Nixon (and MLK) Go Hollywood

Otto Preminger's 1962 thriller Advice & Consent is a political thriller detailing a Secretary of State nominee with a hidden past and the Senate's reaction to that.

Most characters are thinly veiled versions of real politicians and there are several small cameos from serving ones, such as Scoop Jackson. Preminger however had two casting choices that failed to make it into the film. He hoped to cast Richard Nixon as the Vice President, a fairly large role in the movie. Furthermore, he hoped the cast MLK in a quick cameo as a senator from Georgia.

Both declined, Nixon for claiming the script was inaccurate, and MLK for fear he would be seen as trivializing the Civil Rights movement. What if either or both accepted? Could Nixon still make a political comeback? Would MLK's brief appearance spark more hostility towards him? Or, out of left field, what if Nixon finds that he likes acting?
 
Nixon when he was courting his future wife Pat, was in a community theater production so Nixon the actor is not that much a stretch of the imagination.
 
This is an interesting thread. Nixon in '60s Hollywood would be a hoot.

He stage acted in high school and college, and before his political career took off
Yes. His lifelong hatred of boots actually stemmed from this. During one of the high school productions he was required to wear boots and they were three size too small and he was in pain on the stage.
 
This is an interesting thread. Nixon in '60s Hollywood would be a hoot.


Yes. His lifelong hatred of boots actually stemmed from this. During one of the high school productions he was required to wear boots and they were three size too small and he was in pain on the stage.

I believe the play was Virgil's Aeneid.
 
The character Dr king would have played Senator Cullee Hamilton, ends up Vice President in the final novel The Promise of Joy. Hamilton represents the non violent patriotic approach, as opposed to his Malcolm X style roommate Legage Shelby. It’s a fictionalization of their struggle
 
I believe the play was Virgil's Aeneid.
Correct.

Also, as someone who once had to slog through the nigh-unreadable "Advise & Consent" (turgid dialogue that is so heavy handed it makes Kratman read like Dostoevsky), I would have retro-actively advised Vice President Nixon not to get sucked into that film. How that novel stayed for so long on the best-seller is beyond me, how it won awards defies all sense, and how it was turned into a movie that hews close to book and makes the bad guy a cartoon (but as big a cartoon as in the novel) and gives zero shades of grey was a hit is baffling. The only thing I guess is that it was a product of its time and the past is another country.
 
"Your dealing with devious men senator, devious powerful men. Where do you come into this seab? Let's such say you got a friend, a powerful devious friend."
 
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