Breakfast at Tiffany's starring Marilyn Monroe 1961

 

        It is hard to imagine the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's without Audrey Hepburn. Her image as Holly Golightly has been on posters, t-shirts and just about anything else you can buy. However when the author of "Breakfast at Tiffany's", Truman Capote, heard that she going to be cast in an adaptation of his book he thought she was terribly miscast. He had wanted Marilyn Monroe to play his lead character. She was offered the role but was advised against it. A young Steve McQueen was offered the male lead but was unavailable. The role that I would like to see recast is Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi. Couldn't they have gotten someone more appropriate like Alec Guiness or Marlon Brando? The original director was to have been John Frankenheimer.

     If they had gone with those original choices the film could have been quite different. I believe Hepburn was responsible for Givenchy designing her character's wardrobe. Henry Mancini was a frequent collaborator of Blake Edwards, so with Frankenheimer directing not just the mood of the movie but also the music would probably be different.  It might still have become a classic but it would surely not be the movie we know.