Debra Winger backed out of "A League Of Their Own" because?
[quote]Then Tom Hanks asked for that role of Jimmy Dugan, a former star player (based on slugger Jimmie Foxx) whose drinking problem had driven him out of the big leagues and into a last-chance job as manager of the Rockford Peaches. Tom had done a handful of notso-hot pictures, which happens when you work as often as he did, and he was reading scripts, looking for a movie that would get him back on track.
[quote]He wanted a part where he wasn’t the lead, but audiences would be happy every time he came on screen. League was perfect. “Can I have it?” he asked. I thought he was wrong for the part. But he’s a great guy and gets along with everyone. I just couldn’t let him look the way he looks. He would seem like a distraction to the girls. They would be thinking he was cute. So I tried him in glasses, messed with his hair, and finally I said, “Eat! You’ve got to eat. Get fat.” Tom ate his way through our locations in Chicago and Indiana. He lived on pork, “the other white meat,” as numerous signs in Indiana claimed, and Dairy Queen.
[quote]Rosie O’Donnell was at the other end of the spectrum. I told her not to eat. To this day, she says that I’m the only director that ever told her to lose weight. Well, I say those things if they need to be said. Lindsay Frost, a tall, blond, pretty actress, was all set for the role of “All the Way” Mae, a character originally written as a California hottie. But then her TV pilot got picked up and all of a sudden I had to find another girl who could play ball and dance.
[quote][bold]I went to Madonna after reading a magazine article in which she mentioned she wanted to act in more movies. When I met with her, she asked if I wanted to see her pitch. I said, “No, I already have a pitcher. But I do have to see if you can play.” She was on her way to Cannes for a screening of her documentary Truth or Dare, but she stopped in New York and worked out for three hours with the coaches at St. John’s University. They gave her a thumbs-up. She was trainable. And that’s all I needed: trainable. So she was in.[/bold]
[quote][bold]But that pissed off Debra. “You’re making an Elvis movie!” she said. I didn’t understand what that meant, and I suppose my lack of understanding frustrated her even more because she dropped out of the picture.[/bold] I wasn’t going to look for another “All the Way” Mae. Lowell and Babaloo were rewriting the role to fit Madonna, turning Mae into a sassy, cigarette-smoking centerfielder. Rosie was enamored of the superstar singer. I knew their chemistry could work onscreen.
[quote]I helped that friendship along, too. At our first meeting, I began referring to them in a single breath as Ro and Mo (I couldn’t get the word Madonna out), and I issued them marching orders: “You’re going to be best friends. Mo, you teach her how to set her hair, and Ro, you teach her how to play ball.” Geena Davis slipped into the lead. She had read League but wanted to meet with Lowell and Babaloo about them writing another script for her. She ended up at my house. Her agent said not to play ball with her, but I took her out in the backyard anyway and discovered she was a natural. I had my new Dottie.
[quote]Obviously Geena and Lori Petty didn’t look like sisters, but I wasn’t going to recast Lori, who was a sensational player, one of the best natural athletes of all the girls. Instead, I matched their hair color. Suddenly they were sisters.
[quote]As for the rest of the cast, Megan Cavanagh, an actress, was waitressing at Ed Debevic’s, a ’50s-style hamburger joint, when she was cast as Marla; she learned to switch hit. Like her, Anne Ramsay and Bitty Schram could really play, and Freddie Simpson was so skilled, Tom joked that “she dipped Skoal.” Renée Coleman and Annie Cusack were trainable. Robin Knight, another excellent athlete, showed up after we were already cast. However, she refused to take no for an answer. She got herself to Chicago, talked her way in, and slept in another girl’s room every night. How do you say no to that kind of effort?
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