- Jeanne Moreau, Journal d’une femme de chambre (UK/US: Diary of a Chambermaid), France-Italy, 1963. The Mexican diva ached to work again with the great Spanish director Luis Buñuel. After starring in Viridiana, 1961, and El ángel exterminador (UK/US: The Exterminating Angel), 1962, during his Mexico period., she wanted to be in his take on the Octave Mirbeau book. and told her producer-husband Gustavo Alatriste to make it happen. She even agreed to learn French and work for nothing in order to play Cé léstine. However, the French Serge Silberman had become Bunuel’s producer and he wanted Jeanne Moreau. (He even told Pinal that Jeanne would also work
- Catherine Deneuve, Tristana, France-Italy-Spain, 1969. Luis Bunuel first planned it in Mexico for Sylvia and Ernesto Alonso, the Mexican actor (63 roles) and producer (of a staggering 157 series!). Next, Fernando Rey (“excellent in Viridiana”) and Stefania Sandrelli in Spain, but the 1961 Viridiana scandal killed that idea off. And not even Bunuel could get it going again until 1969. “By an ordinary director, “or even by a great director with no sympathy for the material, “This story could have been embarrassingly melodramatic,” noted Chicago critic Roger Ebert, “I was about to say …disgusting – but, of course, it is disgusting, and that was Buñuel’s purpose… That’s why his films work; because they’re himself, they’re personal. Buñuel is in control of every shot and every scene, and he is having at our subconscious like a surgeon.”
- Shirley MacLaine, Two Mules For Sister Sara, 1970. Director Budd Boetticher’s (most) original concept, when he still owned his own scenario in 1964, was to have Mitchum (or Wayne) opposite the wondrous Pinal – Luis Buñuel’s favourite Mexican actress in Viridiana, The Exterminating Angel, Simon of the Desert, 1961-1965.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 2