100 Most Notable TCM Remembers Omissions
Nobody makes better year-end memorial tributes than TCM, but even they can overlook some important people. TCM Remembers has honored nearly 1500 performers, directors, writers, producers and film artisans since its debut in 1995, but there were many others who deserved recognition that inexplicably missed the cut. Below are the 100 most notable film luminaries that were somehow "forgotten" by TCM Remembers. The description for each individual will include their occupation(s) and the year they should have been honored (which for those who died in late December will be the year after they died).
Honorable mentions: Tomas Milian, actor (2017); Earl Cameron, actor (2020); Elizabeth Peña, actress (2014); Yvonne Craig, actress (2015); Riz Ortolani, composer (2014); Sam O'Steen, editor (2000); Jack Lord, actor (1998); Moss Mabry, costume designer (2006); Howard Rollins, actor (1996); Jack Nance, actor (1997); Luis Bacalov, composer (2017); Dan O'Bannon, writer (2010); Glen Robinson, special effects artist (2002); Joe Ranft, writer/animator (2005); Linda Cristal, actress (2020); Lawrence G. Paull, production designer (2019); Brion James, actor (1999); Gabriele Ferzetti, actor (2015); Ronald Harwood, writer (2020); Kinji Fukasaku, director/writer (2003); Don Simpson, producer (1996); Madge Sinclair, actress (1996); Richard Rodney Bennett, composer (2013); William Hickey, actor (1997); James Lipton, TV host (2020); Gregg Rudloff, sound mixer (2019); Joe Mantell, actor (2010); Debra Hill, writer/producer (2005); John Fiedler, actor (2005); Butterfly McQueen, actress (1996); Lynn Shelton, director (2020); Richard Portman, sound mixer (2017); Peter Shaffer, writer (2016)
Honorable mentions: Tomas Milian, actor (2017); Earl Cameron, actor (2020); Elizabeth Peña, actress (2014); Yvonne Craig, actress (2015); Riz Ortolani, composer (2014); Sam O'Steen, editor (2000); Jack Lord, actor (1998); Moss Mabry, costume designer (2006); Howard Rollins, actor (1996); Jack Nance, actor (1997); Luis Bacalov, composer (2017); Dan O'Bannon, writer (2010); Glen Robinson, special effects artist (2002); Joe Ranft, writer/animator (2005); Linda Cristal, actress (2020); Lawrence G. Paull, production designer (2019); Brion James, actor (1999); Gabriele Ferzetti, actor (2015); Ronald Harwood, writer (2020); Kinji Fukasaku, director/writer (2003); Don Simpson, producer (1996); Madge Sinclair, actress (1996); Richard Rodney Bennett, composer (2013); William Hickey, actor (1997); James Lipton, TV host (2020); Gregg Rudloff, sound mixer (2019); Joe Mantell, actor (2010); Debra Hill, writer/producer (2005); John Fiedler, actor (2005); Butterfly McQueen, actress (1996); Lynn Shelton, director (2020); Richard Portman, sound mixer (2017); Peter Shaffer, writer (2016)
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- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Toshiro Mifune achieved more worldwide fame than any other Japanese actor of his century. He was born in Tsingtao, China, to Japanese parents and grew up in Dalian. He did not set foot in Japan until he was 21. His father was an importer and a commercial photographer, and young Toshiro worked in his father's studio for a time after graduating from Dalian Middle School. He was automatically drafted into the Japanese army when he turned 20, and enlisted in the Air Force where he was attached to the Aerial Photography Unit for the duration of the World War II. In 1947 he took a test for Kajirô Yamamoto, who recommended him to director Senkichi Taniguchi, thus leading to Mifune's first film role in These Foolish Times II (1947). Mifune then met and bonded with director Akira Kurosawa, and the two joined to become the most prominent actor-director pairing in all Japanese cinema. Beginning with Drunken Angel (1948), Mifune appeared in 16 of Kurosawa's films, most of which have become world-renowned classics. In Kurosawa's pictures, especially Rashomon (1950), Mifune would become the most famous Japanese actor in the world. A dynamic and ferocious actor, he excelled in action roles, but also had the depth to plumb intricate and subtle dramatic parts. A personal rift during the filming of Red Beard (1965) ended the Mifune-Kurosawa collaboration, but Mifune continued to perform leading roles in major films both in Japan and in foreign countries. He was twice named Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival (for Yojimbo (1961) and Red Beard (1965)). In 1963 he formed his own production company, directing one film and producing several others. In his later years he gained new fame in the title role of the American TV miniseries Shogun (1980), and appeared infrequently in cameo roles after that. His last years were plagued with Alzheimer's Syndrome and he died of organ failure in 1997, a few months before the death of the director with whose name he will forever be linked, Akira Kurosawa.Actor
1998- Writer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Robert Bresson trained as a painter before moving into films as a screenwriter, making a short film (atypically a comedy), Public Affairs (1934) in 1934. After spending more than a year as a German POW during World War II, he made his debut with Angels of Sin (1943) in 1943. His next film, The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne (1945) would be the last time he would work with professional actors. From Journal d'un cure de campagne (1951) (aka "Diary of a Country Priest") onwards, he created a unique minimalist style in which all but the barest essentials are omitted from the film (often, crucial details are only given in the soundtrack), with the actors (he calls them "models") giving deliberately flat, expressionless performances. It's a demanding and difficult, intensely personal style, which means that his films never achieved great popularity (it was rare for him to make more than one film every five years), but he has a fanatical following among critics, who rate him as one of the greatest artists in the history of the cinema. He retired in the 1980s, after failing to raise the money for a long-planned adaptation of the Book of Genesis.Writer / Director
1999 or 2000- Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, to Gaetano Alfonso "Guy" Crocetti, an Italian immigrant and barber, and his Ohio-born wife, Angela (Barra) Crocetti. He spoke only Italian until age five. Martin came up the hard way, with such jobs as a boxer ("Kid Crochet"), a steel mill worker, a gas station worker and a casino croupier/dealer. In 1946, Martin got his first ticket to stardom, as he teamed up with another hard worker who was also trying to succeed in Hollywood: Jerry Lewis. Films such as At War with the Army (1950) sent the team toward super-stardom. The duo were to become one of Hollywood's truly great teams. They lasted 11 years together, and starred in 16 movies. They were unstoppable, but personality conflicts broke up the team. Even without Lewis, Martin was a true superstar.
Few thought that Martin would go on to achieve solo success, but he did, winning critical acclaim for his role in The Young Lions (1958) with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, and Some Came Running (1958), with Shirley MacLaine and Frank Sinatra. Movies such as Rio Bravo (1959) brought him international fame. One of his best remembered films is in Ocean's Eleven (1960), in which he played Sam Harmon alongside the other members of the legendary Rat Pack: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. Martin proved potent at the box office through the 1960s, with films such as Bells Are Ringing (1960) and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), again with Rat Pack pals Sammy Davis Jr. and Sinatra. During much of the 1960s and 1970s, his film persona of a boozing playboy prompted a series of films as secret agent Matt Helm and his own television variety show. Airport (1970) followed, featuring Martin as a pilot. He played a phony priest in The Cannonball Run (1981).
