6 Game-Changing Original Plans You Didn't Know About The Warriors
5. Cyrus Was To Be Played By A Real Life Gang Leader?
According to the executive producer, Frank Marshall, the character of Cyrus was originally to be played by a real-life gang member, who presumably had a secret side gig as a freelance feature film actor. Marshall states -” [Roger Hill] replaced an actor who we had cast but could never find - a real gang member, a real leader of a gang. Then when we went to put him in the part, nobody could find him and who knows, to this day, [I] don't know what happened to him. Never heard from him again”.
On IMDB, it is constantly rumoured that the original actor got into trouble with his real-life gang due to his involvement in the film, of which authentic New York gangs were known to be disparaging of, even attacking the set in multiple instances. The set was even protected by a gang known as the Mongrels, and in the Coney Island-based scenes, the actors were made to remove their ‘colours’ so as to not offend the real-life gang based on the Island.
This environment, which was created through the production team’s intimate relationships with local gangs, could make it feasible that the original actor was reprimanded by his peers of the night for his extended involvement in the film. But there is no concrete proof of this, and even Micheal Beck, who played Swan, argued that Hill was always supposed to play Cyrus.