-
Joel Grey, Cabaret, 1971. Grey would have lost his Oscar if he’d been just a smidgen less superb… As he explained some years later, director Bob Fosse wanted every actor auditioning for the Emcee (such as Tony Newley) to be, er, less than good. Because, quite simply, Fosse wanted the role for himself!
- Roy Scheider, All That Jazz, 1979. “It’s showtime, folks!” The life and death and complicated love life of Broadway choregrapher-director-lover Joe Gideon was really all about Bob Fosse. So he tinkered with the idea of playing… himself. Until producer David H Melnick said with his dodgy heart he probably wouldn’t survive the gig. Gideon was then chased and or avoided by… Alan Alda, Alan Bates (“too British,” said Fosse), Warren Beatty (keen, but Gideon must not die!), Robert Blake, Richard Dreyfuss (“afraid of the dancing”), Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Jack Lemmon (“too old”), Paul Newman (“Dumb of me… a terrible oversight”), Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, George Segal, Jon Voight. Scheider just grabbed the “outrageous, assaulting, melodramatic, very funny, stupid, silly, simplistic, vulgar… wonderful movie!” Exactly.
Birth year: 1927Death year: 1987Other name: Casting Calls: 1