The Carpetbaggers is a 1964 American film based upon the best selling novel The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins. The film stars George Peppard as Jonas Cord, a character based loosely on Howard Hughes, and Alan Ladd as former western gunslinger turned actor Nevada Smith, featured the following year in a prequel starring Steve McQueen in the part. Carroll Baker portrayed an actress inspired by Jean Harlow, who appeared in Hughes' film epic Hell's Angels. The film was directed by Edward Dmytryk. Filmed in 35mm Panavision, this was one of the first films to be blown up to 70mm for premiere... screening. It was Alan Ladd's final film; Ladd died some months before its release. In her 1978 autobiography Past Imperfect, Joan Collins claims she had a firm offer to play Rina Marlowe but had to decline because of pregnancy. Dmytryk followed this film with another Harold Robbins story, Where Love Has Gone. Jonas Cord becomes one of America's richest men, inheriting a chemical company after his father's death. Cord resents his father bitterly and is psychologically scarred by the death of a twin brother.
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