Hollywood Humor: Wild Casting

Can you imagine Doris Day as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate?
That's who producer Joseph E. Levine wantd before Miss Day
turned it down thinking the part in bad taste, and it went
to Anne Bancroft. How about James Cagney as Robin Hood? A
contract dispute caused Warner Bros. to drop him and hire
Errol Flynn instead? Do you know that Margaret Mitchell
wanted Groucho Marx to play Rhett Butler in Gone With The
Wind? But perhaps the wildest casting choice in the History
of Hollywood involved The Terminator.
James Cameron had directed a movie called The Attack of the
Pirahana. "I'm sick of these B-Movies. I got to direct a
better movie than this. I'll write my own script and won't
sell it till I get to direct it. What kind of script should
I write? I 'm going to have a low budget, I want to film on
the streets of LA-- I'll do a story about a Cyborg from the
future who attacks people in Los Angeles in the Present."
And that of course was The Terminator. After the script was
finished Cameron received a phone call from Orion pictures,"
James, we love your script. It's a go! We'll let you direct
it. We will let you cast whoever you want within reason--
But we think we found the perfect guy to play the
Terminator-- OJ SIMPSON! Oh and Arnold Schwartznegger can
play the good guy Reese."

So James Cameron thought about it," OJ Simpson huh. Hmmm.
No I can't see OJ Simpson as a killer." Needless to say
Arnold got the part.

Author: stephenschochet

Hollywood Humor: Wild Casting by Stephen Schochet