DOCTOR WHO?

MILLER'S TALES

American actor Barry Miller - best known for Hollywood's Fame and Broadway's Biloxi Blues - has sent me some great yarns. He was in shock when director Larry Peerce told him, "I'm very interested in you for John Belushi in Wired." After a very lengthy pause, Miller exploded: "Have you lost your mind?" The thinner, wittier Miller resembled Belushi as much as John Wayne resembled Genghis Khan. Then, More American Graffiti … Barry was not upset losing a role to Jon Gries. "It turned out to be horrible," said Miller. He was not alone in that view. "I have no clue why I made it," said producer George Lucas. "It was so bad it made all of 120 cents." [More Miller anecdotes on his page in Actors]

DUMBEST REASON

… for not hiring Richard Burton for a film. In Paris, Jean-Luc Godard was asked by the Hakim producer brothers to direct Eve in 1962. "I wanted Richard Burton. They thought it was a good idea. I said: Well, there's the telephone… They said: Oh yes - but you know - maybe he's not home!" Exit: Godard.

FORD'S SECRETS

Can you imagine Harrison Ford and Keanu Reeves up for the same role? Likewise, Ford and Michael Palin? Oh, but they were. William Goldman, script doctor of revealed that Ford, Eastwood and Redford all rejected the hero tricked into being another Lee Harvey Oswald in the 2006 movie, Shooter. So the project went younger. Reeves was first choice... Mark Wahlberg got the gig. Eight years earlier, a flurry of names swere run up various Monty Python flagpoles to portray Erik The Viking. From Nic Cage and Tom Hulce to... wait for it... Michel Palin or Harrison Ford!

THANKS

... to James Curtis' excellent bio of Spencer Tracy, he has now shot up from 53 un-made films to 75 in our Champions list.

THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE

The French cinema's sacre monstre, Michel Simon, had a small role in Carl Dreyer's 1928 classic, The Passion  of Joan of Arc. Years later when Simon was a giant star, the Dane offered him "the most important role ever played by an actor." Greatly flattered, Simon requested more information. "You will never be seen. That's never been done before - the star not being seen in a film!" But you hear me, I suppose? "No, that's what is extraordinary about the role - we never see or hear you!"

Simon made his excuses and left. So did Dreyer three days later - for hospital with a severe depression.

He was not mad, however. His project was based on the Frenchman Louis Verneuil's first English play, known as Monsieur Lamberthier or Satan. Broadway called it Jealousy in 1928, Obsession in 1946, Affairs of State in 1950. Bette Davis filmed it as Deception, 1945.  And the tyrannical Lamberthier, "most important role ever played by an actor," was never seen or heard in any of them.  Never cast, either.

HELP!

Al Pacino was furious when his agent failed to swing a deal for Mean Streets. And also warned him off The Godfather. So Al called the William Morris agency for help. "I'm looking for an agent." "What's your name?" asked the telephonist. "Al Pacino." "Are you sure?"

MISS SPOCK

It only took her 40-odd years ... but Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek's iconic Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, has admitted she first read for the role of ... Spock! "They gave me a three-page script to read from that had three characters named Bones, Kirk, and somebody called Spock. And they asked me if I would read for the role of Spock. I said to myself: I'll take any one of these roles!"

BRIEF ENCOUNTER

"It's about two men on the lam from gangsters," Billy Wilder told Jack Lemmon about Some Like It Hot. "They dress up in girls' clothes and join an all-girl orchestra. Wanna do it?" "If I'm free," said Lemmon. "And if I'm not free, I'll get free."

BRIEFS ENCOUNTER

After her audition for Grace in the Will & Grace series, Nicollette Sheridan asked director Jimmy Burrows: "Any notes?" "Yeah," he said. "Wear tighter pants."