In 1965, Martin explored a new method for entertaining his fans: Television. That year he hosted one of the most successful TV series in history: The Dean Martin Show (1965), which lasted until 1973. In 1965, it won a Golden Globe Award. In 1973, he renamed it "The Dean Martin Comedy Hour", and from 1974 to 1984 it was renamed again, this time "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts". It became one of the most successful TV series in history, skewering such greats as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, James Stewart, George Burns, Milton Berle, Don Rickles, Phyllis Diller, and Joe Namath.
His last public role was a return to the stage, for a cross-country concert tour with Davis and Sinatra. He spoke affectionately of his fellow Rat Packers. "The satisfaction that I get out of working with these two bums is that we have more laughs than the audience has", Martin said. After the 1980s, Martin took it easy until his son, Dean Paul Martin, was killed in a plane crash in March 1987.
Devastated by the loss, from which he never recovered, he walked out on a reunion tour with Sinatra and Davis. Martin spent his final years in solitude, out of the public light. A heavy smoker most of his life, Martin died on Christmas Day 1995 at age 78 from complications to lung cancer.Actor / Singer
1996- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Ravi Shankar was a world-renowned musician, composer, performer, and scholar of classical Indian music. He was one of the leading cultural figures of the twentieth century whose accomplishments placed him as the leading figure of an important musical tradition. His long and distinguished musical career included numerous recordings, performances at all the world's leading venues, and a series of unprecedented collaborations with other leading musicians. Although he is well known because of his interaction with the popular music world, it is important to underscore that Shankar is considered the leading international figure in a very elevated art form, Hindustani music. Shankar was born on April 7, 1920, in Varanasi, India. He moved to Paris in 1930, and received most of his education there. From the age of 12, he performed as a musician and dancer on tour in Europe and America with his brother Uday Shankar, and in 1939 had his first concert as soloist at a music conference in Allahabad. By 1945 Shankar's reputation as the leading performer of traditional Hindustani music on the sitar had coalesced. He began to branch out as a composer, writing music for ballet and for important films such as such as Dharti Ke Lal and Neecha Nagar. He also composed the song Sare Jahan Se Accha, which is one of the most widely known piece of music in India. In 1949, Shankar became Music Director of All-India Radio at Delhi, and founded the Vadya Vrinda Chamber Orchestra. During the years 1950-55 Shankar composed some of his most famous music, most notably in the internationally-acclaimed film studios of Calcutta, where he scored The Ray Triology. For his outstanding contribution to Indian music and culture, he received his first of five Presidential Awards in 1962, India's highest honor in the arts. In the mid-1960s, his preeminence as one of the world's leading serious musicians was augmented with wide popular success. George Harrison of The Beatles developed a deep, abiding interest in Hindustani music, and began to study with Shankar. One influence of this study can be heard in his song Within You, Without You. Shankar died in San Diego, California in 2012 at the age of 92.Musician / Composer
2012- Visual Effects
- Special Effects
- Camera and Electrical Department
Linwood G. Dunn was born on 27 December 1904 in New York City, New York, USA. He is known for West Side Story (1961), The Thing from Another World (1951) and It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963). He was married to Alice Dunn. He died on 15 May 1998 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Special Effects Creator
1998- Editor
- Editorial Department
- Producer
Margaret Booth was born on 14 January 1898 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an editor and producer, known for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Murder by Death (1976) and Annie (1982). She died on 28 October 2002 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Editor
2002- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Marcel Carné, the son of a cabinet maker, entered the movies as the assistant of Jacques Feyder. At the age of 25 he directed his first movie Jenny (1936). Colaborating with the writer Jacques Prévert, the decorator Alexandre Trauner, the musician and composer Maurice Jaubert and the actor Jean Gabin he became the great director of the pre-war era of the French cinema with the poetic realism style (e.g. Hotel du Nord (1938)). During the occupation of France by Nazi-Germany he worked in the zone of the government of Vichy making Children of Paradise (1945), a clear anti-Nazi parable and all time classic of French cinema. After having been confronted with a purge trial he went on filming but none of his later movies could catch up with his former works.Director / Screenwriter
1996- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Actress
Distinguished American costume designer, who worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including John Huston, William Wyler, Cecil B. DeMille and Robert Wise. Abandoned by her parents at an early age, Dorothy Jeakins was educated at schools in San Diego and Los Angeles. Early in her childhood, she demonstrated an aptitude for drawing, which won her a State of California Scholarship at the Otis Art Institute. She supplemented her studies by working as a live-in servant with local families. After submitting some very good illustrations to the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, she was taken on by the Southern California Arts Project. In 1936, Dorothy held a job in the colour department at Walt Disney studios, painting animated cells of 'Mickey Mouse' for $16 a week. Her first work in fashion design was doing layouts for Magnin's Department Store, which attracted the attention of 20th Century Fox art director Richard Day. Day then brought her to the attention of film director Victor Fleming. Before long, Dorothy was seconded to the studio wardrobe department as an illustrator under Ernest Dryden.
Her big break came when she was hired by Fleming as sketch artist for Joan of Arc (1948). Fleming liked her work so much that he promoted her to design the costumes for the picture, effectively replacing the previously designated Barbara Karinska (though both ended up sharing the Academy Award in 1949). Dorothy won her second Oscar, back-to-back, for Samson and Delilah (1949), along with the legendary Edith Head. Within a very short time, Dorothy established a reputation for sense of style and an eye for colour. She had a notable penchant for period and/or ethnic themes. She was also said to design to the specific requirement of each individual picture and director, rather than asserting her own personal stamp over the project. Throughout her subsequent career, she remained doggedly free-lance, never under long-term contract to any individual studio. Her work also encompassed theatrical costume design, notably for the Shakespearean festival in Stratford, Connecticut, and, for John Houseman on Broadway.
Dorothy Jeakins was nominated for a total of 12 Academy Awards, winning her third for The Night of the Iguana (1964). Among her best showcases are Niagara (1953) (who could ever forget Marilyn Monroes sexy red dress ?), Friendly Persuasion (1956), Elmer Gantry (1960), The Music Man (1962), The Way We Were (1973) and Young Frankenstein (1974). Her last film was John Huston's The Dead (1987), for which she used mud colours to convey the oppressive atmosphere of social life in Dublin in 1904. From 1967 to 1970, she held the position of curator of textiles at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.Costume Designer
1995- Producer
- Actress
Julia Phillips made history in Hollywood by becoming the first woman to win the Best Picture Oscar for producing the classic The Sting (1973), along with husband and producing partner Michael Phillips and Tony Bill. From there, she went on the produce other hits such as Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), becoming an important figure in the business on the wave of the rising figures of the New Hollywood era.
She was born in New York City on 7 April, 1944. Daughter of Adolph Miller (a chemical engineer) and Tanya, Julia Miller attended Mount Holyoke where she earned her bachelor's degree in political science and awards for her writings. After marrying Michael Phillips (of whom she got her last name. They married in 1964), she contributed as a book section editor for a magazine, and later as story editor for Paramount studios. When they moved to the West Coast, they had the chance to produce their first film, the comedy Steelyard Blues (1973). After that experience, their next move was with The Sting (1973), their second film together and produced when Julia was just 29 years-old. The movie was a critical and commercial success that established as a highly influential figure in Hollywood.
