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Gina Lollobrigida was an art student
in Rome when approached by Mario costa to screen test for his production
of Elisir dAmore in 1946
Rita Tushingham earned her crust as an odd job girl in Liverpool
rep for �1 a week before answering a newspaper adverisement which won
her the leading roll in A Taste of Honey 1961
Ellen Burstyn�s political speech making so impressed director
Joseph Strick that he gave her the leading role in tropic of Cancer
1969
The suave George Raft wasn�t always the gentleman he played on
screen, he was sent as a mob heavy to extort money from night club queen
Texas Guinan and was offered a part in her life story Queen of Clubs
instead.
When Clark Gable was sent to repair drama coach Josepine Dillons
phone his life changed dramatically, he broke off his engagement to
another girl, married Ms Dillon (14 years older than him) and under
her tutelage got his first movie parts.
Fatty Arbuckle was a plumbers mate when
he was sent to unblock Mack Sennetts drains. Sennett immediately offered
266lb George a part in his Keystone Kops series. Arbuckle went on to
be Hollywoods highest paid star on a $1 million dollar contract in 1919.
His fall from grace was equally spectacular when he was blacklisted
by the studios two years later after his involvement in a sex scandal
Theatrical agent Henry Hudson arranged for his postman to meet director
Raoul Walsh after learning that the handsome young man had been in amateur
dramatics and disliked delivering letters, the postmans name was Rock
Hudson.
Covergirl Lauren bacall was spotted by Howard Hawks on the cover
of Harpers Bazaar and he cast her as Humphrey Bogarts opposite number
in To Have or have Not (1944). Guess who married Bogey the following
year.
Archetypal sweater girl Lana Turner was sipping soda at Curries
Ice Cream Parlor, not Schwabs Drug Store, when talent scout Billy Wilkerson
took her to Zeppo Marx Agency, thereby securing her debut in They Won�t
Forget (1937).
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