- Dirk Bogarde, Simba, 1955. Bogarde was complaining to his Rank bosses about his lightweight roles – he felt an affinity with Marlon Brando, James Dean and “Tony Curtis stuff”! No one replaced the Hawkins double in the second-unit Kenya locations… which suddenly make Bogarde appear six inches taller. And bulkier.
- Anthony Quayle, The Battle of the River Plate, 1956. Jack was a hero to the British Navy after The Cruel Sea, 1953.When asked to co-operate with this WWII tale, the main Admiralty question was: “Have you got Jack Hawkins?” “That,” commented director Michael Powell, “is what Jack Hawkins keeps asking us,”
- Bernard Lee, Dunkirk, 1958. He was asked this once to avoid the military and be a UK newspaper reporter
- Peter Finch, The Nun’s Story, 1959. Audrey Hepburn’s suggestion for Dr Fortunati – the devilish doc who tells her young nun: “I”ve seen nuns come and go and I tell you… You have not got the vocation.”
- Trevor Howard, Sons and Lovers, 1960. Hollywood insisted upon Vivien Leigh and Jack Hawkins as DH Lawrence’s parents – an ignorant, drunken coal miner and his wife! Aghast, camerace Jack Cardiff quietly dismantled them, and set about his third film his way.
- Anthony Quayle, The Guns of Navarone, 1960. Writer-producer Carl Foreman aimed high for his Allied saboteurs in WWII Greece – starting with Cary Grant and Marlon Brando! Plus three stars from his Oscar-winning Bridge on the River Kwai script: Alec Guinness (too busy), Jack Hawkins (having cancer treatment), William Holden (too pricey). Plus Gary Cooper (another cancer victim) from Foreman’s High Noon. The actual mission the film was based on was Winston Churchill’s worst WWII blunder – so he adored Foreman’s revision and asked him to film his his autobiography, My Early Life, which he did as Young Winston in 1971. Navaronewas the 1961 box-office champ., allowing Foreman to direct his next one, The Victors, 1962.
- Dirk Bogarde, Victim, 1961. “Not for me,” said Hawkins after six months’ cogitation. After coasting through 30 films across 20 years, Bogarde finally got a role to match his maturing talent, opening the somewhat more impressive second half of his career. Accepting without hesitation the first UK film about homosexuality proved that Dirfk had bigger balls than his colleagues (straight and gay) and was not afraid to use them. (Just not show them!). He denied that playing a gay was brave, not he ever admitted his own sexuality; he lived with the same man, Glynis Johns’ ex-husband, Tony Forwood, for 38 years. Dirk felt Jack had no wish to prejudice his knighthood. That move sure backfired. Bogarde was knighted in 1992. Hawkins never was.
- Anthony Quayle, Lawrence of Arabia, 1961.
- Trevor Howard, Von Ryan’s Express, 1965. Howard, Hawkins and Peter Finch were in the frame for Major Fincham in Frank Sinatra’s WWII spoof. Frank wanted Richard Burton. Fox would not hear of it, not after the Cleopatra circus. When visiting her London pal John Leyton on-set, Mia Farrow met Sinatra – and they were wed during 1966-1968.
- Leo McKern. Rappresaglia/Massacre In Rome, Italy, 1973. As backloth for German Colonel Burton vs Father Mastroianni in Nazi occupied Italy.
Birth year: 1910Death year: 1973Other name: Casting Calls: 10