However, after the Oscar and the successful films, the excesses of fame came along with a drug addiction that cost her career in the 1980's - a period in which she producer only one film after spending some time in rehab. In 1991 she produced Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991) which would be her final producing credit. That same year, Julia published her autobiography "You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again", an infamous book about her reckless life and also of many stars and executives in the Hollywood industry. The book was a best-seller due to her candid and scathing revelations but also made her unwanted by the film industry. In 1995, she wrote her second autobiography "Driving Under the Affluence", accounting her experiences after addiction.
She died on 1 January, 2002.Producer
2002- Art Department
- Animation Department
- Additional Crew
Syd Mead was a designer for Ford Motor Company, U.S. Steel, and Philips Electronics. After establishing himself as a "Futurist" consultant, he visualized technology and products for companies like Sony, Chrysler, Mechanix Illustrated, and Playboy. Syd's movie designs appeared in 'Star Trek - The Motion Picture" (V'ger), "2010" (the spaceship 'Leonov' and all of its interiors and attendant craft), "Short Circuit" (the robot 'Johnny 5'), "Blade Runner" (the 'Spinner' police car, the dingy cityscapes, and Decker's apartment), and "Timecop" (the headquarters of the Temporal Police, and Van Damme's car).Conceptual Artist
2020- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Production Manager
Run Run Shaw was born in Shanghai, China on October 4, 1907. He went into the filming industry with his brother, Runme Shaw, and established the Shaw Organization in 1926 and the Shaw Studios (formerly South Seas Film studio) in 1930. In 1967, Shaw established the famous Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) station in Hong Kong, and it grew into a multi-billion dollar TV empire. TVB set the stage for numerous television sitcoms, drama series, documentaries and singing performances, as well as "Enjoy Yourself Tonight," a variety show similar to "Saturday Night Live."
Shaw owns many businesses throughout the world, including Macy's and Canada's Shaw Tower at Cathedral Place. Throughout the years, Shaw has donated billions of dollars to charities, schools and hospitals. As a result, many Hong Kong buildings were named after him.
Shaw himself has also made regular appearances in TV shows and programs from TVB, including their Chinese New Year celebration programs. During these programs, Shaw would often lead an "awakening" ceremony that precedes the famous Chinese Lion Dance. Shaw has continued to lead this tradition throughout the years.Producer
2014- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jo Van Fleet was born on December 29, 1915 in Oakland, California. She established herself as a notable dramatic actress on Broadway over several years, winning a Tony Award in 1954 for her skill in a difficult role, playing an unsympathetic, even abusive character, in Horton Foote's "The Trip to Bountiful" with Lillian Gish and Eva Marie Saint. Her first film role was playing the estranged mother of James Dean's character in East of Eden (1955). This debut performance earned Van Fleet an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her subsequent film work was steady through 1960, then very sporadic, and include such films as The Rose Tattoo (1955), I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955), The King and Four Queens (1956), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) and Cool Hand Luke (1967).
In 1958, Van Fleet was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for her performance in "Look Homeward, Angel" on Broadway. Other films include Wild River (1960), Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (1965) and I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! (1968). Her television work include Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), Bonanza (1959), Thriller (1960) and The Wild Wild West (1965).
Jo Van Fleet died at age 80 of undisclosed causes on June 10, 1996 in Queens, New York City.Actress
1996- Actor
- Producer
Widely regarded as one of the greatest stage and screen actors both in his native UK and internationally, the unparalleled Nigel Hawthorne was born in Coventry, England on 5 April 1929, raised in South Africa and returned to the UK in the 1950s with his extensive work as a great gentleman of acting following during the decade as well as in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. His portrayal of 'Sir Humphrey Appleby' in the BBC comedy Yes Minister (1980) won him international acclaim in the 1980s. In 1992, he was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for his sublime interpretation of 'George III' in Alan Bennett's hit stage play, "The Madness of King George III" and he was also nominated for an Academy Award of Best Actor in a Leading Role in its brilliant film adaptation The Madness of King George (1994), both of them exquisitely directed by Nicholas Hytner.Actor
2002- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Alan Bates decided to be an actor at age 11. After grammar school in Derbyshire, he earned a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Following two years in the Royal Air Force, he joined the new English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre. His West End debut in 1956, at 22, was also the company's first production. In the same year Bates appeared in John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger," a play that gave a name to a generation of postwar "angry young men." It made Bates a star and launched a lifetime of his performing in works written by great modern playwrights -- Harold Pinter, Simon Gray, Storey, Bennett, Peter Shaffer and Tom Stoppard (as well as such classic playwrights as Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg and William Shakespeare). Four years later Bates appeared in his first film, a classic: The Entertainer (1960), in which he plays one of Laurence Olivier's sons. More than 50 film roles have followed, one of which, The Fixer (1968) (from a novel by Bernard Malamud) earned an Academy Award nomination for Bates. He married Victoria Ward in 1970. Their twin sons, Benedick and Tristan, were born in 1971. Tristan died during an asthma attack in 1990; Ward died in 1992. Bates threw himself into his work to get through these tragedies, and spoke movingly about the effects of his losses in interviews. He was the Patron of the Actors Centre in Covent Garden, London; Bates and his family endowed a theatre there in memory of Tristan Bates, who, like his father and brother, was an actor. With few exceptions, Bates performed in premium works, guided by intuition rather than by box office. For each role he created a three-dimensional, unique person; there is no stereotypical Alan Bates character. Women appreciate the sensitivity he brought to his romantic roles; gay fans appreciate his well-rounded, unstereotyped gay characters; and the intelligence, humor and detail - the smile that started in the eyes, the extra pat or squeeze, the subtle nuances he gave to his lines, his beautiful, flexible voice - are Bates hallmarks that made him special to all his admirers. The rumpled charm of his youth weathered into a softer but still attractive (and still rumpled) maturity. In his 60s Alan Bates continued to divide his time among films, theatre and television. His 1997 stage portrayal of a travel writer facing life's big questions at the bedside of his comatose wife in Simon Gray's "Life Support" was called "a magnificent performance, one of the finest of his career" (Charles Spencer, Sunday Telegraph, 10 August 97). His last two roles in New York earned critical praise and all the Best Actor awards Broadway can bestow. He was knighted in January 2003, and only a few weeks later began treatment for pancreatic cancer. He was positive that he would beat the disease, and continued to work during its course, only admitting to being "a bit tired." His courage and strength were remarkable, and even in his final days his humor remained intact. After his death, there was an outpouring of affection and respect. As Ken Russell said in his Evening Standard tribute, "The airwaves have been heavy with unstinted praise for Alan Bates since his untimely death . . . All the tributes were more than justified for one of the great actors ever to grace the screen and stage."Actor
2004- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Krzysztof Kieslowski graduated from Lódz Film School in 1969, and became a documentary, TV and feature film director and scriptwriter. Before making his first film for TV, Przejscie podziemne (1974) (The Underground Passage), he made a number of short documentaries. His next TV title, Personnel (1975) (The Staff), took the Grand Prix at Mannheim Film Festival. His first full-length feature was The Scar (1976) (The Scar). In 1978 he made the famous documentary From a Night Porter's Point of View (1979) (Night Porter's Point of View), and in 1979 - a feature Camera Buff (1979) (Camera Buff), which was acclaimed in Poland and abroad. Everything he did from that point was of highest artistic quality.Writer / Director
1996- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Bud Spencer, the popular Italian actor who starred in innumerable spaghetti Westerns and action-packed potboilers during the 1960s and 1970s, was born Carlo Pedersoli on October 31, 1929, in Naples. The first Italian to swim the 100-meter freestyle in less than a minute, Spencer competed as a swimmer on the Italian National Team at the Olympic Summer games in both Helsinki, Finland, in 1952 and Melbourne, Australia, in 1956. He was also an Olympic-class water polo player.
