- Carl Möhner, Du rififi chez les hommes, France, 1964. Too fat!! Fröbe would not have been able to go through the hole dug in the jewelry shop ceiling. “We only remember him fat,” comments German critic Gerhard Midding. “But when he became famous after the war in Berliner Ballade, 1948, he was a skinny 58 kilos. When director Jules Dassin called, Fröbe was 135 kilos. That’s the Wirtschaftswunder for you!”
- Siegfried Wischnewski, Die Nibelungen (Teil 1 – Siegfried and Teil 2 – Kriemhilds Rache, West Germany-Yugoslavia, 1966/1967. Top Berlin producer Artur Brauner first envisaged the remake with Fröbe, Romy Schneider and Barbara Rütting as Hagen, Kriemhild and Brunhilde – finally portrayed in the two-parter by Wischnewski, Maria Marlow and Karin Dor.
- Charles Gray, The Devil Rides Out, 1967. Instead of Goldfinger it was the future Blofeld, himself, who became Mocata when, at Christopher Lee’s insistence, Hammer Films turned (unsuccessfully) from Bram Stoker to Dennis Wheatley.
- Telly Savalas, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1968.
- Mario Romagnoli, Fellini Satyricon, Italy, 1969. Fellini’s opening ideas included such names as Pierre Clementi, Van Heflin, Boris Karloff, Terence Stamp – and Goldfinger for Trimalcione. (In a rival production that opened as Fellini was still shooting, Trimalcione was played by Ugo Tognazzi, after “losing a year like an idiot,” waiting for Fellini to raise backing for The Voyage de G Mastorna, the best film he never made).
- Charles Gray, Diamonds Are Forever, 1970.
Birth year: 1912Death year: 1988Other name: Casting Calls: 6