Scent of a Woman has an extremely memorable cast, from Al Pacino playing a blind war hero and subsequent curmudgeon to early performances from Chris O'Donnell and Philip Seymour Hoffman and a memorable turn from Bradley Whitford. However, Chris O'Donnell recently revealed there was another celebrity of sorts who almost made it into the movie: Donald Trump. Here's what Chris O'Donnell recently told Conan O'Brien about how Donald Trump got into the movie in the first place.
We had new pages given to us one day when we were filming at the Plaza Hotel, which I guess Trump owned it at the time. And [the pages] said we were doing a scene with Donald Trump. It was explained to us that in order to film at the Plaza we had a little walk-on part for Donald and Marla. I wasn't making the deal; I'm not sure how it worked.
Chris O'Donnell said that Trump came all the way onto the set one day, along with Marla Maples. They went into hair and make-up and got ready for their role in Scent of a Woman, filming a scene involving a limo and a quick walk into the Plaza. Of course, if you have seen Scent of a Woman, you did not get to see the scene featuring the then-real estate mogul, as Chris O'Donnell noted on Conan that Donald Trump may have required them to shoot the scene but that didn't mean it ended up in the movie.
Ultimately, it wasn't a huge part that was shot. Chris O'Donnell says that Donald Trump and Marla Maples would have only had a few zippy seconds of screentime, and would have had no dialogue.
[The part] was nothing. It got cut out of the movie. There was no words. We pulled up in a limo and Pacino and I left. Then another car pulled up and it was Donald Trump and Marla Maples. They walked up and went in--cut--and that was it.
Donald Trump's "deal" with Scent of a Woman ultimately didn't end up the way he probably thought it would, but it's not as if Donald Trump was hurting for cameos, even at the time. Scent of a Woman came out in 1992, the same year that Donald Trump also appeared in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. He also had cameos in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Little Rascals, The Nanny, The Drew Carey Show, Zoolander, and Two Weeks Notice, to name a few. Now, you can find his face on your TV pretty much every night.
As for Scent of the Woman, the movie did just fine without the inclusion of Donald Trump. Al Pacino won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role that year, and won the Golden Globe for Best Motion picture. It was also nominated for or won a slew of other awards. Even if you haven't seen the film, you probably are at least familiar with the scene where the very blind Slade performs a perfect tango with a young woman named Donna. Now, that's an iconic movie moment.
