- Billy Eckstine, Skirts Ahoy! 1951. Esther Williams heads three Waves at Chicago’s Great Lakes US Naval Training Centre where, surprise, surprise, the local diner has classy MGM class acts… like Eckstine. More astonishing – this was 1951 right, not 1851 – is that Mr B was ordered not to look at Williams during his number! Damone made seven other movies, but Eckstine (obviously) avoided all other offers until 1975 and 1986.
- Edmund Purdom, The Student Prince, 1954. In July of ’51, the Hollywood Reporter announced Damone (a wholly unsuitable Sinatra wannabe) as Prince Karl Franz opposite Jane Powell and Ricardo Montalban. But it was Mario Lanza recording the sound-track in August ’52, and point-blank refusing to show up for three start dates in ’52 and ’53. MGM deep-sixed him, until striking a for the less plump Purdom to mime to the best of Lanza. His voice. Within five years, he was dead. At 38.
- Gordon MacRae, Oklahoma, 1955. He saw both but director Fred Zinnemann wanted actors rather than singers… For example: Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Paul Newman, Dale Robertson, Robert Stack, plus singers Vic Damone and Howard Keel, as Curly…. However, the musical’s parents had casting approval – Rodgers and Hammerstein, agreed only on Rod Steiger for poor Jud. And Oklahoma was played by… Arizona.
- George Nader, La casa de las mil muñecas (UK/US: House of 1,000 Dolls), West Germany-Spain, 1967. Pop stars want to be film stars and to get started they will will sign on for any old rubbiosh such as this typical Harry Alan Towers Euro-pudding, headlining Vincent Price and Marrha Hyer.m “What she and I didn’t know was… every day we had off, they’d make a dirty version. We went visiting on the set one day and there was everyone naked! And they weren’t even the same girls!”
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Usual occupation: SingerCasting Calls: 4