Coulda, Shoulda.... ALMOST did play that role — Page 2

Judy was never in the running for Gypsy. Roz's husband Brisson snatched the film rights so that no one could be considered but Roz.

Ethel nicknamed him "The Lizard of Roz," which made Judy howl with laughter.

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Kathleen Marshall's revival of ANYTHING GOES was conceived as a star vehicle for Donna Murphy. I believe they went to Catherine Zeta-Jones after that, who apparently didn't feel comfortable taking on such a mammoth role as her Broadway debut. I recall the ANYTHING GOES revival being in development for a couple years before Sutton Foster was announced as the lead.

Thanks for the story about CHICAGO, MichaelBennett. I adore Collette, but feel that Renee Zellweger's cutie-pie persona made for an excellent contrast with Catherine Zeta-Jones' aloof, harsh diva. I also wonder what Charlize Theron would have been like as Roxie, she was set to do it when Nicholas Martin was directing the film. Marshall made her re-audition when he took the reins.

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I'd heard Donna Murphy and Catherine Zeta Jones, but wasn't Reba McIntyre approached for it as well?

Here is an earlier thread that discusses other similar stories.
Roles they DIDN'T get...

I still think Lanie Kazan would have killed as Gittle in Seesaw. Would love to see any out of town video

Anyone have any info on Sara Ramierez being considered for wicked? She would be wonderful. I was at a Kristen chenoweth masterclass and She talked about how close she was to being belle in beauty and the beast. Apparently it was down to her and four or five other girls. She was dating the current Gaston at the time and lied about her height. I think she said she didn't get it because belle had to be a certain height and the director or producers asked her to take off her shoes.

Updated On: 12/10/14 at 10:48 PM

Judy probably would have been even better than Angela as Mame.

Just for the record, according to Jerry Herman: Poet of the Showtune by Stephen Citron, Rosalind Russell was who they originally wanted to cast in the musical (her being Auntie Mame in the play and movie), but she rejected the offer because she wanted to make Mame into a TV series. Then, Mary Martin was to be cast in the role (so much so that her name was printed on early drafts of the script), but she, like Ethel Merman, wanted to be finished with musicals and decided on a semi-retirement (though that didn't last long as she starred in I Do! I Do! shortly after). Jerry Herman then wanted Angela Lansbury in the role, but her first audition was disastrous (the lights went out at the Lunt-Fontanne, where she auditioned), and the producers gave her a second audition. However, producers wanted Bea Arthur as Mame because she was more of a name, and Angela had to have a third audition and some heavy pressure from Herman to secure the role. Judy was never considered originally. She went backstage after a performance of Mame and begged Angela to be her replacement, and Jerry Herman wanted it desperately to be (in his memoirs, he said it would have been worth it if Judy had just gotten to perform it once; which is probably true), but the producers didn't think she could handle 8 shows a week, so she never was cast, instead holding what I believe was a tentative option on the movie, but of course died before it went into production.

Updated On: 12/10/14 at 11:10 PM

I listened to Ann-Margret's version of "Let Me Entertain You" and it was in her own lovely, slow, seducing way. Natalie Wood did good in the film but if she was unavailable, then Margret would've been a good choice.

And here is another earlier thread:

Announced But Never Played

Updated On: 12/11/14 at 12:01 AM

Being "considered" is vastly different from "almost played the role." The latter implies auditions and negotiations but something going wrong. Considered is vastly different. By that measure then Justin Timberlake has been "considered" for the stage versions of Wicked, Hairspray, Spring Awakening, Godspell, etc etc. Producers always make lists and believe me, Beyonce, Natalie Portman, etc always get a call no matter what the show or role.

That Midler story is certainly nice, but I have doubts about some of its veracity.

Fair enough. Let's address a few.

JC Superstar opened on Broadway in late September 1971. Midler couldn't have auditioned any later than June of 1971.

Well, let's start there. JCS opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on October 12 (though it did lurch, and almost quite literally so, into previews at the end of September). Auditions, according to Ellis Nassour's Rock Opera (which chronicles the making of the show in some depth), did start in June, but those auditions involved the original director, Frank Corsaro. After the car wreck that precluded his involvement in the show, Tom O'Horgan came in and demanded a fresh set of auditions that consumed a little bit of time before the show entered rehearsals. (Ben Vereen was one of the last-minute auditions, at O'Horgan's insistence.) So yes, she could have "auditioned any later than June of 1971," although she'd be one of the rare exceptions.

In the story above, Shurtleff calls her "a celebrity," "mature," and "a celebrity star."

As far as "mature" goes, she was no older than 25.

To be fair, he does not call Midler herself "mature." He says her interpretation of Magdalene was a "mature, voluptuous, womanly" one, which is not the same thing as saying she herself was "mature."

As far as being a "celebrity," her first album wasn't released until late in 1972, she'd been playing the baths for about a year, and had made a few appearances on a few talk shows. She'd been a late-in-the-run replacement Tzeitel in Fiddler, and had appeared in a few short-running Off-Broadway shows.

She was definitely "known" at that time, but still rather far from "celebrity." In early 1971, she would have been more of an up-and-comer, and not too "famous" for Superstar.

I would say, again, that his wording is open to the subject of interpretation. He describes her audition as a "performance of a celebrity star," which indicates to me that was the vibe she intended to give off (and, if Shurtleff's prose is to be believed, succeeded in pulling off). In the first sentence of his story, he does describe her as "already a celebrity at this time," but while the context seems to apply that label to her at the time, it could also refer to the time of the book's publication in 1979. By then, she'd released four albums, done the Clams on the Half Shell Revue on Broadway (earning her a Tony), voiced a character on Vegetable Soup, taped her first Emmy-winning TV special, starred in The Rose and gotten nominated for an Oscar, and filmed Divine Madness -- certainly a celebrity at "this time."

Just my two cents.

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Updated On: 12/11/14 at 03:17 AM

Brittany Murphy would have made for an interesting Sally Bowles!

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