| Part 1 - The Sheena Audition: Page 3 - The Audition Process |
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The famous audition for the part of Sheena appears to have been held in early-1953. Publicity said that over two hundred actresses tried out for the part of Sheena and the competition was stiff, but like many of these kinds of statements, this was probably an extreme exaggeration. In personal correspondence with Frank Bonilla, Ed Nassour Jr, who was a child about six-years old at the time, said that he doubted that number as well. Ed Jr, who entered the entertainment industry in 1968 working at the Metrocolor film lab, was the Senior Vice President of Post Production at 20th Century Fox Television when he retired in 2003. He remembered his father shot the test footage without sound, in colour, on his own 16 mm movie camera. He also said the test footage was filmed beside the pool in their huge Spanish home. The footage was preserved because it had been edited together with a reel of Nassour home movies and it was currently in the possession of his mother, who wouldn't part with it.
Ed Nassour Jr had obviously seen the footage numerous times while he was growing up. His most interesting comment was that only only four actresses were filmed that day, all wearing the same costume and all threw a spear at the appointed moment, obviously following his father's off-screen direction. The four actresses were Debra Paget, Anita Ekberg, Irish McCalla and "a young, kind of pretty brunette who wasn't that tall." He later added that the fourth actress was actually quite plain compared to the other three contenders for the part. He also said she was "terrible" and "very flat". He concluded by saying, "The name of the fourth girl will most likely remain a mystery".
Ed Nassour Jr said that Debra Paget (above) arrived with her agent and she was wearing a blonde wig. He commented that she looked "gorgeous, but silly". The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) confirms
that five-feet-two-inch Debra Paget, a B-movie regular in westerns and swashbucklers,
did test for the role of Sheena. Her most famous role was as the Indian
maiden Shonseeahray in Broken
Arrow (1950), with James Stewart and Jeff Chandler, a
much-lauded film because it was the first western to sympathetically portray
the plight of American Indians. She went on to make numerous exotic
costume dramas - Bird
Of Paradise (1951), Princess
of the Nile, (1954), Omar
Khayyam (1957), Tiger
of Bengal and The
Indian Tomb (both 1959). A few years later Ms Paget would
appear with Irish McCalla on the famous 5 June 1956 episode of The Milton
Berle Show with Elvis Presley (see Page 2: Irish
on the Milton Berle Show in the Personal Appearances
section).
Another applicant for the role of Sheena was the famous striptease artist, Lilly Christine (right), although she was not chosen for a screen test. She had been a contender for the part when Sol Lesser was auditioning for the role of Sheena back in 1952 and she was obviously still interested in the part ( see Page 1: The Sheena Movie Project for more details). Lilly was a lithe and athletic figure on stage. She earned the epithet, "The Cat Girl", because she possessed the suppleness of a cat through her unique muscle control. She also gained a lot of fame for her scantily clad "voodoo dance". She would probably have suited the role admirably.
Buxom
Hollywood blonde bombshell, Joi
Lansing (left), also applied for the part but was not screen tested.
The gorgeous Ms Lansing, who measured 39-23-35, began modelling in
her teens and had an uncredited role in MGM's classic musical, Singin'
in the Rain (1952), and appeared briefly as Zita, the dancer who
is killed at the end of the famous opening tracking shot in Orson Wells'
Touch of Evil
(1955). On television she appeared in The
Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1951-58), I
Love Lucy (1951-57), made regular appearances as Shirley Swanson,
a busty model, on The
Bob Cummings Show (called Love That Bob in re-runs) (1956-59),
and appeared in the "Superman's Wife" episode of The
Adventures of Superman (1951-58), with George Reeves. She
also made sporadic guest appearances over five seasons as Gladys Flatt,
the wife of renowned bluegrass musician, Lester Flatt, on The
Beverly Hillbillies (1962-71). She was also in the short-lived
series, Klondike
(1960-61). Ms Lansing was a also Morman who didn't drink or smoke
and practiced yoga for relaxation. She was nicknamed "Baby Face"
and it's debatable whether she had the necessary earthy grittiness to play
a primitive jungle queen, which may explain why she was culled from the
list. Laurette Luez (below right), a stunningly beautiful exotic Hawaiian brunette, was another actress interested in playing Sheena who was not chosen for a screen test. Both Jungle Gents (1954), a Bowery Boys film, and Prehistoric Women (1950) featured Ms Luez bedecked in animal skins. Exotic costumes were her specialty. She appeared in a sarong in African Treasure (1952), a Bomba the Jungle Boy film with Johnny Sheffield, and appeared in harem outfits in several films - Kim (1950), with Errol Flynn, Siren of Baghdad (1953), and The Adventures of Hajji Baba (1954) (Glamour Girls). Ms Luez is also famous for having claimed to have helped Norma
