This is really intriguing. As part of its next “Hollywood Legends” event April 5-6, Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills will be for the first time selling some slices of videotaped Hollywood casting history. With all sorts of big names in the mix:

Tapes include Leonardo DiCaprio’s audition for the role of Ponyboy in The Outsiders; Brad Pitt, Robert Downey Jr., Keanu Reeves and Dermot Mulroney for Backdraft; Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julianne Moore, Helen Hunt and others for roles in Jurassic Park; David Arquette, Adrien Brody, Noah Wylie, Ben Affleck and Lisa Kudrow auditioning with Ellen DeGeneres for Mr. Wrong; Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Patrick Dempsey and others for A Beautiful Mind; and more.

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Libyan rebels plundered the home of Muammar el-Qaddafi’s son al-Saadi yesterday, apparently with reporters in tow. The rebels found riches beyond their wildest dreams. But they also found some other interesting stuff: a gay porn DVD entitled Boyz Tracks as well as business cards for the Sunset Boulevard film company Natural Selection–of which al-Saadi was a major financier.

Natural Selection, run by producer Matty Beckerman, made waves in Hollywood by producing the 2010 Adrien Brody flick The Experiment. Beckerman and al-Saadi were featured in a nice profile in Variety for their efforts.

But that was back when Libya was supposedly thriving under IMF-backed market reforms and on its way to the kind of prosperity that inherently bubbles forth from Chicago School economics. When reality set in during the Arab Spring, the New York Times cast a more skeptical glance on Natural Selection and its Qaddafi money. Beckerman’s name, it seemed, was suddenly poison.

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