- Maurice Ronet, Le feu follet (UK: A Time to Live and a Time to Die; US: The Fire Within), France, 1963. The budget was not huge for realisateur Louis Malle’s ninth film (his favourite of his early works), so he considered playing the central character. Also a writer, he is close F Scott Fitzgerald. Indeed, some critics felt it was based on the writer’s Babylon Revisited – Ronet reads it before commiting suicide.. But, no, the seed for this existential account of suicidal depression was a roman by Pierre Drieu la Rochelle.
- Ian Holm, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes , 1983. Scripter and would-be director Robert Towne’s 1979 plan was also a French ape man (Christophe(r) Lambert) because of his Belgian rescuer, Lieutenant Philippe D’Arnot, the man who taught Tarzan English.. wiz an accent. “Greystoke maybe the kid I like most,” commented Towne, “but I was eight months pregnant with Personal Best and that’s the kid I had to save.” Disliking all changes made by the next helmer, Hugh Hudson (from Chariots of Fire), Towne signed the finished movie PH Vazak – after his Hungarian Shepherd dog. And Lambert nearly quit because he had no wish for a long separation from his Paris lover, Nathalie Baye.
Birth year: 1932 Death year: 1995 Other name: Usual occupation: Film director Casting Calls: 2