down-under. Roger Rees, from London’s Royal Shakespeare Company no less, was signed – and quit in the same week. “I can’t do this – he’s not a real person.” Marshall asked his cast: Anyone know a funny Martian? Yeah, yelled Al Molinaro, new owner of Arnold’s malt shop. There’s guy at Harvey Lembeck’s improv workshop, also attended by Garry’s sister, Penny Marshall. As Henry Winkler put it, Williams absorbed the script like a sponge and then “Robinised it.” And the episode led an immediate spin-off, Mork & Mindy,1978-1982… by much time he was in the movies.
- Will Sasso, The Three Stooges, 2011. In 1974, Mel Brooks found it impossible to come up with a full-length slap-happy Stooges movie. He’d lined up De Luise for Curly and Marty Feldman as Larry, Mel was to be Mel or Shemp. This later Farrelly brothers’ version proved Brooks right. “It’s so hard to sustain a plot that could withstand their antics for that long.”
Birth year: 1933Death year: 2009Other name: Casting Calls: 2