Educated as an attorney, he was bitten by the acting bug and appeared as a member of the Praetorian Guard in his first movie, MGM's epic Quo Vadis (1951) (which was shot in Italy) in 1951. During the 1950s and first half of the 1960s he appeared in films made for the Italian market, but his career was strictly minor league until the late 1960s. He changed his screen name to "Bud Spencer" in 1967, as an homage to Spencer Tracy and to the American beer Budweiser. Spencer allegedly thought it was funny to call himself "Bud" in light of his huge frame.
After the name change, Spencer achieved his greatest success in spaghetti Westerns lensed for a global audience. Teaming up with fellow Italian Terence Hill, the two made such international hits as Ace High (1968) and They Call Me Trinity (1970) ("They Call Me Trinity"). Their dual outings made both stars famous, particularly in Europe. In all, Spencer made 18 movies with Hill.
He became a jet airplane and helicopter pilot after appearing in All the Way Boys (1972) and owned an air transportation company, Mistral Air, which he founded in 1984. However, he terminated his business interest in Mistral and entered the children's clothing industry. After 1983 Spencer's movie career slowed down, though he did have a big success in the early 1990s with the TV action-drama series "Extralarge". A man of many talents, Spencer wrote screenplays and texts for some of his movies. He also has registered several patents.
Spencer married Maria Amato in 1960 and they have three children, Giuseppe (born 1961), Christine (1962) and Diamante (1972).
In 2005 Spencer entered politics, standing as regional councillor in Lazio for the center-right Forza Italia party. He became a politician specifically at the bequest of then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. According to Spencer, "In my life, I've done everything. There are only three things I haven't been - a ballet dancer, a jockey and a politician. Given that the first two jobs are out of the question, I'll throw myself into politics."
Berlusconi, who was a media tycoon in the vein of Rupert Murdoch before he entered politics, recruited Spencer as he was "still a major draw for the viewer, alias the voter." Critics of Berlusconi--who tried to retain power by launching a campaign to portray his allies as the embodiment of "good" and the leftists of the opposition as "evil"--was derided as an example of "politica spettacolo" ("showbiz politics").
Spencer announced his new career at a "Felliniesque" press conference at a Rome hotel, at which he hardly moved and had little to say except homilies about upholding family values. Spencer sat between two Forza Italia handlers, and according to one major Italian newspaper, "From one moment to the next, you expected this mountain of a man to grab the heads of the two presenters and smack them together in his usual style, as he has been seen doing countless times on the big screen and television." The audition proved to be a flop: Spencer lost the seat, and Berlusconi's party was swept from power in 2006.Actor
2016- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Philippe Noiret was one of French cinema's most familiar faces who appeared in more than 140 films in a career that spanned more than half a century.
He was born on October 1, 1930, in Lille, Nord, France, into a middle class family of shopkeepers. His father was fond of literature. Young Noiret attended the College Janson-of-Sally in the 16th arrondissement in Paris. At school, he was more interested in acting than in academics; he failed to pass his baccalaureate exams three times and left school without graduation. He studied acting at the Centre Dramatique de l'Ouest (Western Drama Theatre). There, in 1950, Noiret made his debut sharing the stage with Gérard Philipe under directorship of Roger Blin . From 1953-1960 Noiret was a permanent member of the troupe with the Théâtre National Populaire (TNP) in Paris. There he played over 40 roles in seven years under directorship of Jean Vilar. While there he met actress Monique Chaumette, whom he married in 1962, and they had one daughter, Frederique. At that time Noiret continued his acting career as a stand-up comedian and a night club entertainer.
Noiret made his big screen debut playing bit part in Gigi (1949), then earned his first on-screen credit in Agence matrimoniale (1952). He landed his first leading role as Lui, a government inspector, in the French New Wave film La Pointe Courte (1955) by notable female director Agnès Varda. His first big success came in 1960 with Louis Malle 's film Zazie in the Metro (1960) (aka.. Zazie in the Metro). In 1968 he became a star in France with the title role in Very Happy Alexander (1968). After that success, Noiret moved on with his acting career and devoted himself almost entirely to the big screen. Noiret's trademark hangdog face and his range allowed him to portray a middle-class man or an aristocrat, but not a handsome romantic hero, so he was cast primarily as the Everyman character. In The Big Feast (1973), an allegoric film about sex orgy and suicide by overeating, which caused a scandal at Cannes in 1973, Noiret co-starred in a controversial role as suicidal judge Philippe, alongside Marcello Mastroianni.
Philippe Noiret shot to international fame with the supporting role as Alfredo, an old man who is a small town projectionist who befriends and inspires a young boy, in Cinema Paradiso (1988). He received international acclaim for his portrayal of the exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in The Postman (1994) by director Michael Radford. Noiret won two Cesar Awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars) and earned three more Cesar nominations. In 1976 he won his first Cesar for his exceptional performance as Julien Dandieu, a surgeon who kills the Nazis in revenge for the death of his wife and daughter, in The Old Gun (1975) (aka.. The Old Gun). Noiret won his second Cesar for the leading role as Major Delaplane in Life and Nothing But (1989) (aka.. Life and Nothing But) in 1990. Over the years, Noiret worked with all of the France's top directors. He also made excellent radio performances and popular books readings, which he narrated with his serious voice and impeccable diction. He was decorated with the Knight of the Legion of Honor.
