- Don Castle, Tombstone: The Town Too Tough To Die, 1941. The (anonymous) New York Times review informs us that Castle – as the essential Western kid – looked “easy on a horse.” The Texan turned up again as a drunken cowpoke in the far better version of the… Gunfight at the OK Corral. After 43 movies, he became the associate producer of the Lassie TV seires, 1960-1962. He Oded in 1966 at age 48. The following year, six weeks after meeting her, Terry became the third husband of Joan Crawford – for four years.
- Gary Cooper, For Whom The Bell Tolls, 1943. Rank outsider in the list among Robert Donat, Clark Gable, Ray Milland. But then the B-actor was currently Joan Crawford’s (third) husband.
- Ward Bond, A Guy Named Joe, 1943. In, then out of the WWII drama (“something prankish and wistfully imaginative,” said the New York Times) with Spencer Tracy as… a ghost. This is is one of Steven Spielberg’s favourite movies; so how come he made such a dog’s breakfast out of his 1989 re-make, Always.
- Brian Donlevy, The Beginning or the End, 1946. A-Bomb fever hits Hollywood..! Rival studios MGM, Paramount and 20th Century-Fox scrambled to be first with an atomic drama. Metro won by merging its idea with Hal Wallis’ Top Secret at Paramount and having such stars as Clark Gable, Van Johnson and Spencer Tracy “being groomed for roles.” Not enough, it seemed…as they never appeared. Other actors played Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, and the Hiroshima bomber, Colonel Paul Tibbetts Jr.
Birth year: 1909Death year: 1993Other name: Casting Calls: 4