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Lew Ayres, Okay America, 1931. Boyd would have fared no better than the weak Ayres as the testy New York columnist Larry Wayne – or Walter Winchell to those in the know. We never saw the real Winchell horror story until 1956 when Burt Lancaster staggered us all in the the stunning Sweet Smell of Success.
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Charles Middleton, Hop-A-Long Cassidy, 1934. As the titular cowpoke was being offered to James Gleason – and even David Niven! – Boyd, ex-silent star for directors DW Griffith and Cecil B DeMille, was booked as the Bar 20 ranch foreman, Buck Peters. Oh no, he said, he’d be far better as Hoppy! And, indeed, he was – in 65 more of the programmers. There was a villain in seven of them who was greatly influenced by Boyd’s underplaying… Robert Mitchum.
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Raymond Massey, Reap The Wild Wind, 1941. All hands on deck – and fathoms below – for a boisterous CB DeMille adventure classic… with a last minute change of villainous King Cutler.Fourteens later, CB called again…
- Charlton Heston, The Ten Commandments, 1954.
- Sidney Blackmer, The High and the Mighty, 1963. Hoppy refused to saddle up a DC-4 …
Birth year: 1895Death year: 1972Other name: Casting Calls: 5