- Richard Gere, An Officer and a Gentleman, 1981. The way too busy Jeff Bridges (in three films that year) was director Taylor Hackford’s first Zack Mayo. Dennis Quaid and Christopher Reeve were seen. John Denver, Kurt Russell, John Travolta and Ken Wahl simply refused.Hackford said that Bill Treusch, manager of Eric Roberts, got in the way of any possible director-actor teamanship. “Gere turned this down eight or nine times,” recalled director Taylor Hackford. Until producer Don Simpson “just madehim do it.”So it was Gere who literally swept Debra Winger off her feet. Denver never looked strong enough to sweep her carpet.
- Dennis Quaid, The Right Stuff, 1983. Wahl had worked well with director Philip Kaufman before (The Wanderers, 1979), but Quaid sacrificed Coppola’s Outsiders to be Gordon Cooper, coolest NASAatronaut of ’em all.. “I’d wanted to play Gordo a year before they even thought about the movie,” he told me in Bavaria, “because I read the book – and I mean, he fell asleep on the launchpad!”
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 2