- Jean Cadell, Marry Me, 1949. Finally out of the war service with the film units of the RAF and the US Army Corps, future Alfie/007 director Lewis Gilbert wrote a script (with Denis Waldock) about the clients of a marriage bureau run by the Parsons sisters – the funny Hermiones, Gingold and Baddely. The script was bought, not his casting. The new sisters had no sparkle, “certainly no comic invention.” Three years later, Gilbert could get his own way and hired Gingold for his eleventh film, Cosh Boy, as a prostitute called Queenie. “I’d like you to met a very dear friend of mine,” she’d say, turning to her john. “Er, what’s your name, dear?” A long way from remembering it well with Maurice Chevalier in Gigi, 1957.
Birth year: 1897Death year: 1987Other name: Casting Calls: 1