It's very difficult to imagine anyone other than Bette Davis playing Margo Channing, the aging, acid-tongued theater star that finds her life being stolen out from under her in "All About Eve." Before production began on the 1950 film, however, director Joseph L. Mankiewicz and producer Darryl F. Zanuck were doing just that. While names like Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, and Barbara Stanwyck were considered, comedy queen Claudette Colbert eventually won the role — but she eventually lost it after suffering an injury on the set of "Three Came Home."

There's no doubt that Colbert would have done a fine job in "All About Eve." She was a fantastic actress, having risen to fame in the '30s playing sly, smart women, each with an unshakable degree of class. She was 47 when she was cast in the Mankiewicz picture, and, not unlike Margo herself, Colbert was struggling to reconcile her age in...