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Edward Woodward

Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Bryan Brown, Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson in Breaker Morant

Edward Woodward, the star of the 1980s television series The Equalizer and of the film classics The Wicker Man (1973) and Breaker Morant (1980), died on Monday in Truro, Cornwall, England. Woodward had been suffering from heart problems and other ailments; the cause of death was pneumonia.
Born to working-class parents in Croydon, Surrey, south of London, on June 1, 1930, Woodward began his acting career onstage in 1946. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he played roles in, among others, Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing, in addition to starring in Cyrano de Bergerac on the West End and in Noel Coward’s Broadway musical [...]

Jocelyn Quivrin

Jocelyn Quivrin, Bénabar in Incognito

Jocelyn Quivrin, the French Academy’s César winner for most promising newcomer in 2008, died after losing control of his sports car while driving in a tunnel just outside of Paris on Sunday (Nov. 15) night. Quivrin was 30.
Quivrin’s off-screen companion was actress Alice Taglioni, best known for playing a top model in Francis Veber’s comedy The Valet. The couple had a child in March. According to reports, Taglioni was driving in front of Quivrin on Sunday night; she called the police when the actor didn’t arrive home.
Quivrin (born on Feb. 14, 1979) began his show-business career at the age of 10, appearing in the television series Les compagnons de [...]

Grace Kelly: TO CATCH A THIEF, THE SWAN

Grace Kelly on TCM: Part I
Thanks to Kelly’s Oscar win, The Country Girl is interesting as a historical curiosity — it’s the sort of "gutsy" and "realistic" film adaptation of a respected stage play that was very popular among the filmgoing elite of the 1950s (e.g., Tea and Sympathy, A Hatful of Rain), but that I generally find both lame and artificial. Bing Crosby’s drunk is about as convincing as Kelly’s frumpish housewife (a role that should have gone to original choice Jennifer Jones), but that didn’t prevent a number of Academy members from making sure Crosby, director George Seaton, and the film itself received Academy Award nominations. Seaton, in fact, did win an Oscar for his [...]

Grace Kelly on TCM

Stating the obvious: most people take great pleasure in idealizing their idols — which is why idols are idols.
Whether we’re talking of gods, saints, prophets, or pop stars, the process is pretty much the same: flaws are expunged, deeds that never took place are turned into (at times miraculous) facts, the Pantheon of the Immortals becomes their abode following their earthly demise. (In some extreme cases — assorted gods, Elvis — the idol in question doesn’t die, period.)
Grace Kelly, Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month, is one of the lofty ones now dwelling in the aforementioned Pantheon. True, the flesh-and-bood Philadelphia-born (Nov. 12, 1929) woman (nee Grace Patricia Kelly) may have been quite different [...]

Top Five Movie Screamers

Top Ten Movie Screamers: 10 to 6

5 – Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960)
I don’t recall myself recoiling in horror while watching Janet Leigh’s shower scene in Psycho, but I do recall quite vividly one night long ago when I was showering at an acquaintance’s place and imagined myself facing the same fate as Leigh’s unlucky bank teller. So, I guess that sequence did leave a lasting impression on me. (Needless to say, I was out of that acquaintance’s shower stall and all dried up in a matter of seconds.)

4 – Fay Wray in King Kong (1933), Doctor X (1932), and The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
Fay Wray has to be here. To her belongs the title of [...]

Ramon Novarro: Q&A with Author Allan Ellenberger

I first contacted author Allan Ellenberger shortly before the publication of his book on Old Hollywood star Ramon Novarro, as at the time I was working on my own Novarro bio. Instead of treating me like a pesky rival, Allan generously shared the information he’d amassed throughout about a decade of research — and for that I was very thankful.
We’ve since become good friends (but Allan, you need to buy me pizza more often), so I’m glad to report that his Ramon Novarro (McFarland, 1999) is now available in paperback at online bookstores. In his carefully researched book (I’ve read it about four or five times), Allan discusses Ramon Novarro’s life and career from his early beginnings in [...]