Jean
Baker develop her stage name during a brainstorming session when they were
attending the same acting classes. Marilyn was derived from the tempestuous
Vaudeville/Ziegfield actress, Marilyn
Miller, and Monroe came from the fifth US President, James
Monroe.Irish's real competition, of course, was from Anita Ekberg. Ms Ekberg had won the Miss Sweden title in 1951 and had come to the US to compete in the Miss Universe competition, which she didn't win. Ed Nassour Jr said that in the test footage Ms Ekberg "just oozed sex" was picked up by Universal, who in those days gave contracts every year to the six Miss Universe finalists (Love Goddesses). She soon appeared in a handful of inconsequential roles that took advantage of her physical prowess. Anita's debut was in an uncredited role as a maid-of-honour in Mississippi Gambler (1952) with Tyrone Power and Piper Laurie. This was followed by an uncredited role as a dancehall girl in an early lightweight Douglas Sirk western, Take Me To Town (1953), with Ann Southern and Sterling Hayden. She next appeared in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) as a Venusian guard, ably assisted by a handful of other Miss Universe candidates. Her fourth 1953 film, an impressive accomplishment for a new arrival, was as a handmaiden in the lively adventure-comedy, Golden Blade, with handsome newcomer Rock Hudson and Piper Laurie (again) (IMDb). It is not surprising, therefore, that she leaped at the opportunity to play the leading role in the Nassour Brothers' Sheena film. She was on her way up and winning the starring role in the Sheena jungle adventure might just be the vehicle she needed to step into the spotlight and really get noticed (IMDb).
Irish and Anita tested for the Nassour Brothers on the same day and Irish has said that they were among the last ones to be filmed. The auditions were held in Edward Nassour's large back yard because there were trees available to test the climbing ability of the
actresses
and large open areas for them to run across. The applicants were asked
to climb a tree to a height of about five feet, survey their domain, then
jump out of the tree and run across the yard. According to the large
photo on the Audition Intro page (click
on link to see photo) the actresses were also tested being threatened by
a spear. A makeshift leopard-skin costume with an over the shoulder
neckline was provided and all of the actresses were shot wearing the same
outfit. When Irish had completed her audition the cameraman said to
her, "Oh, you've got the part! You look like you belong
in the jungle. You run like an open field runner." "Well,
I'm a country girl" replied Irish, "I know how to run." (see
Tomboy section of the Childhood page)
Irish has recounted that she handed this costume to Anita after she
had finished with it and Anita came out with a lot of cleavage showing ("That's
when I knew I was in trouble" - see photo right). She has also
said that when it was her turn Anita ran like she was wearing high heels
("Like the way most girls run. Sorta kickin' their heels out.")
and that she climbed the tree awkwardly. Irish has said that she will
never forget Anita's performance up that tree. When they called out,
"All right now, Anita, jump down!" she looked at the producers
who were standing nearby (Edward and William Nassour) and addressed one
of them in particular. "Can you help me down?" she said.
The producer put out his arms and Anita slid seductively down his
body, as if she were descending a fireman's pole. The same cameraman
who had previously been enthusiastic about her chances looked at Irish and
said, "Honey, you just lost this job" (The TV Collector &
Prevue). A comparison of the two photos of Irish and Anita "leaping"
out of a tree on the next page (link below) clearly shows the differences
in their levels of athleticism. Ed Nassour Jr said that Ms Ekberg
"just oozed sex" on the Sheena audition test footage and remembered
that his dad wanted her for the role from the start. She was tall
like Irish, he said, (she was 5' 7"/169 cm) but he felt her thick Swedish
accent was very inappropriate for the role.SOURCES
• IMDb
(The Internet Movie Database) website
• Glamour Girls: Then and Now magazine, Editor Steve Sullivan.
Premiere issue Mar-Apr 94
• The Love Goddesses website - Anita
Ekberg page
• The TV Collector magazine, Jan/Feb 97
• Prevue Pinup Special 2 magazine, Aug/Oct 94
• Many thanks to Ed Nassour
Jr for allowing me to use his comments and to Frank Bonilla for sharing
them with me
PHOTOS
• The photos of Debra Paget, Joi Lansing,
Lily Christine and Laurette Luez were pilfered from eBay auction items
• The photo of Anita Ekberg in the Sheena audition costume is from
Cavalier magazine, Feb 56 - personal collection
| IRISH BIOGRAPHY INTRO |
SHEENA
© is the property of Sony Pictures Corporation
This independent, fan-based analysis of the Sheena material is copyright © 2006-2008 Paul Wickham
This page was updated May 2008
This independent, fan-based analysis of the Sheena material is copyright © 2006-2008 Paul Wickham
This page was updated May 2008