1959 The Diary Of Anne Frank Millie Perkins Shelley Winters George Steven Insert
Item History & Price
Reference Number: Avaluer:12690388 |
Stevens began the project by asking Shelley W...inters to accompany him to the stage version in New York. The pair had worked magic in A Place in the Sun (1951), earning a Best Director Oscar® for him and a Best Actress nomination for her. For The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), Stevens asked Winters to play the role of Mrs. Van Daan, a character twenty years older than the actress who was thirty at the time. In the autobiography Shelley Winters: The Middle of My Century, she recalls: "Smiling through tears, I again said to him what I'd said when he'd asked me to test for A Place in the Sun: `Mr Stevens, if you give me that role, you can photograph me any way you want to.' He said, `Shelley, will you gain twenty-five pounds to play it?' `Fifty, if necessary, ' I answered." Winters would in fact gain thirty pounds in preparation for the role, and lose twenty-five during production, a testament to Steven's insistence upon the utmost realism in portraying the desperate circumstances of that time.
With Winters cast, Stevens turned his attention to the role of Anne. Susan Strasberg, daughter of famed acting coach Lee Strasberg, had been playing the role on Broadway for over two years. Stevens, however, did not have her in mind for the film version: his sights were set on Audrey Hepburn. The notion of a twenty-eight year old woman playing a thirteen-year old girl did not dissuade him, but Hepburn turned down the role due to a scheduling conflict. It was widely rumored, however, that she rejected the part as too traumatic because of her own wartime experiences in the Netherlands. So a nation-wide casting call began and ended with the hiring of Millie Perkins, a seventeen-year old model from Passaic, New Jersey. Character actor Joseph Schildkraut was cast as Anne's father, Otto, a role he created in the stage version. (Schildkraut and Stevens would successfully collaborate again in The Greatest Story Ever Told a few years later, 1965.) Richard Beymer, best known as Tony from West Side Story (1961), won the role of Peter Van Daan, Winters' screen son.
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