AFI FEST 2009: Christopher Plummer, Viggo Mortensen Tributes

James McAvoy, Christopher Plummer in The Last Station (top); Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence (bottom)

AFI FEST 2009 has selected Christopher Plummer, who’ll turn 80 next December, and Viggo Mortensen, 51, as this year’s tribute honorees.
Sponsored by the Skirball Cultural Center, Plummer’s tribute will precede the screening of The Last Station, in which he plays Leo Tolstoy, on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Mortensen’s tribute will precede the US premiere of John Hillcoat’s futuristic drama The Road on Wednesday, Nov. 4. Both tributes will take place at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
A stage, film, and television and television veteran, during the course of his 50-plus-year career Plummer has won two Tony Awards (for Cyrano [...]

Audrey Hepburn Film Series: CHARADE, MY FAIR LADY

Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn in Love in the Afternoon

Audrey Hepburn LACMA Series: ROMAN HOLIDAY, SABRINA
Love in the Afternoon
October 30 | 9:35 pm
Love in the Afternoon, Wilder’s long awaited tribute to his idol Ernst Lubitsch, is based on a French novel and tells the story of Ariane, an innocent young cello student in Paris whose father is a detective, played by Chevalier, the star of four Lubitsch musicals. In order to spark the romantic interest of Frank, an American millionaire and notorious playboy ensconced at the Ritz, Ariane assumes the guise of a sophisticated woman of affairs; but when Frank hires Ariane’s father to investigate the mysterious girl who only visits him in the afternoon, complications arise. [...]

Audrey Hepburn LACMA Series: ROMAN HOLIDAY, SABRINA

Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s

“Audrey Hepburn: Then, Now and Forever” Intro
Screening schedule and synopses from LACMA’s press release:
Roman Holiday
October 23 | 7:30 pm | Introduction by Peter Bogdanovich
Cloistered in a Roman palace on a brief state visit and yearning for a taste of la dolce vita, a young princess from an unnamed European country breaks curfew and hits the town, where too much champagne propels her straight into the arms of an accommodating American—a reporter who knows an exclusive story when it wakes up in his apartment, needing coffee and a new outfit for the scooter. Love blossoms when they set off on a magical mystery tour of the great monuments of the Eternal City; but as [...]

Audrey Hepburn: Then, Now and Forever

Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s

"Audrey Hepburn: Then, Now and Forever" is the title of the new Los Angeles County Museum of Art film series that kicks off this evening with a double bill: Roman Holiday (1953, right), the film that both made Audrey Hepburn a star — in her first leading role — and earned the actress her only Academy Award, and Peter Bogdanovich’s little-seen They All Laughed (1981), Hepburn’s last starring role in a feature film. Bogdanovich will introduce the screening.
Classy without being aloof; alluring without being vulgar; sophisticated without being snotty. That pretty much would summarize Audrey Hepburn’s screen presence. She could be hilarious, e.g., doing her best to seduce Cary Grant in Charade (1963); she [...]

Gael Garcia Bernal and Survival

In the above photo, Gael Garcia Bernal, the star of Y tu mama tambien and Amores perros, models the new T-shirt designed by John Rocha to mark the 40th anniversary of the human rights organization Survival International.
As per the Survival website, the design was inspired by Rocha’s collection of tribal masks.
On its website, Survival is described as "a human rights organisation that helps tribal peoples defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures. It was founded 40 years ago, following an article by Norman Lewis in the Sunday Times Magazine about the genocide of Brazilian Indians."
The commemorative Survival T-shirt is available exclusively from Survival’s Christmas catalogue.
Photo: Courtesy Survival International

Rosanna Schiaffino

Rosanna Schiaffino, Vince Edwards in Carl Foreman’s The Victors (1963)

Rosanna Schiaffino, the sensual leading lady of dozens of Italian (and a few international) productions of the ’60s and early ’70s, died on Oct. 17 at her home in Milan following a long battle with cancer. She was 69.
The Genoa-born (Nov. 25, 1938) actress, referred to by some as the "Italian Hedy Lamarr," began her film career in the late 1950s. Among her best-known roles are those in Francesco Rosi’s first feature, La Sfida / The Challenge (1958); Mauro Bolognini’s La Notte brava / The Big Night / Bad Girls Don’t Cry (1959), winner of the Italian Film Critics’ Silver Ribbon for Pier Paolo Pasolini’s screenplay; and André Hunebelle’s historical [...]

