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Yvonne Romain, Double Trouble, 1966. Elvis sings such hot rock as… Old McDonald Had A Farm!! So Kate was lucky to miss chasing Elvis on his London tour (actually, Belgian footage) in his seventh of his nine slices of utter tosh with director Norman Taurog.
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Rosemary Nichols, Department S, TV, 1969-1970. London producer Monty Berman chose Kate to be Annabelle Hurst at the Interpol HQ in Paris – but as she revealed jn her memoirs, the US money men felt she was “too exotic.” (As if Peter Wyngarde wasn’t!) Nicols was also dropped from the Jason King spin-off because King (a flashy-cum-campy Wyngarde) didn’t get on with her. Anne Sharp tooks her place as Wyngarde suffered from the celebrity he had worked so hard to achieve – with flamboyant clothes, cravats, wigs, sideburns, moustache, car, gestures and “acting”.
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Anna Moffo, The Adventurers, 1969. The American-Italian opera diva was lost in this over-starry rubbish from pulp writer Harold Robbins. Being contracted to direct, Lewis Gilbert had to give up helming Oliver! He was honest enough to admit this result “was a disaster and I should never have made it.” As Olivia De Havilland’s character said: “Maybe this whole thing’s a little ridiculous?”
- Sheila Dunn, Doctor Who #54: Inferno, TV, 1970. Director Douglas Camfield didn’t look far when Kate’s Hammer Films schedule clashed with being Pertra – he simply asked his wife to join Doc3 Jon Pertwee, in the Season 7 closer. By 1993, Kate was the renegade Time Lord, Rani, in Dimensions of Time, a charity short celebrating the series’ 30th anniversary (with Docs 4 and 6, Tom and Colin Baker).
- Ingrid Pitt, Countess Dracula, 1971. Kate turned down a contract for six Hammer Films films against her then hubby’s wishes. She was a classical actress, Shakespeare and all that and Hammer would limit her career chances. “But I did ask if I could be in a couple of the films and that’s how I came to be performing curtesys for the benefit of the cameraman in The Horror Of Frankenstein [and The Vampire Lovers]. Incidentally, I was too innocent to know that when I was doing those curtesys, the camera was focusing on – well, not on my face. But I did, thank goodness, have a no-nudity clause.” So no question of her revamping Hungarian Countess Erzsebet Bathory, forever bathing in virgins’ blood.
- Martine Beswick, Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde, 1971. Kate fled writer Brian Clemens’ gender-bender because of that no-nudity clause.
- Valerie Leon, Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb, 1971. More (avoided) nudity. And so Kate passed on the dual role of Margaret Fuchs/Queen Tera.
- Adrienne Corri, Vampire Circus, 1972. Kate moved into much TV instead: Jason King, The Persuaders, The Pathfinders, Return of The Saint and as Joan Collins’ similar bitchy sister in Dynasty.
- Colette O’Neill, Doctor Who #124: Snakedance, TV, 1982. Judi Dench and Carry On star Joan Sims up for the same part – kidding, right? Nope! Producer John Nathan-Taylor loved rocking the boat. He suggested 14 ladies as Lady Tanha, for when Doc5 Peter Davidson landed on Manussa. The others were , Jill Bennett, Eleanor Bron, Elspeth Gray, Sheila Hancock, Jean Marsh, Anna Massey, Barbara Shelley, Elizabeth Spriggs, Wanda Ventham (the mother of Benedict Cumberbatch) and Fiona Walker. Plus Kate O’Mara, the future Time Lady called Rani. The Scottish O’Neill had scored 77 mainly UK credits by 2016.
- Rula Lenska, Doctor Who #133: Resurrection of the Daleks, TV, 1984. Fourteen ladies, including four Bond Girls and a future M (Honor Blackman, Jenny Hanley, Joanna Lumley, Pamela Salem and Judi Dench) were – in the melting pot for Dr Styles. Also listed: O’Mara, Polly Adams, Eleanor Bron, Rachel Davies, Diane Keen, Maureen Lipman, Jacqueline Pearce, Sheila Ruskin, Fiona Walker and Penelope Wilton. OMara, ex-sister-in-law of two Whoversers Michael Cochrane and Simon Williams, was The Rani in both #139: The Mark of the Rani, 1984, with Doc6 Colin Baker, and #144: Time and the Rani, 1987, opening the account of Doc7 Sylvester McCoy.
- Stephanie Beacham, The Colbys, TV, 1985-1987. For billionaire Charlton Heston’s British art gallery owning wife, Sable (first cousin of Dynasty’s Joan Collins character), Faye Dunway wanted a bigger payday The budget was already $1m per episode). Elizabeth Ashley, Angie Dickinson were next up. Then, the Brits… Sue Lloyd and Kate O’Mara O’Mara (who became Caress Morrell in Dynasty during 1986 but fort just 19 episodes, compared to Beacham’s 49). Earlier, Diana Rigg, Susannah York simply refused the soap. And later, Beacham l Dynasty-ed for the 1988-1989 season.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 11