Julius Tannen, after a long fame on the stage, came on hard times in Hollywood. For a number of years he was unable to get a job acting. Tannen’s friends were unable to help him. Something always slipped up, and the witty Julius found himself finally in a desperate way. His friends persisted, and after much intrigue a part was secured for Tannen. He was to play an editor in a newspaper drama. All that remained was for the producer to see him and pass on him.
Tannen dressed himself carefully that morning. He was completely bald and wore a toupee which he stuck on his head each morning with a special mucilage.
After studying him for ten minutes and listening to his nimble speech, the producer shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Tannen. But I don’t think you’ll do for the part.”
Julius inquired quietly in what way he was deficient. Was he too tall, too thin, too old, too young?
“No,” said the producer. “You could act it very well. But I have always visualized a bald-headed man for the part.”
Julius smiled and slowly pulled the toupee off his head.
“I think I can satisfy you on that score,” he beamed. “I happen to be completely bald.”
The producer sat studying the polished Tannen skull and then shook his head again and pronounced, “I’m sorry, Mr. Tannen. I simply can’t visualize you as a baldheaded man.”
—Ben Hecht, A Child of the Century, 1954
Last year, we asked Harry [Bugin] to play Aloysius, the malevolent door-scraper, in our movie The Hudsucker Proxy. Harry understood immediately that an evil door-scraper would, in the nature of things, have a shaved head, and was amenable to shaving his: “Sure fellas. It grows back.” […]
But any actor can shave his head. As shooting drew near we were still groping for a means of ending the climactic fist-fight in the Hudsucker Building’s clock room. The script called for our great clock to be stopped twice, once by a broom shoved into the gears, which was well and good, and a second time by something else—not just anything, clearly, but a capper that would keep the audience from resenting our repeating the gag of the stopped clock. The nature of this was a puzzle of daunting specificity. The object had to be of just the right size to be stuffed into our great clock gear, and had to be of such consistency as to offer temporary—but only temporary—resistance before being ground away. Mere days before the scene was scheduled to be shot, co-producer Graham Place had a leaping insight: Harry’s character might have his dentures knocked out in the course of the fist-fight. This would leave an ideal gear-stopper at hand, and would incidentally let us punctuate the fist-fight with the classic Chattering Teeth Gag. Dentures were clearly the one perfect—the only perfect—the only conceivable—solution. There remained only one question, and on it rode all our hopes for satisfactorily resolving the very climax of our movie: Did Harry Bugin wear dentures?
“Sure fellas. Full uppers and lowers.”
And that’s why Harry Bugin is our favourite actor.
—Joel and Ethan Coen, “Our Favourite Actor,” in “The Positif Collection,” Projections 4 1/2, 1995
I hope you will allow me to post an anecdote from Stephen Sondheim’s “Finishing the Hat” (2010) to make a triptych with the two anecdotes above:
“I have witnessed a number of memorable auditions in my time, some of them so stunning that we hired the performer virtually on the spot […], others so grotesque that we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Hermione Gingold’s audition for Madame Armfeldt covered both bases. Her professional persona had been honed in British revues as an eccentric both in looks and personality, and although she had occasionally played a character straightforwardly, as in the musical movie of ‘Gigi,’ she was always Hermione Gingold. She was camp both on and off the stage, and couldn’t have been more wrong for the role of an imperious, elegant ex-courtesan (her physical appearance alone disqualified her). Nevertheless, she insisted on auditioning for us. Hal, ever the gentleman, persuaded Hugh and me to humor her, even though it would be a waste of time. Considering her insistence on being heard, we were therefore somewhat taken aback when she arrived at the theater not only without an accompanist but without having prepared a song for us to hear. When I murmured deferentially that we knew she could sing but that we needed to hear her vocal range (an excuse to hear whether she could sing or not), she offered to ply us with a music hall song, a capella. Which she did, charmingly. She then read a couple of scenes with the stage manager–with, unexpectedly, genuine verve and autocratic condescension. Intrigued as we were, we were not prepared for the coup de theatre which followed. She thanked us for allowing her to audition against our better judgment–not that anyone had told her such a thing, she had merely assumed we would think her wrong for the part. She then added, ‘I notice that in the script Madame Armfeldt is seventy-four years old. Coincidentally, gentlemen, so am I. I also noticed that when she dies at the end, the stage direction indicates that her wig slips a bit off her head. Well–’ And with that, she lifted off her wig, revealing herself to be completely bald. As the clang of three jaws hitting the floor died away, she thanked us once again and left the stage. We decided to give her the part before she left the theater. Incidentally, she was actually seventy-five.”