Hollywood's First Choices: (Or Why Groucho Marx Never Played Rhett Butler) : How the Greatest Casting Decisions Were Made

Jeff Burkhart,Bruce Stuart

ISBN 10: 0517880865 / ISBN 13: 9780517880869

Published by Harmony Books, 1994

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Hollywood's First Choices: (Or Why Groucho Marx Never Played Rhett Butler) : How the Greatest Casting Decisions Were Made
• Publisher: Harmony Books
• Publication Date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0517880865
• ISBN 13: 9780517880869
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Fascinating behind-the-scenes tidbits tell the true stories of many of Hollywood's famous--and infamous--casting decisions, such as the fact that Ronald Reagan and Ann Sheridan were offered the leads in Casablanca. Original. 15,000 first printing.

Reviews

Some of these stories are now legendary, including the notion that Ronald Reagan was considered to play Rick in Casablanca before Humphrey Bogart secured the role. Burkhart and Stuart straightforwardly, almost simplistically, describe the original casting choices and then the eventual impacts final casting made on films as diverse as All about Eve, Apocalypse Now, and The Graduate. Much of this will be familiar to movie buffs because the movies discussed are well-documented, popular films. Some of the most interesting material concerns such stars as William Holden, whose career took off after producers took a chance on him for Sunset Boulevard, and, most notably, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, whose marriage dissolved because, they said, they came to mirror in real life the characters they were finally chosen to play in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Great casting choices, the authors conclude, are not all judiciously made; often, they just happen. Joe Collins