8 Actors Who Quit Movies Because Of Seconds Of Footage
1. Ava Gardner Didn't Want To Strip - The Graduate
Mike Nichols' The Graduate is as perfectly cast as movies get - particularly Dustin Hoffman as wide-eyed college graduate Benjamin Braddock and Anne Bancroft as the mature object of his lust, Mrs. Robinson.
Nichols considered countless actresses for Mrs. Robinson, including screen legend Ava Gardner, who while not among the director's top contenders for the part, nevertheless enthusiastically organised a meeting with him at the Regency Hotel in New York.
Despite the script calling for Mrs. Robinson to be half-undressed for numerous scenes and fleetingly topless in another, Gardner flat-out told Nichols, "I strip for nobody."
Though Nichols insisted that nudity wouldn't be necessary - a body double was used when Bancroft also refused to bare her breasts - nothing ever moved forward with Gardner, who pulled away from the project while suddenly disparaging her own acting abilities to the director.
Nichols, for his part, knew from that meeting that Gardner wasn't right for the role, and the rest was history.