- Richard Attenborough, A Severed Head, 1969. A company called Fitzroy Films was first to obtain rights to the Iris Murdoch-J B Priestley play (based on her book) and it passed through many other producers – Joseph Janni, James Woolf, etc – before arriving on-screen. Fitzroy, however, had the genial idea of having the excellent stand-up Shelley Berman playing the shrink Palmer Anderson – the only American in the tale. Anderson was later offered to Marlon Brando, Richard Burton and Laurence Harvey before a thoroughly mis-cast Darling Dickie Attenborough, by which time Palmer was no longer American. Obviously.
Birth year: 1925Death year: 2017Other name: Casting Calls: 1