- Rod Steiger, On The Waterfront, 1954. Wanted more money than was on the table to be Terry’s mob lawyer brother, Charley ‘The Gent’ Malloy. Steiger won an Oscar nod. “Hell,” growled Tierney, “I threw away about seven careers through drink.”
- Gene Hackman, Superman, 1977.
- Jackie Cooper, Superman, 1977.
- Donald Pleasence, Halloween, 1978. Hitchcock fan auteur John Carpenter searched high and low for his shrink, Dr Sam Loomis. Peter O’Toole and the Hammer horrors, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee versus Charles Napier, Lawrence Tierney, Abe Vigoda. The $300,00 shoestring budget couldn’t afford any of them! Same for Lloyd Bridges, David Carradine, Kirk Douglas, Steven Hill, Walter Matthau… even such off-the-wall surprises as John Belushi, Mel Brooks, Yul Brynner, Edward Bunker, Sterling Hayden, Dennis Hopper, Kris Kristofferson… and Dick’s brother, Jerry Van Dyke. Pleasence said he only made tthe film because his daughter told him to! She’d loved Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13… Her also told Carpenter he’d never read the script, nor Loomis. “Only later,” said Carpenter, “after [we] became close friends, did I realise he was finding out how much I loved the movie I was making.” Incidentally, Loomis was named after John Gavin’s Psycho character; his screen lover was Janet Leigh, mother of Carpenter’s heroine, Jamie Lee Curtis. So it flows.
- Marc Lawrence, Four Rooms, 1994. His career was somewhat revived at age 72 when Quentin Tarantino made him gangster Joe Cabot in Reservoir Dogs. Fan and veteran did not gell well. And Hollywood is packed with old-timers knocking on heaven’s door.
Birth year: 1919Death year: 2002Other name: Casting Calls: 5