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I meant to also mention

Posted by:	AlanScott 08:34 am EDT 03/14/14
In reply to:	re: Why wasn't Sandy Dennis in the movie version of "A Thousand Clowns?" - LegitOnce 07:49 am EDT 03/12/14

That when the production went to London, where it famously had a disastrous run, during rehearsals Strasberg was so foul and nasty to Dennis that George C. Scott, playing Vershinin for that engagement, came close to physically attacking him. I still don't understand the sequence of events, described in Foster Hirsch's book about the Actors Studio (and much of that found its way into Jon Krampner's bio of Kim Stanley). The film was done between Broadway and London. Dennis replaced Shirley Knight, and Winters replaced Barbara Baxley. Winters would have been perfect for Natasha 15 or 20 years earlier but is very noticeably too old. What puzzlles me is that it seems that Strasberg did not come in and direct them for the film. If he had, why didn't he get nasty with Dennis then? Why did he wait till London to tell her she couldn't act? (Yes, it was that bad.) Did anyone direct them for the film or did Dennis and Winters just come in and sort of wing it, with the stage manager or the movie director (Paul Bogart) simply giving them the blocking? That doesn't seem very Actors Studio, but maybe that's what happened. Maybe Strasberg only came in for the London run because there were two other major cast changes. Nan Martin replaced Geraldine Page (who perhaps didn't want to go back to Olga after having switched to Masha after Stanley stopped showing up during the Broadway run), and Scott replaced Kevin McCarthy (whom Stanley reportedly loathed, perhaps because she was hoping Montgomery Clift would do it).

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Previous:	re: Why wasn't Sandy Dennis in the movie version of "A Thousand Clowns?" - LegitOnce 07:49 am EDT 03/12/14
Next:	re: Why wasn't Sandy Dennis in the movie version of "A Thousand Clowns?" - AlanScott 06:00 pm EDT 03/12/14

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