Philippe Noiret was also known as an elegant hedonist and an avid dog lover. His other interests outside of the acting profession included art, horses, gourmet cuisine and cigars. For about 30 years he resided in his country house in the wine country near Carcassonne, in the South of France, where he generously supported the local causes. Noiret died of generalized complications of cancer on November 23, 2006, in a hospital, in Paris, and was laid to rest in Cimetière du Monparnasse in Paris, France.Actor
2006- Actor
- Writer
- Director
One of Italy's most captivating and talented cinematic comedy stars, Italian veteran Alberto Sordi was known for satirizing his country's social mores in pungent black comedies, farcical tales and grim drama. He, along with peers Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi and Nino Manfredi, arguably represent the finest of post-war Italian cinema history. Born in Rome on June 15, 1920 in the Trastevere district, Sordi grew up in a musical family, his father being a tuba player for the Rome Opera House. A choir boy at the Sistine Chapel, he later trained for the theater in Milan but returned to Rome to work in radio and musical halls in comedy shows. In the late 30s he found his way into film as an extra. His first important role was in The Three Pilots (1942), a fascist war picture, but he wouldn't hit international stardom until a decade later when he starred in Federico Fellini's early films The White Sheik (1952) and I Vitelloni (1953). The titles of some of his most prolific characters were as simple as their titles: The Seducer, The Bachelor, The Husband, The Widower, The Traffic Cop, and The Moralist. Most of his protagonists amusingly, but not always pleasantly, stereotyped the worst attributes of Italian men and society, yet many of his films are unparalleled in quality and considered masterpieces. Sordi went on to star, direct and co-write more than 150 films. Never married and rather an introvert, he enjoyed a quiet, reclusive personal life. On his 80th birthday, he was made Mayor of Rome for the day. In 2002, after 190 films, he announced his retirement, and died of a heart attack the following year at age 82.Actor / Writer / Director
2003- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Maria Schell studied in a religious institution in Colmar (Haut-Rhin, France). She received a dramatic training in Zurich, Switzerland. To pay her studies, she was a secretary there. Besides being a film star; Maria appeared in plays in Zurich, Basel, in Vienna (Josefstad Theater), Berlin, Munich (Kammerspiel Theater), at the Salzburg Festival and went on provincial tours from 1963. Among the plays she performed there were such classics as William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "Faust" and such modern classics as "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw.Actress
2005- Haing S. Ngor was a native of Cambodia. Before the war, he was a physician & medical officer in the Cambodian army. He became a captive of the Khmer Rouge. He was imprisoned & tortured. In order to escape execution, he denied being a doctor or having an education. He moved to the U.S. as a refugee in 1980. Though he had no formal acting experience, he was chosen to portray photographer Dith Pran in The Killing Fields (1984) & won an Academy Award. He went on to a modestly distinguished acting career while continuing to work w/ human rights organizations in Cambodia on improving the conditions in resettlement camps as well as attempting to bring the perpetrators of the Cambodian massacre to justice. OnFebruary 25, 1996, he was found shot to death in the garage of his apartment building in L.A. Relatives & friends speculated that the killing was revenge for his opposition to the Khmer Rouge.Actor
1996 - Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Michael Jeter was an American actor from Tennessee. His best known roles were that of math teacher and assistant football coach Herman Stiles in the sitcom "Evening Shade" (1990-1994) and "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mister Noodle" in "Sesame Street", a role he played from 2000 to 2003. He specialized in playing "eccentric, pretentious, or wimpy characters".
In 1952, Jeter was born in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, located between Chattanooga and Memphis. The town is mostly associated with local hero Davy Crockett (1786-1836), who owned a powder mill there in the early 19th century. The area is home to the David Crockett State Park.
Jeter's father was dentist William Claud Jeter (1922-2010), and his mother was housewife Virginia Raines (1927-2019). The Jeters were a large family, and Jeter had one brother and four sisters. Jeter enrolled at the Memphis State University (later renamed to the University of Memphis) with the intention to follow a medical career. His interests changed, and he pursued an acting education instead.
Jeter started his career as a theatrical actor, regularly performing at the Circuit Theatre and Playhouse on the Square, both located in Memphis. He made his film debut in the anti-war film "Hair" (1979), playing Woodrow Sheldon. The film depicted the hippie counterculture and the Vietnam War.
Jeter's early film roles included appearing in the historical drama "Ragtime" (1981), the sex comedy "Soup for One" (1982), the mockumentary "Zelig" (1983), the comedy film "The Money Pit" (1986), the action thriller "Dead Bang" (1989), and the action comedy "Tango & Cash" (1989). Meanwhile he appeared in guest-star roles in then-popular television series, such as "Night Court" and "Designing Women". His first recurring role in television was that of Dr. Art Makter in the short-lived medical drama "Hothouse". He appeared in all 7 episodes of the series.
Jeter found fame and critical success when playing the nerdy Herman Stiles in the sitcom "Evening Shade". He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and the Viewers for Quality Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Quality Comedy Series. The series lasted for 4 seasons, and a total of 98 episodes
Jeter guest starred as Peter Lebeck in three episodes of "Picket Fences". For this role he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 1993, but the award was won by rival actor Laurence Fishburne (1961-). Jeter had another notable television role as Bob Ryan in an episode of "Chicago Hope". He was again nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 1996 for this role, but the award was instead won by rival actor Peter Boyle (1935-2006).
Jeter played mostly supporting roles in 1990s film. He played (amon others_ a homeless cabaret singer in "The Fisher King" (1991), Father Ignatius in the Catholic nun-themed comedy "Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit" (1993), the inventor Old Gregor in the post-apocalyptic film "Waterworld" (1995), alcoholic clown Norm Snively in the sports comedy "Air Bud" (1997), and sympathetic prisoner Eduard 'Del' Delacroix in "The Green Mile" (1999).
Jeter next earned the recurring role of "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mister Noodle" in "Sesame Street", His character replaced Mr. Noodle (played by Bill Irwin) in the "Elmo's World" segments of the series. Both character were silent mimes who made mistakes, but were able to correct them with the help of "enthusiastic kid voice overs". Jeter was enthusiastic about his role, and called it a career favorite. He played the role until his death.
The openly gay Jeter was HIV positive, but had been in good health for many years. In March 2003, Jeter was found dead at his home in Los Angeles. According to his life partner Sean Blue, the death was caused by an epileptic seizure. Jeter was 50-years-old at the time of death.Actor
2003- Writer
- Director
- Producer
He studied fine arts in Paris in 1990-1992. In 1993 he won the award for Best Screenplay from the Educational Institute of Screenwriting with "A Painter and A Criminal Condemned to Death". After two more screenplay awards, he made his directorial debut with Crocodile (1996) ("Crocodile"). Then he went on to direct Wild Animals (1997) ("Wild Animals"), Birdcage Inn (1998) ("Birdcage Inn"), The Isle (2000) ("The Isle") and the highly experimental Real Fiction (2000) ("Real Fiction"), shot in just 200 minutes. In 1999, Address Unknown (2001) ("Address Unknown") was selected by the Pusan Film Festival's Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP) for development.Director
2020- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Miroslav Ondrícek was born on 4 November 1934 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He was a cinematographer, known for Amadeus (1984), Hair (1979) and A League of Their Own (1992). He was married to Eva. He died on 28 March 2015 in Prague, Czech Republic.Cinematographer
2015- Costume Designer
- Director
- Production Designer
Eiko Ishioka was born on 12 July 1938 in Tokyo, Japan. She was a costume designer and director, known for Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), The Cell (2000) and The Fall (2006). She was married to Nico Soultanakis. She died on 21 January 2012 in Tokyo, Japan.Costume Designer
2012- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Maya Angelou was an American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. Maya Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou publicly discussed aspects of her personal life. She was respected as a spokesperson for black people and women, and her works have been considered a defense of black culture. Her works are widely used in schools and universities worldwide, although attempts have been made to ban her books from some libraries. Angelou's most celebrated works have been labeled as autobiographical fiction, but many critics consider them to be autobiographies. She made a deliberate attempt to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing and expanding the genre.Writer / Actress
2014- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Betty White was born in Oak Park, Illinois, to Christine Tess (Cachikis), a homemaker, and Horace Logan White, a lighting company executive for the Crouse-Hinds Electric Company. She was of Danish, Greek, English, and Welsh descent.
Although she was best known as the devious Sue Ann Nivens on the classic sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and the ditzy Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls (1985), Betty White had been in television for a long, long time before those two shows, having had her own series, Life with Elizabeth (1952) in 1952.
She was married three times, lastly for eighteen years, until widowed, to TV game-show host Allen Ludden.
She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and she was known for her tireless efforts on behalf of animals.