George Clooney, Kevin Spacey, Bill Murray: London 2009

Jarvis Cocker, Eric Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, George Clooney, Wally Wolodarsky, Bill Murray attend the World Premiere of Fantastic Mr Fox and the Opening Gala of The Times BFI London Film Festival at the Odeon Leicester Square on October 14, 2009. (Photo: Samir Hussein/Getty Images)

Kevin Spacey, Author Jon Ronson, Producer Paul Lister, Director Grant Heslov and George Clooney at the The Men Who Stare at Goats press conference at the Vue West End on October 15. (Photo by Samir Hussein/Getty Images)

Kevin Spacey, Grant Heslov, George Clooney (Photo by Samir Hussein/Getty Images)

George Clooney stares at a goat (Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images)

Karl Dane Biographer Interview

Allan Ellenberger interviews biographer Laura Petersen Balogh, whose book on silent-film comedian Karl Dane has just been published by McFarland.
Here’s a brief snippet:
Why Karl Dane? What is it about him and his story that moved you to write a biography?
I had always known who Karl Dane was, being a silent film buff my whole life, but he never really made that much of an impression on me. I had read different Hollywood scandal books which said his voice was not suited to the talkies, but pretty much thought that was the end of the story. It wasn’t until December 2005, when my husband Dan and I were watching the 1933 early sound serial The Whispering [...]

Cindy Crawford, George Clooney, Elisabetta Canalis: London 2009

George Clooney and Elisabetta Canalis attend the World Premiere of Fantastic Mr Fox, the Opening Gala of The Times BFI London Film Festival, at the Odeon Leicester Square on October 14, 2009.
Photos: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

Elisabetta Canalis, George Clooney

Cindy Crawford

Marlon Brando, Marlene Dietrich, Sophia Loren Home Movies

Alfred Hitchcock, wife Alma Reville, daughter Patricia Hitchcock, and dog at home ca. 1941

Paulette Goddard, Betty Grable, Edward G. Robinson, Ginger Rogers, and Natalie Wood’s rarely seen home movies will be screened at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ presentation of “Hollywood Home Movies II: Treasures from the Academy Film Archive” on Saturday, October 17, at 7 p.m. at the Academy’s Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. This event is sold out, but standby tickets may become available.
The Academy Film Archive houses a wide variety of amateur movies — whether featuring the stars’ families and friends, or behind-the-scenes activities on their sets. "Hollywood Home Movies II" will feature a number of excerpts, [...]

Bette Midler Cancels Appearance at THE ROSE Screening

Alan Bates, Bette Midler in The Rose

Actors Barry Primus and Doris Roberts, Oscar-nominated sound mixers Jim Webb and Theodore Soderberg, and director Mark Rydell will participate in an onstage discussion following the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ (now sold out) 30th anniversary screening of The Rose on Friday, September 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey will host the evening.
Bette Midler was originally scheduled to be present at the event, but as per the Academy’s press release "has had to cancel for personal reasons." Instead, Midler will provide "a special video message dedicated to [...]

Claude Rains on TCM: CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA, JUAREZ

Claude Rains, Gale Sondergaard in Anthony Adverse

Turner Classic Movies will be showing eight movies featuring Claude Rains, TCM’s Star of the Month of September, beginning at 5PM Pacific Time.
Of those, I’ve seen only three:
Juarez (1939) could have been a good historical biopic, but things go wrong from the start thanks to the miscasting of Paul Muni as Benito Juárez. Even Bette Davis, who plays the mad Empress Carlotta von Hapsburg, would have been more believable as Mexico’s first full-blooded American Indian to be elected president. William Dieterle was also the wrong man to direct Juarez, as Dieterle’s hand tended to be quite heavy when dealing with real-life subjects, e.g., The Life of Emile Zola, The Story of [...]

