A "Sexy" Gandhi? Ewww.

Here's a little tidbit that's kind of hard to believe. Director Richard Attenborough writes in his new autobiography that an American studio suggested Richard Burton as the lead for Gandhi because he was sexy.

Whaaaa?

Having the hard-drinking, womanizing Welshman play the self-denying Indian ascetic would be hard enough to take, but trying to picture Burton in Gandhi's dhoti beggars imagination. It would have looked look like a giant diaper. And I'm sure Burton was sufficiently self-aware that he would never have done it, drunk or sober.

Attenborough apparently also considered Burton's fellow Welshman Anthony Hopkins for the role, which seemed a slightly better fit. Years passed as Attenborough looked for his lead, a search which ended when the supremely talented Ben Kingsley did a screen test. The rest was epic history.