- John Hodiak, Lifeboat, 1943. The entire 97 minutes takes place on a crowded lifeboat after a German U-boat sank a passenger ship during WWII. Only Alfred Hitchcock could pull it off! He made Hodiak the cameraman hero, John Kovac, after testing the Australian Randell – who won as much work in Hollywood as he did in London, where he met and wed his third wife, the erotically exotic German-Indonesian Laya Raki in 1958 to his 2005 death. Hitchcock’s usual cameo was in a before/after newspaper ad for diet aid called Reduco, floating in the sea. He received tons of letters wanting more info about Reduco!
- Michael Wilding, The World of Suzie Wong, 1960. A year earlier, the Australian Randell was set to repeat his stage role (opposite France Nuyen and William Shatner on Broadway) of Ben Marlowe. Wilding also made the second film of Suzie’s Nancy Kwan – A Girl Named Tamiko, 1961.
Birth year: 1918Death year: 2005Other name: Casting Calls: 2