- Andie MacDowell, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, 1983. Mad! She was taller than Tarzan! The statuesque Dane was better suited to Sheena… than Tarzan’s Jane! Won by Andie (with the help of Glenn Close’s less American voice). The following year, Brigitte married Sylvester Stallone. “Everybody thought I married him because of money. They didn’t understand that he begged me to marry. He begged me!” The marriage lasted 19 months. “When I left Sylvester, all doors closed on me, I was basically blacklisted.”
- Jodie Foster, The Accused, 1988.
An awful thing to say. Except it is true. Jodie Foster would never have won her (first) Oscar for this trenchant drama – if actress Kelly McGillis had not been raped in 1982… At first, the role of the rape victim Sarah Tobias was written for Andie MacDowell. She passed. The Paramount suits then saw 34 other young actresses for the (real life) victim. Or, for their own rape bait fantasies – including 16-year-old Alyssa Milano! Foster was refused a test because she was “not sexy enough”! And, anyway, the studio had decided upon McGillis, a high flyer in Paramount’s Witness and Top Gun. And, naturally, she refused point-blank! She knew what it was to be brutally raped and Kelly had no wish to revisit the horror and agony of her own assault six years earlier. The suits were annoyed. They needed her. She was hot at the box-office, their box-office. They had made her a star!! Eventually, McGillis agreed to play Sarah’s defence attorney – on condition that unsexy Jodie played Sarah! The suits caved, tested Foster and the rest is Oscar history… So is the huge list of talent also seen for Sarah. Starting with the Fatal Attraction also-rans: Rosanna Arquette, Ellen Barkin, Kim Basinger, Jennifer Beals, Jennifer Grey, Melanie Griffith, Linda Hamilton, Darryl Hannah, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Diane Keaton, Demi Moore, Kelly Preston, Meg Ryan, Jane Seymour, Sharon Stone, Meryl Streep, Debra Winger. And moving on to the younger Nielsen, Melissa Sue Anderson (trying to break her Little House on the Prairie image), Justine Bateman, Valerie Bertinelli, Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Connelly, Joan Cusack, Judy Davis, Kristin Davis, Bridget Fonda, Annabeth Gish, Mariel Hemingway, Kelly LeBrock, Virginia Madsen, Tatum O’Neal, Molly Ringwald, Mia Sara, Ally Sheedy, Brooke Shields, Uma Thurman. Oh, and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, said the suits, was “too nice.” Rape victims shouldn’t be nice? Oh, Hollywood! - Ornella Muti, ‘O Re, Italy, 1989. As Maria Sofia of Austria, plotting to restore her husband to his throne of the King of Naples and the Two Sicilies…. It says here.
- Uma Thurman, Pulp Fiction, 1993.
- Sean Young, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, 1993. “ They wanted Brigitte Nielsen, ” Young recalled in 2016. “I ended up getting the part because [Jim Carrey] fought for me… Over the years, the people who have been advocates of mine, all have been men. Roger Donaldson fought for me in No Way Out. There was no resistance from Kevin [Costner], but there was some resistance from the [Orion] executives. On Blade Runner, Charles Knode was the costume designer and he was a very big champion of mine and Ridley [Scott] was very influenced by him.”
- Julie Strain, Battle Queen 2020, Canada/US, 2001. First choice for Gayle made the first title into a hoot: Millennium Queen. One critic called it softcore porn disguised as science-fiction. Ironically. after her the last film Gitte refused, the director was Daniel D’Or.
- Missi Pyle, Dodgeball: A True Undergound Story, 2004. The Greatc Dane lost Fran to the (Shawnee) Smith & Pyle group singer,. Not as famous but… nine years younger.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 7