- Red Buttons, Hatari! 1961. A rare Howard Hawks error… The Grey Fox wanted a joker in his safari back-pack. Bikel, McKern, Peter Sellers, Peter Ustinov were seen in London. Then, Robbie became Pockets and American and, well,Buttons had recently won an Oscar. Not for being funny, that’s for sure. (Only hilarious on TV, Carney won his Oscar in 1975.Sellers was cheated out of his in1980).
- Gene Kelly, Inherit The Wind, 1960. In March 1959, the Los Angeles Examiner reported that Bikel would play EK Hornbeck – inspired by US journalist HL Mencken, who covered the 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial.” Six months later, Kelly changed his mind about passing when producer-director Stanley Kramer said his cohorts would be Spencer Tracy and Fredric March – even though March was not yet signed.
- Gert Frobe, Goldfinger, 1964.
- José Ferrer, Ship of Fools, 1964. Not the comedy implied by the title (all the more so if Cary Grant had accepted a role) but as Michael Dunn’s narration has it: ‘This is a ship of fools, if you look closely enough you may even find yourself aboard.” A Grand Hotel At Sea collection of 30s’ stereotypes a cruise loner going the wrong way – from Mexico to the newly Nazi Germany. Peter Falk was also shortlisted for the Reiber, a buffoon of the new Fatherland.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 4