- Louise Latham, Marnie, 1963. The Welsh actress was first in the frame for Marnie’s neurotic mother. Until the thriller’s scenarist, Jay Presson Allen, reccommended Latham – a fellow classmates from their days at Miss Hockaday’s School for Young Ladies in Dallas.
- Maggie Smith, The Honey Pot, 1965. Rachel’s attempted an OD suicide after losing the English nurse – opposite her then husband, Rex Harrison. “A veteran of such crises,” as his biographer Kenneth L Geist put it, writer-director Joseph Mankiewicz calmed the distraught Harrison and managed to keep the story out of the papers. Not easy in Rome.
- Clarissa Kaye, Ned Kelly, 1970. Mrs Rex Harrison said no to the Mother Courage-like Ma Kelly. Mrs James Mason said yes. UK director Karel Reisz compared Rachel to Anna Magnani, “except the Italian cinema found work for her for many years.” Rachel succeeded in her 1980 suicide bid.
Birth year: 1927Death year: 1980Other name: Casting Calls: 3