- Heather Langenkamp, A Nightmare On Elm Street, 1985. One of about 200 girls seen by director Wes Craven for Nancy – including Tracey Gold, Jennifer Grey and Demi Moore. Never mind, due to her future TV fame, Cox would be in the next Wes Craven horror franchise: Scream. “I kinda fell into acting. It was never something I knew I had in me. But I got to learn on the job, which I feel very lucky about.”
- Robin Wright (Penn), The Princess Bride, 1986. Apart from the future Friends star, director Rob Reiner thumbed through a veritable little black book of Hollywood’s newyoung hotties! Suzy Amis, Valerie Bertinelli, Yasmine Bleeth, Phoebe Cates, Kim Delaney, Rebecca de Mornay, Cathryn de Prume, Sherilyn Fenn, Jennifer Grey, Anne Heche, Marg Helgenberger, Lauren Holly, Patsy Kensit, Juliette Lewis, Carey Lowell, Kelly Lynch, Virginia Madsen, Mary Stuart Masterson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alexandra Paul,Amanda Pays, Meg Ryan, Mia Sara, Greta Scacchi, Annabella Sciorra, Kyra Sedgwick, Tori Spelling, Catherine Mary Stewart, Brenda Strong, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Uma Thurman, Meg Tilly, Charlene Tilton, Nancy Travis, Amy Yasbeck, Sean Young.
- Lori Petty, A League of Their Own, 1991. “There’s no crying in baseball….” Long-time ball fan, director Penny Marshall had never heard of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (1943-1954) until seeing a 1987 PBS documentary. She swiftly contacted the makers to join her Hollywood writers to use their title for a fictional comedy-drama version. Penny staged baseball tests for about 2,000 actresses – if you can’t play ball, you can’t play the Rockford Peaches. Geena Davis, Rosie O’Donnell, Lori Petty were best; those turned down included Farrah Fawcett, Lori Singer, Marisa Tomei and Maria Maples (before becoming the second Mrs Donald Trump). Also on the plate for pitcher Kit Keller were Jodi Benson, Courteney Cox, Moira Kelly and Molly Ringwald.
- Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct,1991.
- Marcia Cross, Melrose Place, TV, 1992-1997. Cox, Calista Flockhart, Julianna Marguilies, and Sherry Stringfield were in the mix for Dr Kimberly Shaw – among the hot young adults living in a West Hollywood apartment complex on this new branch of Beverly Hills 90210. All fiver soon had bigger hits: Cox in Friends, of course; Cross among the Desperate Housewives; Flockhart as the unforgettable Ally McBeal; while Margulies and Stringfield joined ER.
- Jennifer Aniston, Friends, TV, 1994-2004.
- Monica Potter, Martha – Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence (US: The Very Thought of You), 1997. All the girl-Friends were interested… But Nick Hamm wanted an unknown and Ohio’s Potter did exceedingly well, to beat such contenders as Cox, Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman – to Martha, lusted after by the three guys, in the great British romcom by Peter Morgan, better known (revered) for such real-life studies as The Queen, Frost/Nixon, The Crown. “I’ve prayed for a part like this,” cried Potter. She finished as a TV queen. She shone in Boston Legal, Parenthood, etc, but deserved better.
- Teri Hatcher, Desperate Housewives, TV, 2004-2008. After being refused by all networks as a kind of junior Golden Girls (Marc Cherry created both shows),the premise turned into a comedy-drama and Cherry wanted Cox as Susan Mayer -except she proved pregnant with daughter, Coco.She returned to TV series with the short-lived Dirt,2007-08.
- Kate Bosworth, Superman Returns, 2005.
- Nicole Kidman, The Golden Compass, 2007. Cox was an early (and good) thought for Mrs Coulter in what Chicago critic Roger Ebert hailed as a darker, deeper fantasy epic than the The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. “From the same British world of quasi-philosophical magic, but creates more complex villains and poses more intriguing questions.”
- Adrianne Palicki. Wonder Woman, TV, 2011. The DC comicbook heroine had not been seen on screens since Lynda Carter ended her four year reign on ABC in 1979.Timethen, said Warner, for a new movie.DC’s testosterone duo, Batman and Superman, had cleaned up,now it up to the beautiful superhuman Amazon warrior Princess Diana of Themysacira, her Lasso of Truth, her indestructible bracelets and (honest) her invisible plane.With who…? Across a decade of plans by producers as diverse as Joel Silver (so wrong) and Joss Whedon (so right), 24 beauties were in the frame: from the Friends star toMadonna. Then, the film morphedinto an updated TV series by David E Kelley – that, too, was dead after the rushed pilot. Palicki was the sole actress considered for TV – she was previously seen by George Miller for WW in his aborted Justice League, in 2008.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 11