- Charmian Carr, The Sound of Music, 1964. After winning a scholarship to study with ballet icon George Balanchine at 13, then becoming the youngest actor accepted by the Actors Studo at 17, LAW was in director Robert Wise’s loop for Liesel Von Trapp So were-Kim Darby, Patty Duke and Sharon Tate. Plus four repo babes: Charlie’s Geraldine Chaplin, Judy Garland’s Liza Minnelli, Maureen O’Sullivan’s Mia Farrow and Ann Sothern’s Tisha Sterling.Critic Pauline Kael famously tried to bury “the sugar-coated lie that people seem to want to eat” but it saved Fox from the near bankruptcy of the Cleopatra debacle.
- Petula Clark, Finian’s Rainbow, 1967. “There can be many complications that occur sometimes before you actually get on the set. Your own intuition at the time doesn’t always prove to be accurate in terms of the end result.”
- Ali MacGraw, Goodbye Columbus, 1968. Warren was the first actress put under contract by the new Paramount production chief, Robert Evans. (And to him specifically, not the studio). “My nose told me she could go all the way. She sang, she danced, she was beautiful and had a flair for comedy.” But… “My first discovery, a mother-to-be.” Expecting Christopher Peters, her son with first husband, hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters. McGraw got the rôle – and Evans.
- Jean Seberg, Paint Your Wagon, 1968. “There were several films I was under contract to do… I believe that some other film intervened, and so I couldn’t do Paint Your Wagon. It wasn’t that I turned it down.” Julie Andrews (and her usual reserve: Sally Ann Howes), Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow and Tuesday Weld, howqewver, did pass on the rose between two thorns: Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin Diana Rigg proved unwell. Kim Novak pounced. But the US star of the French nouvelle vaguewon Elizabeth and, for a while, Eastwood. She even started divorcing hubby for him. Until the unit returned from Oregon to LA and she no longer existed for him.
- Jill Clayburgh, Gable and Lombard, 1970. She saw Canadian director Sidney J Furie. Just didn’t conquer him. Or, maybe she’d read the script.
- Margot Kidder, Superman, 1977.
- Kathleen Turner, Romancing The Stone, 1983. She passed on an offer to audition. “I didn’t think I could go to the jungle and do all the physicality that the role required. So that’s something I missed out on… I’m sure there are others. But I’m a big believer in… if an opportunity doesn’t occur, then it wasn’t meant to be.” [LAW was talking to Leo Verswijver at filmtalk.org – thanks, Leo].
- Margeaux Hemingway, Over The Brooklyn Bridge, 1984. LAW did not get on with Isreaeli producer-director Menahem Golan. “I found Margeaux,” claims co-star Elliott Gould. “She was great: fun, intelligent and willing to learn. The film was good for Margeaux – and good for me, too.” Oh really.
- Kathy Bates, Rumour Has It…, 2004. When auteur Ted Griffiin was dumped from his own project after a few “incredibly slow” days, new helmer, Rob Reiner scratched as s many as four actors from the Griffin line-up. Including LAW as Aunty Mitsy , Bates played aunty, sans credit, as a favour to Reiner, director of her Oscar-winnig role of Annie Wilkes in their 1990 Misery,
- Lena Olin, Devil You Know, 2005. Once again the infamous movie animal known as Creative Differences reared its argumentative head and soured relations between LAW and director James Oakley. Diva demands and tantrums were alleged. Reminiscent of LAW’s 1997 Broadway run in Dream: the Johnny Mercer Musical Revue, in 1997. Then again, as s she once said: “I have come far, but not far enough. It is still a man’s world.”So what do you do when you sack your American leading lady on Day Two? You replaces her with a Swedish star! In fact, Olin was a rather better (Garboesque) choice for a reclusive ex-movie star with a dark past. Shot in 2005, the film was finally escaped in 2013. And you know something – LAW wuz right !
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 10