Betty White died on 31 December 2021, at the age of 99.Actress / Comedienne
2022- Music Artist
- Composer
- Music Department
Born in New York City, Tupac grew up primarily in Harlem. In 1984, his family moved to Baltimore, Maryland where he became good friends with Jada Pinkett Smith. His family moved again in 1988 to Oakland, California. His first breakthrough in music came in 1991 as a member of the group Digital Underground. In the same year he received individual recognition for his album "2Pacalypse Now," but this album was also the beginning of his notoriety as a leading figure of the gangster permutation of hip-hop, with references to cop killing and sexual violence. His solo movie career also began in this year with Juice (1992), and in 1992 he co-starred with Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice (1993).
However, law confrontations were soon to come: A 15-day jail term in 1994 for assault and battery and, in 1995, a conviction for sexual assault of a female fan. After serving 8 months pending an appeal, Shakur was released from jail.Musician / Actor
1996- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Isao Takahata was born on 29 October 1935 in Ise, Japan. He was a director and writer, known for Grave of the Fireflies (1988), Pom Poko (1994) and The Tale of The Princess Kaguya (2013). He died on 5 April 2018 in Tokyo, Japan.Director
2018- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Born in Brest, France, in 1922, Alain Robbe-Grillet initially studied mathematics and biology. He graduated from the Paris-based Institut National Agronomique (National Institute of Agronomy) in 1945 and embarked on a career of scientific research in the tropics and in France. Then at age 30 he decided to change the direction of his career and concentrate on the thorny problem of literature. His novels were at first panned by the fashionable critics of the time, but he succeeded in winning (along with such now famous friends as Samuel Beckett, Nathalie Sarraute, Claude Simon and Marguerite Duras) worldwide recognition and wide readership for the last literary movement in France known as "Le Nouveau Roman". or "New Novel". His books have been translated in some 30 languages and include "Le Voyeur: (1955), "La jalousie" (1965), "La maison de rendez-vous" (1965), "Project pour une révolution à New York e Djinn" (1981), "Le miroir qui revient" (1985) and "Les Derniers jours de Corinth" (1994). At 40 he emabarked on a parallel career as screenwriter and film director, venturing once again into unorthodox narrative structures. With Alain Resnais he won the "Golden Lion" in Venice in 1961 for Last Year at Marienbad (1961) ("Last Year at Marienbad") and won the Louis Delluc Prize two years later for L'Immortelle (1963), the first film which he wrote and directed himself. This was followed by Trans-Europ-Express (1966), The Man Who Lies (1968) ("The Man who Lies"), Eden and After (1970) ("Eden and Afterwards"), Successive Slidings of Pleasure (1974) ("The Slow Slidings of Pleasure"), Playing with Fire (1975) ("Playing with Fire"), )La belle captive (1983)_ ("The Beautiful Captive") and Un bruit qui rend fou (1995) ("The Blue Villa"). He lives in seclusion in the countryside in Normandy, where he tends to his collection of cacti. He continues to travel the world, and to teach modern literature and film to graduate students in several American universities.Writer / Director
2008- Writer
- Actor
- Director
Harold Pinter, the 2005 Nobel Laureate for Literature, was born October 10, 1930, in London's working-class Hackney district to Hyman and Frances Pinter, Eastern European Jews who had immigrated to the United Kingdom from Portugal. Hyman (known as "Jack") was a tailor specializing in women's clothing and Frances was a homemaker. The Pinters, whose families hailed from Odessa and Poland in the Russian Empire, were part of a wave of Jewish emigration to the UK at the turn of the last century. It was a community that revered learning and culture. The Pinter family was close, and young Harold was traumatized when, at the outbreak of World War II, he was evacuated from London to Cornwall with other London children for a year to avoid becoming casualties of German aerial bombing.
Pinter has said that his encounter with anti-Semitism while growing up was the fuse that ignited the organic process leading him to becoming a playwright. As the Nobel Prize citation attests, Pinter developed into the greatest English dramatist of the post-World War II era. The young Pinter studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Central School of Speech and Drama. In 1950 he published several poems and began working as a professional actor. Under the stage name David Baron, he toured the Republic of Ireland with Anew McMaster's Shakespearean repertory company in 1951-52. Significantly for Pinter's future, 1951 not only marked the debut of his career as a professional actor but also marked the first performance of future Nobel Literature Laureate Samuel Beckett's absurdist masterpiece "Waiting for Godot." He next appeared with Sir Donald Wolfit's theatrical company at the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, for the 1953- 54 season before becoming a player with various provincial repertory companies, including the Birmingham Rep, until he gave himself over full-time to playwriting in 1959.
Two significant events that would change Great Britain forever occurred during his apprenticeship in provincial rep: (1) the Suez Crisis of 1955 that shattered the UK's pretensions to empire in a post-colonial world and doomed the imperial generations represented by Prime Minister Anthony Eden and his mentor Winston Churchill, and (2) the 1956 premiere of John Osborne's play "Look Back in Anger." The shattering of the United Kingdom's complacency over imperialism meant that many successful people of Pinter's generation, who normally would have become Tories upon achieving some modicum of success, were disillusioned and drifted towards Labour and the left. No longer would a working- class person, if he so chose, have to be ashamed or stymied if \eschewing becoming middle-class or bourgeois. Osborne's play was the seminal work of the "kitchen-sink" school of drama that would dominate English theater for a decade, in which working-class life and struggles were dramatized. The hegemony of this school of theater was such that for the first time, a working-class or provincial accent became something treasured, something to be proud of, as the former world was set firmly upon its head. Even the great Laurence Olivier turned his back on the commercial theater to assay Osbourne's Archie Rice, a down-at-the-heels music hall performer, in "The Entertainer" (1957).
The kitchen-sink drama was a movement that Pinter would not be a part of, though it did open the doors for working-class writers who, unlike the working class-born Noël Coward, had no interest in becoming bourgeois. The other major element in the cultural milieu that forged Pinter was the Cold War, the absurdity of facing doomsday everyday under the threat of The Bomb (the USSR had acquired the means to produce a bomb through its atomic spy ring and exploded its first A-bomb in 1949, thus ending the US monopoly on nuclear weapons and making the Korean war, the suppression of an East Berlin uprising and the squashing of the Hungarian Revolution practical, if not possible). The Cold War gave legitimacy to the rise of the police state, not in totalitarian countries but in the use of police-state tactics in the western industrial democracies. To quote American poet' Charles Bukowski', this was an era marked by "War All The Time," not between two superpower behemoths but in everyday human relations, poisoned as they were by the Cold War climate of absurdity, paranoia and imminent holocaust.
