what about Joan Bennett? She's certainly not right for any of the existing female characters but could there have been an appearance in an earlier draft?
What an appropriate question for today, given that Carlotta's line about Mrs. Stoddard's death is featured in the slideshow.
As for could Joan Bennett have been considered for a character in an earlier draft, whether it might have been Mrs. Stoddard or some other character, the really interesting thing is that the 16 Magazine announcement article that I mentioned earlier in connection to Michael Stroka says that we should have also looked for Joan Bennett, Jerry Lacy and John Karlen in the movie. Obviously John Karlen is in it. We know Jerry Lacy was supposed to be in it but he couldn't get away from doing
As The World Turns and was replaced by Thayer David. But we really know nothing about whether or not Joan Bennett was ever seriously considered or even if she would have considered doing it. All we know is she obviously isn't in the movie and, like you say, there isn't a character in the final script that she could have played. But all that being said, if Mrs. Stoddard had been in an early draft of the script and not simply a passing mention in one line of dialogue, it could have helped to tie hoDS and NoDS together. As it stands now, it's more like NoDS takes place in a parallel time band where the events of hoDS never took place...