Patrick Swayze

Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze in Ghost

Patrick Swayze, the star of Dirty Dancing and Ghost, died from complications from pancreatic cancer yesterday in Los Angeles. Swayze was 57.
The Texan-born Swayze (on Aug. 18, 1952, in Houston), whose background included classical dance training, became a star after playing the romantic lead in the sleeper hit Dirty Dancing (1987), directed by Emile Ardolino and co-starring Jennifer Grey. However, Swayze’s follow-up releases — the little-seen Tiger Warsaw; Next of Kin, as a rough cop; and Road House, as a bouncer — were disappointments.
Swayze’s career took another upward turn with Jerry Zucker’s Ghost, a 1990 supernatural romantic comedy-melorama-thriller in which he dies but hangs around so as to find out the identity [...]

Venice 2009: Sylvester Stallone’s “Glory to the Filmmaker” Award Photos

Il Postino actress Maria Grazia Cucinotta, "Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker" Award recipient Sylvester Stallone, and Venice Film Festival director Marco Muller at the Sala Grande during the 66th Venice Film Festival on September 12.
Photos: François Durand / 2009 Getty Images. Courtesy: Jaeger-LeCoultre
Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Stallone

Venice 2009: Jared Leto, Sarah Polley, Diane Kruger Images

Mr. Nobody director Jaco van Dormael, actors Sarah Polley, Jared Leto, Linh Dan Pham and Diane Kruger
Photos: François Durand / 2009 Getty Images. Courtesy: Jaeger-LeCoultre
Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Diane Kruger, Jared Leto

Linh Dan Pham, Sarah Polley, Diane Kruger

Sarah Polley, Jared Leto, Linh Dan Pham and Diane Kruger

Martin Sheen, Judy Greer in LOVE HAPPENS Photos

Aaron Eckhart, Martin Sheen

Martin Sheen

Judy Greer
Photos: Kimberley French / Copyright: © 2009 Universal Studios
Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Jennifer Aniston in LOVE HAPPENS Photos
Aaron Eckhart in LOVE HAPPENS Photos

Claude Rains on TCM: HERE COMES MR. JORDAN, DECEPTION

Claude Rains returns this Wednesday, Sept. 9, in more films featuring Turner Classic Movies‘ Star of the Month.
Every single one of the titles listed below is worth watching if only because of Rains’ presence. That said, a couple of them actually have considerably more to offer: Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) and Deception (1946).
Here Comes Mr. Jordan is a witty, romantic comedy about love, death, reincarnation, greed, bad timing, and prizefighting. I know, this all (minus the prizefighting) sounds like some heavy-duty drama straight out of the Bible or some other holy book, but director Alexander Hall and screenwriters Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller, adapting Harry Segall’s play Heaven Can Wait, handle those serious themes with [...]

Claude Rains on TCM

Claude Rains, one of the greatest actors of the studio era — in fact, one of the greatest film actors of the 20th century — is Turner Classic Movies‘ Star of the Month of September.
What would I recommend?
Well, whether on TCM or on DVD or on VHS or in some hidden vault somewhere, I’d say check him out in The Invisible Man and (ouch!) The Lost World; his supporting roles opposite Priscilla Lane and Bette Davis; his Oscar-nominated roles in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Casablanca, Mr. Skeffington, and Notorious; his brief appearances in Lawrence of Arabia and The Greatest Story Ever Told; his cinematic swan song, Twilight of Honor. In sum, if Claude Rains is in it, [...]

Juanita Moore, Susan Kohner, Paul Weitz Photos

The 50th anniversary screening of Douglas Sirk’s classic weepie Imitation of Life, starring Lana Turner, Sandra Dee, John Gavin, and Oscar nominees Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner (above), was presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday, August 21, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The event was hosted by film critic Stephen Faber.
In Imitation of Life, white Susan Kohner plays black Juanita Moore’s daughter (hey, it’s Hollywood). In real life, however, Kohner doesn’t have a black mom. Her mother is Lupita Tovar, 98, known as "Mexico’s Sweetheart" back in the early 1930s and the star of the Spanish-language version of Dracula. Her father was producer Paul Kohner, among whose credits [...]

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