1. - Charmian Carr, The Sound of Music, 1965.     Her audition didn’t fly - except in the same Fox studios’ Hollywood Screen Tests: Take 1, 1999.

2. - Jacqueline Bisset, The Detective, 1968.

"I don't think a man and his wife should act together," said the titular Frank Sinatra. "Least that goes for us." So why was he so furious when Mia was delayed by director Roman Polanski's lengthy perfectionism on Rosemary's Baby. Following dinner with the couple, production designer Richard Sylbert felt Frank's view was if she didn’t make the film with him, the marriage was over. And that’s what happened. Old Livid Eyes sent his lawyer to the Polanski set to deliver divorce papers to Mia. And he told Fox to replace his wife... Bisset was leaving for a Paris test after a miserable Hollywood debut in The Sweet Ride when told to stick around. "I knew vaguely what it was for. They were seeing every girl in Hollywood. We had lunch in the commissary with the director and producer and they said: We’ve decided. I said: Well, that’s a bit quick! They said: Go to wardrobe! I suppose Sinatra had OK’d me privately.,. seen some Wild Ride footage. If he had disliked me, I certainly wouldn’t have been in the picture."

3. - Michèle Breton, Performance, 1968.    Both desired leading ladies were injured. Tuesday Weld had a busted shoulder and Mia Farrow a broken arm... and marriage. Breton played herself. Or ex-lover (and co-director) Donald Cammell’s version of herself.

4. - Kim Darby, True Grit, 1969.      Director Henry Hathaway explains all. “That fucking Robert Mitchum had told her I was a real sonuvabitch to work for, and so she turned us down.” Mia later called it a major error; it never hampered her rise.

5. - Marianne Faithful, Hamlet, 1969. Succeeding Faye Dunaway in a Richard Harris plan beaten to the soliloquy by Nicol Williamson's great Dane for Tony Richardson.

6. - Candice Bergen, The Adventurers, 1969. As a Harold Robbins heroine?! And one based on the poor little rich girl, Woolworths heiress Barbara Hutton!!! And one of her seven husbands, Porfirio Rubirosa. the Dominican diplomat-playboy with a famously massive penis. 

7. - Elizabeth Taylor, The Only Game In Town, 1970.      "I’ve had a new experience in my life," yells Liz Taylor as she thumps on veteran director George Stevens’ door at the Paris George V hotel at 1.55am. "Thanks to you, I've been fired from a picture." Stevens tries to explain, Sinatra-Taylor fine, Beatty-Taylor no good, for such a fragile little piece - which is exactly what Farrow is. "But what the hell... let's see what happens." Not much.

8. - Vanessa Redgrave, Mary, Queen of Scots, 1971.      Following, Mick Jagger's Performance, producer Sandy Lieberson's second UK film should have been Alexander Mackendrick directing Queen Mia and King Oliver Reed. Universal's musical excecutive chairs cancelled all that. Hollywood proeducer Hal Wallis picked up the pieces and shuffled king and queens for a royal flush.

9. - Goldie Hawn, Butterflies Are Free, 1972. Original notion: Mia and the play's Broadway star, Keir Dullea.

10 - Charlotte Rampling, Il portiere di notte/The Night Porter, Italy, 1974.     Italian director Liliana Cavani's first thought for the former concentration camp victim who suddenly meets again - and loves - her old SS captor. Dirk Bogarde and Mia would have looked like her Sinatra marriage. Paedophiliac.

11 - Jenny Agutter, The Eagle Has Landed, 1976. A nothing role - the English country girl besotted with creepy Irtsh spy Richard Harris - slowing up an otherwise decent war thriller.

12 - Kathleen Quinlan, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden, 1977. At one time in it’s chequered history, French realisateur Claude Chabrol was due to make the film with Farrow. She had made his Docteur Popaul in 1972.

13 - Liza Minnelli, Arthur, 1980. Arthur went from John Belushi and Bud Cort to Michael Palin and John Travolta as thoughts for his ideal woman Linda Marolla included Mia, Goldie Hawn, Barbara Hershey, Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon, Cybill Shepherd, Meryl Streep and Tuesday Weld - in the throes of divorcing the titular Dudley Moore.

14 - Kelly McGillis, The Accused, 1987. Paramount suits saw more than 30 young actresses for the (real life) gang rape victim (or their own rape bait fantasies) - and a further 28 for her defence attorney. Including Glenn Close, Jamie Lee Curtis, Geena Davis, Carrie Fisher, Goldie Hawn, Barbara Hershey, Amy Irving, Dianes Keaton and Lane, Jessica Lange, Madonna, Liza Minnelli, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, Mary Steenburgen, Meryl Streep, Kathleen Turner, Sigourney Weaver, Dianne Wiest, Debra Winger. McGillis, a 1982 rape victim herself, refused Jodie Foster’s Oscar-winning role, and asked to be her lawyer.

15 - Gena Rowlands, Another Woman, 1988. Only time, Mia changed roles in a Woody Allen film. He was to blame. She was pregnant with their son, Satchel (aka Seamus) O'Sullivan Farrow, and, therefore, she was more suitable as the woman heard talking to her shrink than the philosophy professor overhearing all. "Solid like a rock," Allen says of Farrow. "She'll come to the set and quietly do her needlepoint and then put on a wig and dark glasses or whatever and just scream out the lines and stick a knife in your nose - and then go back to sewing and her little orphan children around her." 

16 - Geena Davis, Thelma & Louise, 1990. 

17 - Diane Keaton, Manhattan Murder Mystery, 1993.

"It's War!" screamed New York tabloids as the long affair of Mia and Woody Allen exploded in mud-slinging following her woman-scorned discovery that he was having an affair with her adopted daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Or, as Republican senator Newt Gingrich put it: "Woody Allen is not having incest with his non-daughter for whom he has been a non-father because they have a non-family."

Keaton rushed to the film's rescue -  in a praiseworthy solidarity. And only correct in that the film is based on is the hour murder mystery section cut from their greatest partnership, Annie Hall, 1977. “It was crazy,” said Keaton. “Outside, the Press circled Woody’s trailer. A day didn’t go by without microphones in his face. Inside it felt like Annie Hall days, only looser, if that was possible. Entire scenes were completed in one take. We were in make-up at 7am and wrapped at 2.30pm, I couldn’t believe how easy it was. As for Woody, he never brought up his personal problems while working.”

17 - Kate Nelligan, Wolf, 1994.      Just not the right time to book Mia - as she began to trash Woody Allen; even accusing him of sexually molesting their youngest infants. She quit as she didn't want to be any problem for director Mike Nichols, who had fought the studio for her.

19 - Natasha Richardson, Widows’ Peak, 1994. She took over the role penned by Hugh Leonard for her mother, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Natasha took the role created for Mia.

20 - Mia Sorvino, Mighty Aphropdite, 1995. A 14th film together? Even after the angst of La Scandale, Woody Allen could think of no one better than Mia. His inceredulous casting director Juliet Taylor shouted: "What are you - nuts?"

21 - Isabella Rossellini, Heights, 2005. Theatre scheduling prevented Mia being Liz, a Vanity Fair editor, in the film of Amy Fox’s play.

22 - Diane Wiest, Dedication, 2007. A late change of parents for children’s book illustrator Mandy Moore as Mia and Bob Balaban churned into Dianne and Tom Wilkinson.