If a biopic is made of Warren Harding, who gets cast as Harding?

[saltpoint]

Also, please cast Harding's wife, who either did or did not murder him.

[fudge stripe cookays]

1. Oh man...

Too bad Ted Knight is dead. HE woulda been perfect!

And I see Vicki Lawrence in her "Mama" costume as Florence. What a great pic that could have been!

[saltpoint]

2. Ted Knight! I'm rollin' with that one. Do you think he had the chops

to pull off a dramatic role, though? Maybe he did. That was Jack Lemmon's greatest trick -- he could slipt you apart with laughter and then turn around on a dime and turn in the best dramatic performance in town.

[Totally Committed]

3. Alan Rickman and Judy Davis...

Neither American, but both perfect!

TC

[saltpoint]

4. They're almost perfect for anything. I'm willing to accept the theory

that they are from an alien, vastly superior planet to ours.

How else to explain talent like that?

[Totally Committed]

8. They are two of my absolute favorites of all time!

But, they do sort of look like the Hardings, don't they? A little bit, maybe?

TC

[saltpoint]

13. They've got the talent, big-time, and the make-up people can figure

out how to make them look more like the Hardings.

Those make-up people can do just about anything.

[Old and In the Way]

5. Rush Limbaugh and Jean Schmidt

just a hunch....

[saltpoint]

9. A biopic with a horror twist. I like it.

Hi ya, Old and In the Way. Good to see you on DU today.

[NNadir]

6. If he wants to elevate himself to a better President, George W. Bush.

Harding probably wouldn't mind. When you're Warren G. Harding, in the company of men like James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce, you kind of like a man like George W. Bush. It makes you look less odious by comparison.

[Glorfindel]

7. Franklin Pierce?

Does he really deserve to be listed with Buchanan, Harding, and Bush? (Not to mention Coolidge and Hoover...)

[Glorfindel]

10. Self-delete

Replied to the wrong post.

[fudge stripe cookays]

19. Pierce was a notorious alcoholic in his day.

I think his wife was ill and they had several children die, so he had a little more excuse than some.

[saltpoint]

23. Yes. His wife Jane believed God was punishing them for Franklin's

pursuit of high office by killing 11-year old Ben in a train wreck.

For the most part, Jane refused to even live in the White House.

And then there was this slavery thing goin' on...

No wonder the man took to the sauce.

Drunk, Pierce accidentally struck a woman bystander while on his horse. He had evidently forgotten it had happened, and when sober, was told of the incident. "Well, no surprise," he said. "You know how I am when I've had a snootful."

[cmkramer]

29. Barbara Bush

Barbara Bush is a collateral member of Franklin Pierce's family. He's probably a many times removed uncle or cousin.

[NNadir]

20. Yes.

Franklin Pierce was such a bad President that his own party declined to renominate him for re-election. He is the only President ever to have sought renomination and to have been denied it.

Informed of the denial of renomination, Pierce is said to have remarked that "The only thing left to do now is to go get drunk." This he proceeded to do.

Pierce's inflammatory actions in support of slavery interests during the Kansas crisis helped pave the way for the Civil War. In particular he supported the "popular sovereignty" Kansas-Nebraska act that inflamed many in the North from John Brown to Abraham Lincoln. (Lincoln's rise to national stature came during his campaign against the most prominent supporter of the Kansas Nebraska act, Steven Douglass.)

Although he was from New Hampshire, Pierce was extremely sympathetic to slavery, so much so, that many people during the Civil War (through which Pierce lived) thought that he sided with the Confederacy.

Pierce died in 1869 from alcohol induced cirrhosis of the liver.

http://www.highbeam.com/library/docfreeprint.asp?docid=1G1:82492366&ctrlInfo=Round19%3AMode19a%3ADocFree%3APrint&print=yes

Franklin Pierce certainly rates with the worst Presidents in US history, with the exception of George W. Bush, who brings a new low to what "worst" actually means.

