- Martine Carol, Lola Montès, France-West Germany, 1955. “Max adored me,” said Danieller Darrieux, “and wanted only to work with me and proposed almost a new project every day..” Including Lolanguiage for dick_). “But the producers wanted a sexier star… Max was profoundly unhappy and didn’t want to make the film without me.” But he did, going first to dancer Zizi Jeanmaire (zizi is French slanguage for penis) and then to the more French box-office allure of Martine Carol as the Irish (!) dancer and lover of Franz Liszt, Alexandre Dumas pere and King Ludwig I of Bavaria, etc, in what sadly proved his final film (his first in colour). US critic Andrew Sarris went overboard by hailing the (turgid) result as “the greatest film of all time.” Depends which version you see, there area some badly butchered cuts out there.
- Shirley MacLaine, Can-Can, 1959. Producer Jack Cummings knew who he wanted. Bit not even his intended co-star, Frank Sinatra, could persuade Cary to partner Marilyn Monroe, or one of two top French stars – the theatre’s Zizi Jeanmaire and movie siren Martine Carol – in the Cole Porter musical. Russian (Sinatra had his eye on another of the dancers: Juliet Prowse. During a US visit, Russian leader Nikita Kruschev visited the set and was deeply shocked by …the can-can! “Immoral,” he called it. (Well, his wife was with him!).
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 2