- John Kerr, The Vintage, 1956. New to Hollywood, Franciosa refused MGM’s ridiculous drama – and holiday – in the French wine country because like every other young actor with a Brando itch, Tony wanted to work with director Elia Kazan. ihe right decision. Their A Face in the Crowd is a classic. Vintage (or Harvest Thunder during the shoot) was attacked for having Kerr and Mel Ferrer as the Barandero brothers on the run from Italy and speaking perfect , albeit American-accented English.
- Paul Newman, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, 1957. The toast of Broadway – Ben Gazzara and Barbara Bel Geddes – were thumb-downed bv MGM for their glossy and expurgated version of the Tennessee Williams play. Newman and Elizabeth Taylor did not mesh at first, until realising they were fruit from the same tree. Not great actors, yet knowing, instinctively, how to play to a camera – never over-egging it., MGM had also checked Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Anthony Franciosa, Don Murray, William Shatner. Even the too old Robrt Miutchum – and Elvis Presley, whose manager, Colonel Parker, was furious. “Mah boy ain’t no fruit!” Marlon Brando, The Fugitive Kind, 1959. Since A Streetcar Named Desire made him, Brando steered clear of three other Tenneesee Williams projects – Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Rose Tattoo,Sweet Bird of Youth – and only pushed Franciosa out of this one for the money. (He needed the first $1m salary after his Anna Kashfi divorce settlement).Franciosa, called away by producer Hal Wallis for Career, had been Anna Magnani’s lover during Wild Is The Wind, 1957, and they could havecaught fire again. Marlon-Magnani (first due in The Rose Tattoo) never sparked. He hated her “furry upper lip.” Mrs. Franciosa, Shelley Winters, was furious. She never saw it. She was right… There were many rotten ones to come, but this was Brando’s worst screen performance (ruining Magnani’s US career). gave the world’s worst impersonation of… Marlon Brando.
- Marlon Brando, The Fugitive Kind, 1959. Since A Streetcar Named Desire made him, Brando steered clear of three other Tenneesee Williams projects – Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Rose Tattoo, Sweet Bird of Youth – and only pushed Franciosa out of this one for the money. (He needed the first $1m salary after his Anna Kashfi divorce settlement). Franciosa, called away by producer Hal Wallis for Career, had been Anna Magnani’s lover during Wild Is The Wind, 1957, and they could have caught fire again. Marlon-Magnani (first due in TheRose Tattoo) never sparked. He hated her “furry upper lip.” Mrs. Franciosa, Shelley Winters, was furious. She never saw it. She was right… There were many rotten ones to come, but this was Brando’s worst screen performance (ruining Magnani’s US career). gave the world’s worst impersonation of… Marlon Brando.
- Peter Falk, Pocketful Of Miracles, 1960. For what proved his last (and unhappiest) gig, director Frank Capra tried to land a fellow Italian-American for Joy Boy. Falk was a good sub.
- Charles Bronson, The Magnificent Seven, 1960. Hard to believe that the Western making new generation stars out of Bronson, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, etc, was originally aimed in 1959 at old hats: Clark Gable, Glenn Ford, Stewart Granger. And just two newer guys: Anthony Franciosa, Dean Jones. All to be directed by Yul Brynner, already in a bitter dispute with Anthony Quinn and producer Lou Morheim over the rights to the source material: Japanese maestro Akira Kurosawa’s Shichinin no samurai/Seven Samurai, 1953. Brynner’s title was The Magnificent Six. Like re-making Ben-Hur as Ben-Herbie.
- Sydney Chaplin, Follow That Man, 1961. When Franciosa backed out, Chaplin rejoined one of his father’s discoveries for A King In New York, 1957 – the associate producer of which, Jerome Epstein, writer-directed this one.
- Peter Falk, Pocketful of Miracles,1 961. Directing legend Frank Capra never knew this re-make of his 1933 Lady for a Day would be his final film. Or he would have tried harder… and found a better investor than Glenn Ford. Capra wanted the too busy Franciosa as Joy Boy and settled for Falk – “the one bright spar,” said Capra, of a movie “shaped in the fires of discord and filmed in an atmosphere of pain, strain, and loathing.”
- Richard Burton, Cleopatra, 1962.
- David Janssen, The Fugitive, TV, 1963-1967. He lost this one but Franciosa won other series, including the small screen version of Dean Martin’s copy-Bond, Matt Helm, 1975-1976. After competingthe first episode, Janssen is supposed to have asked co-star Barry Morse: “D’think we’ll get couple of weeks work out of this?”
- Warren Oates, Return of the Seven, 1966. Well, two of them did…! Yul Brynner reprised Chris but with Robert Fuller hopelessly lost as Steve McQueen’s film-stealing Vin.. They (and director Burt Kennedy) looked around for new guys for the old saddles. But Tony Franciosa passed on being Colbee..
- Eddie Constantine, The Long Good Friday, 1979. “I saw him in the terrific Across 110th Street,” recalled producer Barry Hanson. “I’d seen him as a kid in both A and B movies. He was a big star. And I wanted him to be Charlie, the Mafia boss. I talked to him, did the song and dance with his agent. He came over to London, we made his role bigger – and he freaked out and left. Because we’d increased his role. That’s most unusual for an actor.” Hanson sent for the most popular American in Paris… And Constantine fell madly for co-star Helen Mirren – and expected her to reciprocate. “She’ll fall in seven,” he intoned a la Muhammad Ali. . She’d had affairs with co-stars before. Not this one. He was 63 and “followed her around like a lapdog but he never understood what she wanted,” said director John Mackenzie. “Hilarious.”
- Donald Sutherland, Ordinary People, 1980. Novelist Judith Guest’s anatomy of a family more in pain than love reminded Robert Redford of “the missed signals” of his own upbringing, – it became his directing debut. Tim Hutton, who won an Oscar as the troubled son in his debut, reported his parents had once been set as Franciosa and Ann-Margret! Paramount naturally wanted Redford to play the father. (D’oh! When did Redford do ordinary?) Ruling himself out, he considered Bruce Dern or Ken Howard, wed to, maybe, Lee Remick – who became Mary Tyler Moore.
Birth year: 1928Death year: 2006Other name: Casting Calls: 12