In 1953 the accused "atomic spies" Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in the United States when President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man who had overseen the liberation of Europe as Supreme Allied Commander fighting the Nazi totalitarian menace, had refused clemency for even Ethel, the mother of two small boys. It was a domestic drama -- a woman's loyalty to her husband, her loss of not only her life but the Issac-like evocative sacrifice of any normal life for her two children when Eisenhower-Jehovah refused to stay the executioner's hand -- that had combined with the felicities of affairs of state and world power politics. The question of whether they were guilty or innocent--not proven beyond a doubt in 1951, when they had been convicted in a trial that was compared by many to the Stalinist show-trials that had occurred in the Soviet Union and still occurred in the satellite countries of the Warsaw Pact after World War II - gave rise to an overwhelming fundamental question: What is real? Reality, as Hannah Arendt had put it in "The Human Condition," is socially defined; that is a given. But how about when that reality no longer makes sense, when the individual cannot partake of the consensus demanded of him in the 1950s, whether conservative, middle-class, haute bourgeoisie or radical left as dictated by some flaming Red party boss - a person struggling with his own life? How does he answer the question: What is real? It is a question that Pinter took upon himself to answer, and answered by showing us there is no answer. In this quest, a genius arrived on the world stage in the form of a player who decided to craft his own words, for himself and his post-Holocaust, pre-Holocaust audience. When life stops making sense, as it did in the 1940s when the global war against fascism left 50 million dead and the modern industrial state was tasked with the exigencies of mass- murder, and as it did in the 1950s when, under the aegis of combating another totalitarian system a domestic fascism in kind if not degree arose in the Anglo-Saxon countries with their great gravital pull towards conformity within a shell of consumerism, it still behooves a human being to try to understand the human condition.
In 1957 Bristol University staged Pinter's first play "The Room." He had told a friend who worked in Bristol University's drama department an idea he had for a play. The friend was so enamored of the idea that he commissioned the work, with the proviso that a script be ready within a week. Though he didn't believe he could meet his friend's demands, Pinter wrote the one-act play in four days. "The Room" had all the hallmarks of what would become known as "Pinteresque," in that it had a mundane situation that gradually filled with menace and mystery through the author's deliberate omission of an explanation or motivation for the action on stage. It is ironic perhaps that an actor would rid his script of motivation as "motivation" is the Holy Grail of inwardly-directed actors such as those tutored in "The Method" in America, but it was emblematic of the times that stated motivations frequently masked other, starker, more id-like drives in people or in nation-states that were beyond human comprehension in terms of being rational. Modern society had become irrational, and motivations post-Freud could be understood as a manifestation of Thanatos, the Death Instinct. Imminent violence and power plays would become other leitmotifs of Pinter's oeuvre.
Pinter wrote a second one-act play in 1957, "The Dumb Waiter," an absurdist drama concerning two hit men employed by a secret organization to kill an unknown victim. It was with this play that Pinter added an element of black comedy, mostly through his brilliant use of dialog, which not only elucidated the killers' growing anxiety but underscored the very absurdity of their situation. The play would not be performed until 1960, after the staging of his first two full-length plays, one a flop, and one a hit. His first full-length play, "The Birthday Party," debuted at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge in 1958. In the play the apathetic Stanley, the denizen of a dilapidated boarding house, is visited by two men. The audience never learns their motivation, but knows that Stanley is terrified of them. They organize a birthday party for Stanley, who insists that it is not his birthday. Pinter is following in the footsteps of the great absurdist Samuel Beckett in that he steadfastly refuses to give clear motivations to his characters, or rational explanations for the sake of his audience (Pinter and Beckett became friends). The play, now considered a masterpiece, flopped on its initial London run after being savaged by critics. It was revived after Pinter's second full-length play, 1960's "The Caretaker," established him as a major force in the English-language theater.
His early plays were rooted in the absurdism that became the major theatrical paradigm on the European stage in the third quarter of the 20th century, after the horrors of the war and the Holocaust. The early plays that made his reputation such as "The Homecoming" (1964) and his middle-period work such as "No Man's Land" (1976) have been called "comedies of menace." Typically, they use what at first seems like an innocent situation and develop it into an absurd and threatening environment through actions that usually are inexplicable to the audience and sometimes even to the other characters in the play. A Pinter drama is dark and claustrophobic. His language is full of menacing pauses. The lives of Pinter's characters usually are revealed to be stunted by guilt and horror. The duality and absurdity of Pinter's theatrical world-view gave rise to the adjective "Pinteresque," which took its place next to "Kafkaesque," a product of the horrors of the first quarter of the century (Pinter would write the screenplay for an adaption of Franz Kafka's "The Trial".)
Beginning in the 1960s, Pinter further enhanced his reputation as a writer with his screenplays, particular his work with Joseph Losey in The Servant (1963) and Accident (1967) (Losey planned an adaptation of Marcel Proust's "Le Temps Retrouve" and commissioned Pinter to write the screenplay. The film was never made by Losey, but Pinter's screenplay was subsequently published to great acclaim). His later screenplays, including his last produced work with Losey, The Go-Between (1971), are, ironically, noted for their clarity. He was twice nominated for the Academy Award as a screenwriter, for his adaptation of John Fowles' labyrinthine novel into the film The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) and for Betrayal (1983), his adaptation of his own play. Such was the respect that Pinter was held that Elia Kazan, one of the great film directors, complained in his autobiography "A Life" (1988) that The Last Tycoon (1976) producer Sam Spiegel had such reverence for Pinter that he would not let Kazan change his script.
After the great plays of his early and mid-period, Pinter became more overtly political. His later plays, which generally are shorter than the plays from the period in which he made his reputation, typically address political subjects and often are allegories on oppression. In the late 1970s Pinter became more outspoken on political issues and is decidedly of the left. He is passionately committed to human rights and is not shy about bringing examples of oppression from client states sponsored by the Anglo-Saxon democracies to the public's attention. In 2002 Pinter experienced what he described as a "personal nightmare" when he had to undergo chemotherapy to treat a case of cancer of the esophagus. The ordeal, which has been ongoing for three years, triggered a personal metamorphosis in the man. "I've been through the valley of the shadow of death," Pinter explained about his quickening. "While in many respects I have certain characteristics that I had, I'm also a very changed man."
In early 2005 Pinter declared in a radio interview that he was retiring as a dramatist in favor of writing poetry: "I think I've stopped writing plays now, but I haven't stopped writing poems. I've written 29 plays. Isn't that enough?" Pinter has become an outspoken critic of war. He was a bitter critic of the US-led intervention against Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia during President Bill Clinton's administration and an even harsher critic of the US-led war in Iraq. The fiercely anti- war Pinter has accused President George W. Bush of being a "mass-murderer" and has called British Prime Minister Tony Blair a "deluded idiot" for supporting US foreign policy. Pinter claimed immediately after the 9/11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon that they were a requited revenge for the destruction wrought on Afghanistan and Iraq by US imperialism and its anti-Taliban policies and sanctions on Iraq. He has publicly denounced the retaliatory U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the unprovoked 2003 invasion of Iraq. Pinter likens the Bush administration and Bush's America to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, claiming the US is bent on world hegemony. Controversially, he has declared that the only difference between Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union is that the US is more hypocritical and has better public relations.
One cannot fault Pinter, in the political ring, for being inconsistent or for jumping on a bandwagon. The man, as well as the artist, is a person that sticks to his convictions. The award of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Pinter just after he celebrated his 75th birthday was completely unexpected by pundits handicapping the award. Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk and Syrian poet Adonis were considered the front-runners, as European writers recently had dominated the award (Pinter's Nobel Prize makes it nine out of ten times in the past ten years that a European writer has won, and the second time in the past five years an English writer has banged the gong), and it was felt the Academy would recognize a writer from another continent, particularly one from Asia Minor. Thus, the award can be seen as a not-so-veiled criticism of the United States in general and President George W. Bush in particular by the Swedish Academy. Because of Pinter's renouncing of the form of which he was a master and his anointment of himself as a poet, in light of his volume of poetry, "War" (2003) that denounces the Iraq War frequently in vulgar, raw and unrythmic poetry that poses no threat to William Butler Yeats or W.H. Auden or Robert Frost or Stevens, one must consider that the Swedish Academy was giving the world's highest prize for literature at least in part to a poet whose latest work was fiercely anti-American and anti-imperialist.
