The Elephant Man (film) me hate acting." Because of the strain on the actor, he worked alternate days. Lynch originally wanted Jack Nance for the title character. "But it just wasn't in the cards," Lynch says; the role went to John Hurt after Brooks, Lynch and Sanger saw his performance in "The Naked Civil Servant" as Quentin Crisp. Lynch bookended the film with surrealist sequences centered around Merrick's mother and her death. Lynch used Samuel Barber’s "Adagio for Strings" to underline the end of the film and Merrick's own death. The film's composer, John Morris, argued against using the music, stating that "this piece
On the Beach (1959 film) nuclear-powered U.S. submarine. Several major and minor characters were altered, removed, or created specifically for the film version. The novel's Moira Davidson, a slender, petite pale blonde in her mid-twenties, was portrayed by the tall, curvaceous, 36-year-old brunette Ava Gardner. Nuclear scientist John Osborne, a 20-something bachelor in the novel, is portrayed in the film by 60-year-old Fred Astaire and is named Julian Osborn. Moira and John are cousins in the novel, while Moira and Julian are former lovers in the film. Admiral Bridie and his secretary, Lieutenant Hosgood, are film characters that are not in the novel. In the