Phyllis Carlyle, a casting director and manager who worked with such big names as Willem Dafoe, Jude Law and Geena Davis who later produced the hit films Seven and The Accidental Tourist, has died.
She was 80. She died September 14 of lymphoma in Encino, CA, according to her family and the Neptune Society. Born on August 22, 1942, in Cleveland, Carlyle attended the American Academy for the Dramatic Arts before landing a job at a Chicago talent agency.
A friend who had moved to Los Angeles get Carlyle a job as a commercial casting director, and she ran with it. “I probably became the top commercials casting director,” Carlyle said in a recent interview with Luke Ford. “Naivete can be a great quality because you think everything is possible,” she told Ford. “While if I had listened to the advice I was receiving, I would’ve done nothing.
Everybody cautions you against everything. I didn’t know any better. I decided to start a management business. From my work as a casting director, I saw a lot of young talent.
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