Dispatches from Home – The Great Gatsby 1974 Movie.

Greetings! This is my all-time favorite version of Fitzgerald’s timeless literary masterpiece about unrequited love. I saw it at the picture show in 1974 and still have the original movie poster, which I see each time I drive in and out of my garage. Tis’ true: “Gone is the romance that was so divine.” Big hug, y’all! 🥰

From an article posted the FB site: Hollywood Classic: “Producer Robert Evans planned on making “The Great Gatsby” with his wife Ali MacGraw as Daisy as it was her favorite book. Evans originally sought Warren Beatty for the role of Jay Gatsby, but Beatty turned him down, reluctant to act opposite MacGraw. With Beatty out, Evans offered the role to Jack Nicholson, but Nicholson also reportedly was wary of acting with MacGraw and was unable to make a financial deal.

Robert Redford campaigned for the role of Jay Gatsby, but Evans rebuffed him on the incorrect belief that Fitzgerald’s text specified Gatsby had dark hair. Director Jack Clayton upbraided Evans for his lack of knowledge about the book and convinced him to cast Redford. “I began to think Evans never read the book,” Clayton recalled. “Sure, he liked the idea of doing a Fitzgerald [movie], but he didn’t know the text. Nowhere in it does Fitzgerald say Gatsby’s hair is dark.”

During this time, Ali MacGraw subsequently lost the part of Daisy after she left Evans for Steve McQueen. MacGraw and McQueen approached producer Merrick through their agents and offered themselves as a package, but McQueen was turned down on the grounds that Redford already was cast. Without McQueen as her co-star, she dropped the project, although Evans claimed it was he himself who terminated her participation in the movie.

After MacGraw’s departure from the project, Candice Bergen and Katharine Ross reportedly were offered the role of Daisy. Mia Farrow sent a cable to Evans asking him to consider her for the role, and director Jack Clayton liked the idea of casting her. Faye Dunaway wanted the role so badly she offered to do a screen test, but Clayton was not interested in her.

Farrow blamed her lack of on-screen chemistry with Redford in the eventual 1974 film on his total absorption in the Watergate scandals that were rocking Washington, D.C. at the time. Farrow claimed Redford spent all of his free time locked in his trailer to watch the political scandal unfold on television. Two years later, Redford played Watergate reporter Bob Woodward in “All the President’s Men.”