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Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday, 1952. Frank Capra (and George Stevens) wanted Liz Taylor, William Wyler liked Suzanne Cloutier (the future Mrs Peter Ustinov) for the runaway Princess Ann. A further 28 actresses were seen, the good, bad and risible – like the current sex-bombs Yvonne De Carlo, Diana Dors, Gina Lollobrigida, Sylvana Mangano, Shelley Winters. Apart from, perhaps, Vanessa Brown, Mona Freeman and Wanda Hendrix (even though her real name was Dixie), the Hollywood hopefuls – singer Rosemary Clooney(George’s aunty), Jeanne Crain, Nina Foch, Janet Leigh, Joan Leslie, June Lockhart, Dorothy Malone, Patricia Neal, Barbara Rush – were soon discarded, lacking the stature of Euro-royalty. Idem for the Euros – Swedish Bibi Andersson, and the French Capucine, Leslie Caron, Jeanne Moreau. Which left several perfect Brits Claire Bloom, Joan Collins, Glynis Johns, Kay Kendall, Deborah Kerr, Angela Lansbury, Moira Shearer,and, of course, Audrey, … soon gracing the Time cover, hailed by the New York Times as a “slender, elfin and wistful beauty, alternately regal and childlike”with, added Variety, a“delightful affectation in voice and delivery, controlled just enough to have charm and serve as a trademark,” (And, indeed, it did for evermore).
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Jean Seberg, Saint Joan, 1957. She cropped her hair as Otto Preminger’s global hunt landed in Sweden. “But her lover wouldn’t permit her to audition for me,” said Preminger. The lover? Ingmar Bergman.
- Jeanne Moreau, Lumiére, France, 1975. Bergman, the Swedish cinema god, interfered again – she was working with him on the Stockholm stage.
- Karen Black, In Praise Of Older Women, Canada, 1978. “She dropped out three days before we started,” the energetic old-age praiser Tom Berenger told me in London. “Not very professional from such a great actress.”
Birth year: 1935Death year: 2019Other name: Casting Calls: 4