Stars who turned down legendary roles — Page 3

"Shirley McClaine was supposed to play the mother in POLTERGEIST (she turned it down at the advice of her spiritual adviser)."

I'd never heard that before. I would assume there must have been some pretty big rewrites to the script before, or after, they cast JoBeth Williams, especially since in the movie it is stated that the character is 32 (and thus showing that the oldest daughter was the result of a teenage pregnancy).

Yes, I knew that Blatty had used her as a model for the character when he was writing the novel. I wonder if Maclaine was offered Beatrice Straight's role (Dr. Lesh, the paranormal investigator who first comes to the house) and Hollywood legend has morphed it into her being offered the role of Diane.

The role of Chris McNeil in The Exorcist was written with Shirley MacLaine in mind, both for the book and the movie.

This fictional character is actually based on (or rather inspired by) her and her daughter Sachi.

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Updated On: 6/20/13 at 10:28 PM

I did a search on Google and found it.

LOL

EDIT: It's kinda scary how much they both look like Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair in that second shot.

Not a coincidence either.

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Updated On: 6/20/13 at 10:31 PM

For those as dense as I, but who DON'T go to best12's link, it should be noted that MacLaine means Blatty based incidental character details on her and her daughter. Until I heard her, I thought the claim here was that the possession and exorcism were based on MacLaine and her family.

(IIRC, the events of the book were inspired by an actual case where the possessed child was a boy.)

Bette Davis turned down Mildred Pierce

Brain DePalma wanted everyone but Sissy Spacek to be Carrie. He wanted Sissy to be Chris, and he considered Amy Irving and Nancy Allen (Sue and Chris) for Carrie. Linda Blair, and Farrah Fawcet turned the role down. There was another really popular actress who turned it down. Glad Spacek snagged it. She was amazing!

Rachel McAdams turned down Devil Wears Prada.
Apparently Rachael McAdams is very selective and Anne Hathaway has picked up a few roles that she's rejected.

I remember that documentary.

I thought of some others,

Tina Turner, and Chaka Khan turned down the role of Shug Avery in The Color Purple film. Brenda Russel was passed over for the same role.

Whitney Houston and Halle Berry turned down the role of Tina Turner in What's Love got to do with it? Jenifer Lewis was passed over for Tina and offered the role of her mother.

This isn't a turn down, but there was a movie version of Dreamgirls being built around Whitney Houston, but she wanted to seeing Effie's songs as Deena. Also there was another Dreamgirls movie in the works with Lauryn Hill as Deena and Kelly Price as Effie. Now that, would have been something to see.