- Marilyn Monroe, All About Eve, 1949.
- Kim Novak, Phffft, 1954. Created by Fox to replace Marilyn Monroe, the sassy Sheree was about to be borrowed by Columbia when the feature debut of Kim (soon being pushed to replace Rita Hayworth) made her a Pushover for the little comedy.
- Joan Collins, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, 1955. Marilyn refused to have anything to do with former showgirl Evelyn Nesbitt and her true-life 1906 love triangle scandal (leading to murder). Idem for the proposed re-hash of Betty Grable’s 1949 Wabash Avenue, renamed The Girl in Pink Tights. Fox immediately suspended her and ran to its so-called Marilyn II to head both films. Wiser heads prevailed.
- Angie Dickinson, Rio Bravo, 1958.
- Joanne Dru, Sylvia, 1965. Missed being among the character players saving – aka stealing – a would-de female Citizen Kane look at the life of a a poet who was raped as a child, became a hooker and blackmailed her way to riches – dully performed by Carroll Baker, Peter Lawford, George Maharis.
- Vera Miles, The Green Berets, 1967. Like many other actors, North refused to join John Wayne’s old-fashioned and ill-informed Vietnam film. Chicago critic Roger Ebert buried the movie as “cruel and dishonest and unworthy of the thousands who have died there.” When Duke’s politics were not up front, she agreed in 1976 to co-star in what proved his final movie. A Western of course. The Shootist. A so-called bimbo, as woefully mishandled by Fox as poor Marilyn was, Sheree has a career of 47 years and 111 screen roles with everyone from Bob Hope and Elvis to John Wayne and being mother of Marilyn: The Untold, Story, 1980, and of Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld.
Birth year: 1932Death year: 2005Other name: Casting Calls: 5