- Diane Lane, Unfaithful, 2001. After Meg Ryan passed, Milano was chosen for the US take on Madame Bovary – but stuck in her Charmed series, 1998-2006, UK director Adrian Lyne, who saw six potential husbands and three lovers, went on to check out as many as 13 more cheating wives: Lane, Josie Davis, Kristin Davis, Portia de Rossi, Jodie Foster, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jennifer Lopez, Kyra Sedgwick, Brooke Shields, Tori Spelling, Hilary Swank, Kate Winslet.
- Marian Carr, Ring of Fear, 1953. Both Miles (not yet uncovered by Alfred Hitchcock) and Joan Vohs were swept away by the Kentuckian Carr. However, the star, of all people, was pulp writer Mickey Spillane solving some circus murders as if he were Mike Hammer, himself!
- Carolyn Craig, Giant, 1955.
- Danya Wynter, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956. Alfred Hitchcock had better horror awaiting her…
- Kim Novak, Vertigo, 1957.
Hitchcock was livid… “Vera, instead of leaping at the chance of her life, got pregnant! She was going to be a real star with this film,but she couldn’t resist her Tarzan of a husband, Gordon Scott. She should’ve taken a jungle pill! I nearly had a relapse when she broke the news. It was her third child and I told her that one child was expected, two was sufficient – three was really obscene. She didn’t care for this sort of comment.” Lana Turner had previously proved too expensive for Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton, Alfred Hitcock struck a deal with Columbia to get Novak. The project was delayed when Hitch underwent emergency gastronomical operations. He was fit to work after had Miles her son, Michael. . Hitch, however, was unforgiving. In the 2012 Sight & Sound critics’ poll, Vertigo replaced Citizen Kane as the greatest film of all time. Hitch would not agree. He felt Novak was all wrong and Stewart too old – the reason for the film’s failure. Hitch never worked with him again. -
Eva Marie Saint, North By Northwest, 1958. Alfred Hitchcock wanted Grace Kelly. Of course. But by now he had lost her to the principality of Monaco… which as Metro boss Dore Schary pointed out to His Serene Highness Prince Rainier, was a country smaller than the MGM back lot. Metro wanted Cyd Charisse, Hitch preferred Elizabeth Taylor, but stuck with another signature blonde. The svelte EMS rather than Virginia McKenna, Psycho’s dull Vera Miles or Kim Novak from his Vertigo.
- Tippi Hedern, Marnie, 1963. When it proved (royally, politically) impossible for Grace Kelly to return to the screen as, of all things for a serene princess to play, a compulsive (and frigid) thief, Alfred Hitchcock cast a wider net. He totally engulfed the unknown Claire Griswold (Mrs Sydney Pollack)… then, the British Susan Hampshire, Lee Remick and Eva Marie Saint (from North By Northwest. 1958) – and his contractee Miles “the new Grace Kelly” that wasn’t, from The Wrong Man, 1955, and Psycho, 1959. Finally, he fell (and how) for Tippi.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 7