suffers a heart attack and dies at the age of 34. Cast Forest Whitaker as Charlie "Bird" Parker Damon Whitaker as young Bird Diane Venora as Chan Parker Michael Zelniker as Red Rodney Samuel E. Wright as Dizzy Gillespie Keith David as Buster Franklin Diane Salinger as Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter Michael McGuire as Brewster James Handy as Esteves Anna Thomson as Audrey Arlen Dean Snyder as Dr. Heath Sam Robards as Moscowitz Bill Cobbs as Dr. Caulfield Tony Cox as Pee Wee Marquette Hamilton Camp as Mayor of 52nd Street John Witherspoon as Sid Tony Todd as Frog Billy Mitchell as Prince Jason Bernard as Benny Tate Richard McKenzie as Southern Doctor Tim Russ as Harris Richard Jeni as Morello Don Starr as Nica's Doctor Development In the 1970s, Parker's friend and colleague Teddy Edwards shared his reminiscences of the saxophonist to Oliansky, who had wanted to make a biopic about Charlie Parker starring actor Richard Pryor. The property was originally owned by Columbia Pictures, which traded the rights to Warner Bros. at Eastwood's instigation, in exchange for the rights to what would become Columbia's 1990 Kevin Costner vehicle, Revenge. There was a delay of a few years while the trade was completed, and by then Pryor had lost interest. The film was eventually shot in 52 days for $14.4 million, not counting Eastwood's fee, although in interviews Eastwood sometimes said the film only cost $9 million to make. Eastwood, a lifelong fan of jazz, had been fascinated by Parker ever since seeing him perform live in Oakland in 1945. He approached Chan Parker, Bird's common-law wife on whose memoirs the script was based, for input. She gave Eastwood a collection of lost recordings she'd kept in a bank vault. Production Locations used for filming include the Sacramento Valley, Los Angeles, and Pasadena, California as well as New York City. Music Initially, when Columbia owned the project, the studio executives wanted to hire musicians to re-record all of Parker's music, largely because the original recordings were in mono, and were not of acceptable sound quality to accompany a feature film. Eastwood had some recordings of Parker made by Parker's wife, Chan, from which he had a sound engineer electronically isolate Parker's solos. Musicians, such as Ray Brown, Walter Davis, Jr., Ron Carter, Barry Harris, Pete Jolly, and Red Rodney, were then hired to record backing tracks on modern equipment.