[nealmhughes]

24. Virginia Clay Compton's autobiography, "A Belle of the Fifties"

(as in the 1850s) when she was in official Washington and leader of a salon, says that the social life in Washington City was "dazzling" under Pierce's leadership. She never mentions his wife or all their troubles, but apparently, the Pierce family has always liked to party.

Buchanan was doomed. Nothing at all could have saved his presidency. He tried to hold the country together at the Hampton Roads Conference, but it was too far gone --
Whigs were gone, Republicans were new kids on the block and almost all Northern and 3 separate Democratic Parties after the bolt of the Southern delegates at the Charleston Convention of 1860. He was supposed to have been a brilliant diplomat, though.

[NNadir]

26. Was this Henry Clay's daughter?

I am unfamiliar with this work.

I have to admit to having no idea about social life under Pierce, except that his wife refused to participate because of her son's death. I am surprised to hear that someone thought of it as brilliant social times.

Buchanan had an outstanding resume up until he became President. My opinion is though that it wasn't just a matter of following Pierce that doomed him, but his own vacillations and weakness. His actions in the Dred Scott case did not soothe things. Certainly he might have handled the secession crisis in a considerably firmer manner.

I don't know that the Civil War could have been averted, as slavery was a great stain on the United States and something had to be done. Since slavery is a form of violence, it follows that its adherents were violent men. Still, men like Pierce and Buchanan eliminated any chance of an inspired solution. I think it would be too much to claim that they bore little responsibility for events because some inevitability. My feeling is somewhat different: I think great men are made by difficult times.

Lincoln made a great many mistakes in facing difficulties no other President has ever faced, but in the end he succeeded in realizing his goals. He preserved the Union; he won the war; and eliminated the cause of the war.

I am trying to take some solace from the existence of Lincoln. Even with Pierce, Buchanan, Harding et al, the country has never been so ravaged by a person in the White House as it is now. If we are to survive, we will need a President of Lincolnian or Rooseveltian stature. This administration, in my opinion, is the greatest disaster since the Civil War. I note that Buchanan and Pierce could point to the existence of an organic problem, slavery. No such problem existed when this creature now seated in our White House occupied our government. When he came to power, the country was operating well and still he managed to destroy it.

[saltpoint]

25. Good synopsis, NNadir. I would throw in that Jefferson Davis was

a confidant and his Secretary of War.

Unusually strong ties to the South.

[saltpoint]

11. Maybe. But could Dubya pull it off? I think we need a skilled actor,

and Dubya has some difficulty convincing audiences he's even a grown-up.

He's corrupt enough to play Harding, but once the cameras are rolling, do we need a pro for that character?

[Love Bug]

12. Fred Thompson and Katie Holmes

Hey, why not?

[saltpoint]

15. O god, that's pretty good. Fred Thompson. Always waiting for that

one big role.

This could be it.

[fudge stripe cookays]

18. Nah.

Katie Holmes would make a better Nan Britton, with blonde hair.

Or any of the other turn of the century ladies with whom Harding enjoyed dalliances and unofficially fathered children.

[saltpoint]

21. Good description of Warren's social proclivities.

[Glorfindel]

14. Jeremy Northam and Cate Blanchett?

[saltpoint]

16. Hi, Glorfindel. Cate Blanchett I've seen in half a dozen films.

I'm sorry, I don't know Jeremy Northrup.

I'll google around and see what's out there.

[Glorfindel]

17. Here..

[saltpoint]

22. I did some googling. I see how he could play Warren Harding.

A touch of make-up here and there and he's good to go.

[saltpoint]

27. For those interested in a little more on Harding, here is

an American Heritage webpage on "The Four Myteries of Warren Harding."

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1963/3/1963_3_4.shtml

[saltpoint]

28. ...and a brief glimpse at Harding's encounter with Babe Ruth:

New York was Babe's kind of town. He wore flamboyant camel hair coats and drove a convertible. He was a big tipper, a bigger celebrity, a man-boy who was likely to say anything to anyone without much thought. On the steamy afternoon he met President Warren G. Harding, he felt the need to comment about the weather.

"Hot as hell, ain't it, Prez?"

link: http://www.sptimes.com/2004/03/21/Floridian/Thanks__Babe.shtml