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| Author | Topic: Book-James Ivory |
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 Jean
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6/7/2003 | posted: 4/25/2005 at 3:26:47 PM ET
From the new book, James Ivory (director) talks about Bernadette and "Slaves of New York" and more:
"James Ivory in Conversation"
–Robert Emmet Long, 2005
page 182ff:
“Ivory:... The last big part that was cast was Bernadette as Eleanor. She wasn’t someone we had thought of early on and kept in reserve.
Long: Had you see her previously on the stage?
Ivory: Oh, yes. And in a couple of films.
Long: In “Slaves” she plays an ingenue type that she’s often played in the musical theater.
Ivory: I had her in mind as my original choice for “Queenie” in “The Wild Party”. That’s who I most wanted, and she would have been perfection, but at the time she hadn’t done that much. She was a rising young Broadway star, and this was in 1974, so she was probably in her mid-twenties then. Apparently she wanted to do it. She was intrigued by the thought of doing the part that was finally given to Raquel Welch.
Long: What was chiefly the problem then?
Ivory: Her agent and managers thought it would be a bad thing for her, as a nice young Catholic girl, to be playing the part of a kept woman in some Hollywood mansion, and supposedly they influenced her to turn it down. That was the story we heard. It was such an obviously good thing, why was she turning it down? She was being told, I guess, that she would be making what is called a wrong career move. And in a way that was right, considering what happened to the film. It would have been a wrong career move.
Ivory: [Eleanor was really Tama Janowitz (writer)]...Bernadette plays Tama to perfection.”
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There's more but I thought this was really interesting. OK, no "Queenie" but "Mabel" had her problems too-one wonders what her agent/managers thought about that role???
|  moljul
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4/2/2001
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Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
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| posted: 4/25/2005 at 3:34:48 PM ET
Bernadette's first film role was a hooker and lord knows her role in The Longest Yard was not exactly virginal. Seems to me there is more to why her managers were telling her to turn it down than the excuse that she was a nice, young, Catholic girl.
Jean, did you get my PM?
| Jean
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6/7/2003 | posted: 4/25/2005 at 3:43:39 PM ET
Moljul-yep-just now-check yours
I'll bet there are MORE than 2 sides to this story!
| Karen
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5/3/2002 | posted: 4/25/2005 at 6:58:27 PM ET
I've never seen the film, but it was a critical and financial failure, so maybe their response was just a tactful substitute for "forget it--the script looks terrible!"
Or maybe the original script really was too explicit.
Interesting story, though.
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