- Elizabeth McGovern, Once Upon a Time in America, 1982. Italian maestro Sergio Leoneclaimed he interviewed “over 3,000 actors,” taping 500 auditions for the 110 speaking roles in his New York gangster epic. He certainly saw 33 girls for Deborah Gelly Rosanna Arquette, Kim Basinger, Jennifer Beals, Linda Blair, Glenn Close, Jamie Lee Curtis, Geena Davis, Farrah Fawcett, Carrie Fisher, Bridget Fonda, Jodie Foster, Melanie Griffith, Linda Hamilton, Daryl Hannah, Goldie Hawn, Mariel Hemingway, Diane Lane, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Heather Locklear, Kristy McNIchol, Liza Minnelli, Tatum O’Neal, Michelle Pfeiffewr, Meg Ryan, Susan Sarandon, Cybill Shepherd, Sissy Spacek, Meryl Streep, Kathleen Turner, Sigourney Weaver, Debra Winger. Plus Brooke Shields as the younger version. Deborah was 15 in the first script; McGovern was 20.
- Melanie Griffith, Body Double, 1984. Brian De Palma saw it as his Rear Window-cum-Vertigo (actually, claustrophobia). Variety called it a sexpenser. It started percolating when the director required a nude body double for Angie Dickinson during Dressed To Kill, 1979. His first choice for his main character, porno star Holly Body, was a porno star: Annette Haven. Well, De Palma wanted this to be the first studio movie with real sex. (The studio did not). This might have had something to do with Holly being rejected by Jamie Lee Curtis, Brooke Shields. And Hamilton had just won The Terminator… where Arnold Schwarzenegger was naked, not her!
- Kelly McGillis, Top Gun, 1985. In the script, instructor Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood at the elite USNavy flying school was a bimbob called Kirsten Lindstrom. No, no and no, said Paramount boss Dawn Steel. “Make her a real woman – and intelligent – or no movie.” The writers didn’t have to look far for inspiration. They based Charlie on a civvy flying instructor, Christine Fox, they met during reseach at San Diego’s Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. Fiirst in the frame were: Hamilton, Carrie Fisher, Jodie Foster, Darryl Hannah, Diane Lane, Tatum O’Neal, Sarah Jessica Parker, Brooke Shields. And, of course, Debra Winger, from the movie’s obvious inspiration – Officer and Gentleman! Linda Fiorentino refused the film which she saw as a glorification of war. Anyway, the suits preferred an unknown and were bowled over by McGillis in Witness. (She’d got on better with Harrtson Ford in that film than Cruise in this). Fox did better than any of them, retiring in 2014 when Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense, the highest postachieved by woman at the US Defense Department. When is her film being made?
- Roxanne Hart, HIghlander, 1985. Some 16 guys were up for Christophe(r) Lambert’s immortal clansman, Connor McLeod. But as many as 24 women for Brenda Wyatt, the modern-day forensics cop bedded by him. Brooke Adams… who must have felt she had as great chance, having already successfully partnered Connery in The Great Train Robbery, 1978, and Cuba, 1979. Her rivals were Karen Allen, Rosanna Arquette, Jennifer Beals, Lorraine Bracco, Elisabeth Brooks, Kate Capshaw, Glenn Close, Lisa Eilbacher, Linda Fiorentino, Kim Greist (Terry Gilliam’s huge Brazil error), Linda Hamilton, Diane Lane, Carolyn McCormick, Demi Moore, Annette O’Toole, Elizabeth Perkins, Tanya Roberts (booked for 007’s View to a Kill), Annabella Sciorra, Diane Venora, Sela Ward, Sigourney Weaver and (phew!) Sean Young. Broadway’s rank outsider won!
- Geena Davis, The Fly, 1986. “Be afraid, be very afraid!” First choice of Canadian director David Cronenberg’s for Victoria Quaife was Hamilton because of her performance in The Terminator, 1983. But she was disturbed by the script, particularly where Veropnica gives birth to a maggot baby. The producers (Mel Brooks included) preferred an unknown. “I think I can help you there,” said their star, Jeff Goldblum, introducing them to his then lover. And, said Cronenberg: “Nobody else even came close.”
- Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction, 1986.
- Meg Ryan, Innerspace, 1986. The very title comes from dialogue in the film that inspired this spoof: Fantastic Voyage, 1965. Hero Dennis Quaid is miniaturised into a capsule and injected into Martin Short’s butt. (Never that funny). For the secondary rôle of Quaid‘s girl, 22 actresses were seen, auditioned and/or tested: Karen Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Beverly d’Angelo, Jodie Foster, Linda Hamilton, Anjelica Huston, Amy Irving (being wed to exec producer Steven Spielberg didn’t help!), Amy Madigan, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Demi Moore, Michelle Pfeiffer, Molly Ringwald Julia Roberts, Rene Russo, Ally Sheedy, Elisabeth Shue, Madeleine Stowe, Sigourney Weaver, Claudia Wells, Sean Young. And, of course, Meg – and Quaid married her during 1991-2001.
