Andrea Eastman, Casting Director Who Shaped The Godfather and Jaws, Dies at 86
Andrea Eastman, the Paramount casting chief and longtime ICM agent whose eye for talent placed James Caan in The Godfather and Roy Scheider aboard the Jaws boat, has died at 86. A family spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter that she died in her sleep on Wednesday at her home in Santa Barbara.
Eastman spent seven years apprenticing under legendary casting director Lynn Stalmaster — a stretch that included work on 1978's Superman — before rising to head of casting at Paramount Pictures, according to The Hollywood Reporter. There, she initiated casting for Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) and worked alongside Fred Roos to fill the roles in what became the Oscar winner for best picture. She championed Carlo Ponti, the Italian producer, for the role of Vito Corleone before author Mario Puzo proposed Marlon Brando. Her most lasting Godfather contribution may have been James Caan: he excelled in his screen test and was originally slated for Michael Corleone, but when Al Pacino landed that part, Caan was briefly out of the film — before being brought back as Sonny.
Earlier, Eastman had fought to cast Ali MacGraw, then a 30-year-old photographer's assistant and model with virtually no acting résumé, as Brenda Patimkin in Goodbye, Columbus (1969). Natalie Wood had already turned the part down and the studio had auditioned hundreds of other actresses, The Hollywood Reporter reports. The film launched MacGraw's career; that same year, she married Paramount Studios chief Robert Evans.
Eastman then brought a young Steven Spielberg together with Roy Scheider for Jaws (1975), the production whose success helped define the modern summer blockbuster. She also discovered Jaclyn Smith, who went on to television stardom in Charlie's Angels.
Her career extended well beyond casting. As a senior vice president at ICM — one of the major talent agencies representing actors, writers and directors in deal negotiations — she managed Sylvester Stallone during his Rocky heyday and represented or managed a roster that included Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, Burt Reynolds, Richard Gere, Chevy Chase, Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Reeve, Katharine Ross, Kim Basinger, Kathleen Turner and Wes Craven, among many others. She also talked director Rob Reiner into hiring her client Billy Crystal for When Harry Met Sally… (1989).
Later in life, Eastman became a passionate animal activist, according to her personal Instagram account.
What makes Eastman's career stand out is how many inflection points in American cinema rest on a single decision she made about who should be on screen. The Caan casting, the MacGraw gamble, the Spielberg-Scheider pairing — each was a judgment call that executives, directors and audiences then spent decades living with. Few people in Hollywood have left fingerprints on so many films that became the reference points for entire genres.
She is remembered by colleagues for an eye that favoured instinct over precedent — a photographer's assistant for a lead role, a television actor for a shark-hunting police chief, and a struggling young actor named Pacino for the most coveted part in the most coveted film of its decade.
