- Clark Gable, Strange Interlude, 1931. Irving Thalberg snapped up Eugene O’Neill’s 1928 Pulitzer Prize-winning play for Lunt and his equally renowned wife, Lynn Fontanne (who starred in the Broadway production opposite Glenn Anders).. But the MGM production genius had bitten off more than they would chew. Like his problem with another Broadway legend, Katharine Cornell, the Lunts poo–pooed movies. Enter: Mrs Norma Thalberg opposite Gable – sporting his signature tash for the first time.
- John Barrymore, Reunion in Vienna, 1932. MGM signed up the legendary Lunts of Broadway – Milwaukee’s Alfred Lunt and his UK wife, Lynn Fontanne, the pre-eminent Broadway acting couple of US history – and secured rights to three of their most successful plays for them to film. All seemed well. On paper. However, and despite Lunt’s Oscar nomination, thefirst filmed play, The Guardsman, was such an almighty flop that MGM fed their contract to Leo the Lion. And, adding insult to injury, made their Vienna stage hit with the UK’s Wynyard (a West End queen) and the Barrymores of Broadway, John and Lionel. Errol Flynn and Bette Davis shot the third play, Elizabeth the Queen – or The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, when Flynn insisted on his role being part of the title. The Lunts never made another movie.
- Cedric Hardwicke, The Moon Is Down, 1942. All the major studios fought for John Steinbeck’s praised/vilified novel/play about the Nazi occupation of Norway. (It was, in fact, superb propaganda for anti-Nazi resistance). Fox chief Darryl F Zanuck won because of how well he made Steinbeck’s previous book, The Grapes of Wrath. (The then highest price of $300,000 helped, too). There were eight possibilities for Colonel Lanser: Broadway’s Lunt, Charles Laughton, Paul Lukas, Broadway’s Alfred Lunt, Otto Preminger, George Sanders, Conrad Veidt, Orson Welles.
- Peter Ustinov, Quo Vadis, 1950. Took Hollywood 26 years to film Henryk Sienkiewicz’s 1895 epic novel about ancient Rome. MGM won the rights in 1925, with Wallace Beery in mind for Nero in 1935. Amid the 1942 promise of “176 speaking parts and 30,000 extras,”, the choice was between Broadway star Alfred Lunt, Orson Welles. By 1943, it was Charles Laughton, the Nero of Paramount’s 1932 Sign of the Cross… Ustinov was Oscar-nominated in 1951.
- Melvyn Douglas, I Never Sang For My Father, 1970. Director Gilbert Cates had a headache selecting the cantankerous relative, even trying Lunt, the Broadway legend, who had not made a film since The Guardsman, 1931, his first and only talkie, after five silents.
Birth year: 1892Death year: 1977Other name: Casting Calls: 5