- Jodie Foster, The Accused, 1988.
Awful thing to say. Except it is true. Jodie Foster would never have won her (first) Oscar for this trenchant drama – if actress Kelly McGillis had not been raped in 1982… At first, the role of the rape victim Sarah Tobias was written for Andie MacDowell. She passed. The Paramount suits then saw 34 other young actresses for the (real life) victim. Or, for their own rape bait fantasies – including 16-year-old Alyssa Milano! Foster was refused a test because she was “not sexy enough”! And, anyway, the studio had decided upon McGillis, a high flyer in Paramount’s Witness and Top Gun. And, naturally, she refused point-blank! She knew what it was to be brutally raped and Kelly had no wish to revisit the trauma of her own assault six years earlier. The suits were annoyed. They needed her. She was hot at the box-office, their box-office. They had made her a star!! Eventually, McGillis agreed to play Sarah’s defence attorney – on condition that unsexy Jodie played Sarah! The suits caved, tested Foster and the rest is Oscar history… So is the huge list of talent also seen for Sarah. Starting with the Fatal Attraction also-rans: Hamilton, Rosanna Arquette, Ellen Barkin, Kim Basinger, Jennifer Beals, Jennifer Grey, Melanie Griffith, Darryl Hannah, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Diane Keaton, Demi Moore, Kelly Preston, Meg Ryan, Jane Seymour, Sharon Stone, Meryl Streep, Debra Winger. And moving on to the younger Melissa Sue Anderson (trying to break her Little House on the Prairie image), Justine Bateman, Valerie Bertinelli, Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Connelly, Joan Cusack, Judy Davis, Kristin Davis, Bridget Fonda, Annabeth Gish, Mariel Hemingway, Kelly LeBrock, Virginia Madsen, Brigitte Nielsen, Tatum O’Neal, Molly Ringwald, Mia Sara, Ally Sheedy, Brooke Shields, Uma Thurman. Oh, and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, said the suits, was “too nice.” Rape victims shouldn’t be nice? Oh, Hollywood! - Catherine O’Hara, Home Alone, 1990. For the zero roles of Macauley Culkin’s forgetful parents (in a film written for and duly stolen by him), an astonishing 66 stars were considered – including 32 later seen for the hot lovers in Basic Instinct:Kim Basinger, Stockard Channing, Glenn Close, Kevin Costner, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Douglas, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Linda Hamilton, Daryl Hannah, Marilu Henner, Anjelica Huston, Helen Hunt, Holly Hunter, Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Christopher Lloyd, Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Annie Potts, Kelly Preston, Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Martin Sheen, Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, John Travolta. Other near Moms were Kirstie Alley, Lynda Carter, Kim Cattrall, Geena Davis, Laura Dern, Jennifer Grey, Gates McFadden, Kelly McGillis, Bette Midler, Ally Sheedy, Mary Steenburgen, Debra Winger… and the inevitable unknown: Maureen McCormick, part of The Brady Bunch for seven 1981 chapters.
- Kelly Lynch, Curly Sue, 1990. “That was another movie that started out as one movie and ended up being another movie entirely,” reported Kelly. “But a great experience… like a throwback to one of those Depression-era movies that you’d seen Jean Harlow in.” Kirstie Alley, Jamie Lee Curtis, Geena Davis, Laura Dern, Linda Hamilton (off shooting Terminator 2), Goldie Hawn, Andie MacDowell, Olivia Newton-John, Kathleen Turner, Sigourney Weaver also suggested for the cynical Chicago lawyer missed up with a Paper Moon II act: Jim Belushi and young Alisan Porter. Critic Roger Ebert fell for John Hughes’ final film – “could have been written by Damon Runyon, illustrated by Norman Rockwell and filmed by Frank Capra.” [Lynch quotes va IMDb; no other source credited].
- Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct, 1991.
- Demi Moore, A Few Good Men, 1991. Tough enough for The Terminator – too tough for little Tom Cruise. Among the contenders seen by Rob Reiner. Hamilton was in the frame with Moore, Helen Hunt and Elizabeth Perkins.
- Laura Dern, Jurassic Park, 1992.
- Kate Mulgrew, Star Trek: Voyager, TV, 1995-2001.
- Gabrielle Anwar, Sub Down, 1996. Linda quit the submarine thriller with Billy Baldwin to mount Dante’s Peak with Pierce Brosnan.
- Kathy Bates, Titanic, 1996.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 16