- Barbara Sukowa, Lola, West Germany, 1981. “The role is mine – no on else’s.” roared Romy from her hospital bed, when her treatment for a broken foot, had producers scurrying to her director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s usual star. Then, Romy’s son, David Meyen, 14, died in a freak accident in Neuilly. She but was never the same again. She made one more film, La Passage de sans-souci (with a near David clone) and was dead less than a year later.
- Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice, 1982. “A painful incident… I wanted to do it. [Director] Alan Pakula didn’t want me.”
- Marlène Jobert, Les Cavaliers de l’orage, France-Yugoslavia, 1983. For Jean Giono’s grand romance of the Grande Guerre, 1914-18, realisateur Gérard Verges first aimed too high. He wanted Gérard Depardieu and Shygulla as the peasant smuggler involved with an officer’s widow turned military medico. When they pased, their usual rivals were seen: Daniel Auteuil, Nathalie Baye, Bernard Giraudeau, Gérard Lanvin – before Gérard Klein and Jobert nailed it. (Her last important role). Suits said Eva Green’s mother was too old – only three years more than Schygulla! Jobert switched to reading, then writing childrens’ books with the result that there at least four schools in France called: L’école de Marlène Jobert.
- Isabella Rossellini, Blue Velvet, 1985. The legend varies… 1. Auteur David Lynch’s first choice for Dorothy Valens was the German star Hanna Schyguylla. 2. Lynch wrote Dorothy for Harry but she‘d had enough of weirdoes. 3. He moved on to Karen Allen, Rebecca De Mornay, Jodie Foster, Debbie Harry, Helen Hunt, Angelica Huston, Diane Keaton, Helen Mirren, Cybill Shepherd, Sissy Spacek, Sigourney Weaver, Debra Winger – most found Dorothy’s script way too erotic. 4.Lynch then met Isa in a NYC restaurant and fell head over clapperboard in love.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 4