Despite being highly controversial, Pinter -- who was appointed a Commander of the British Empire in 1966 (one step down from a knighthood, an honor he subsequently turned down) -- was named a Companion of Honour in 2002, an honor that does not carry a title. In addition to writing poetry, acting and directing in the theater, Pinter serves as the chairman of the Gaieties Cricket Club, an affiliate of he Club Cricket Conference. He also is active in the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, an organization that supports Fidel Castro, who remains the #1 bugaboo of the United States after Islamic terrorists, just slightly ahead of fellow hemispheric boogeyman Hugo Chávez, a recent arriviste on the world stage. He also is a member of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic, an organization that appeals for the freedom of Slobodan Milosevic on the grounds that NATO's war against Milosevic's Yugoslavia was unjustified under international law.Writer
2009- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Louis Malle, the descendant of a French nobleman who made a fortune in beet sugar during the Napoleonic Wars, created films that explored life and its meaning. Malle's family discouraged his early interest in film but, in 1950, allowed him to enter the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Paris. His résumé showed that he had worked as an assistant to film maker Robert Bresson when Malle was hired by underwater explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau to be a camera operator on the Calypso. Cousteau soon promoted him to be co-director of The Silent World (1956) ("The Silent World"). Years later, Cousteau called Malle the best underwater cameraman he ever had. Malle's third film, The Lovers (1958) ("The Lovers"), starring Jeanne Moreau broke taboos against on screen eroticism. In 1968 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the obscenity conviction of an Ohio theater that had exhibited "Les Amants." A director during the Nouvelle Vague, New Wave" of 1950s and 1960s (though technically not considered a Nouvelle Vague auteur), he also made films on the other side of the Atlantic, starting with Pretty Baby (1978), the film that made Brooke Shields an international superstar. The actress who played a supporting role in that film was given a starring role in Malle's next American film, Atlantic City (1980). That promising actress was Susan Sarandon.
In one of his later French films, Goodbye, Children (1987), Malle was able to find catharsis for an experience that had haunted him since the German occupation of France in World War II. At age 12, he was sent to a Catholic boarding school near Paris that was a refuge for several Jewish students, one of them was Malle's rival for academic honors and his friend. A kitchen worker at the school with a grudge became an informant. The priest who was the principal was arrested and the Jewish students were sent off to concentration camps.
In his final film, Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), Malle again penetrated the veil between life and art as theater people rehearse Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya." In that film, Malle worked again with theater director Andre Gregory and actor-playwright Wallace Shawn, the conversationalists of My Dinner with Andre (1981). Malle was married to Candice Bergen, and he succumbed to lymphoma in 1995.Director / Writer
1995- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
For Amrish Puri, it was virtually the 'Summer of 42'. The actor's long simmering affair with acting found culmination when he reached his early 40s. And while his dream of playing the hero may have been thwarted, he went on to become the most loved villains of all time. He was also an artiste who redefined the dynamics for character actors. If he wowed the critics with his rough-edged portrayals in the art films of Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani, he won over the masala movie buffs with his louder-than-life histrionics. Puri with his reverberating baritone, piercing glance and dramatized dialogue delivery was a formidable figure against the hero. His costumes were all about prolific imagination and his one-liners ranging from, 'Mogambo khush hua' to 'Dong kabhi wrong nahin hota' are now part of cinema glossary. Puri even went ahead and worked in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom and Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, only to return and endorse the diversity that is Bollywood.
But behind the tough facade was a genteel person. "Upright and a true karma-yogi," as son and marine navigator Rajeev Puri describes him. "People from all walks of life loved him - even the police and the politicians." Rajeev adds, "A decade after his demise, some film or the other of his is constantly playing on channels - out of the 350 he did, 200 were hits!" And when people till date come up to him requesting for a photograph because he's the famed Mogambo's (Puri's character in Mr India) son, Rajeev realizes that Mogambo truly is larger than life, in fact beyond it.
Puri graduated from the BM College in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. Puri was a leader of the RSS youth wing there and that explains why he remained a stickler for discipline and punctuality. In the '50s, he moved to Mumbai and found a job with the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). There he met my mother Urmila, a Konkani, and married her. His elder brothers Chaman Puri and Madan Puri were also actors. In fact, we lived with Madanji at Kings Circle for a few years before we shifted to our Santacruz home. Puri passion was acting. He worked during the day and in the evening did amateur theatre with Ebrahim Alkazi, Satyadev Dubey, Vijay Tendulkar and Girish Karnad among others. In fact, Satyadev Dubey and he began Hindi theatre in Mumbai with plays like Hayavadana and Yugati winning him much applause. He became well known as a stage character actor, which led to him doing ads and finally films in the early '70s.
Believe it or not, Amrish Puri wanted to become a Bollywood movie star, but failed a screen test in 1953. And what a failure it was! Mr. Puri, went on to become one of the most renowned and credible villains in the history of Indian cinema. His most memorable and often quoted role is the character of 'Mogambo' (with the catchphrase "Mogambo Khush Hua"). It is still remembered fondly from Mr. India (1987).
On the silver screen, the very first time we felt that times were changing was when dad went to Jaisalmer to shoot Reshma Aur Shera (1971). It was an Ajanta Arts film directed by Sunil Dutt. A lot of new actors were being featured - Raakhee, Amitabh Bachchan, Ranjeet. Puri brought home pictures of the shoot. Puri's son must have been around 12 then and was excited watching them.
Another film, which was to change his life was Girish Karnad's Kannada film Kaadu (1973) where he played the villainous village headman. Girish Karnad handed his Filmfare Best Director trophy to Amrish as a gesture of appreciation. He was then noticed by Shyam Benegal, who featured him in his films Manthan, Nishant and Bhumika through the '70s. He also became part of Govind Nihalani's critically acclaimed films Party, Vijeta, Aakrosh and Ardh Satya. Dad had a flair for roles that betrayed authority and rode the crest of new wave cinema with his earthiness.
In 1980, director Bapu roped in dad to play Duryodhana in Boney Kapoor's Hum Paanch. Soon other filmmakers started offering him villainous roles in commercial films too. After Feroz Khan's Qurbani (1980) there was no looking back.
One film that took him to the acme of his career was Mr India (1987). As the part menacing part comical Mogambo, he won fans across audiences. Mogambo was a favorite with kids because he was a comic-strip like character. At every function he attended, dad was asked to say the Mogambo dialogue. First Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh in Sholay (1975) and later dad as Mogambo gave villainy a new status. He went on to become the highest paid villain. Earlier character actors were paid paltry sums as compared to the hero.
Puri's career spanned three decades and around 300 films. Among these his favorites remained Koyla, Vidhaata, Pardes, Chachi 420, Ghatak, Ghayal, Damini, Meri Jung and Saza-E-Kala Pani.
Off camera, his children remember their father as someone who was larger than life, someone who was strict but never unreasonable. Someone who urged us to speak the truth. He urged us to follow the three Ps - patience, perseverance and persistence.
Puri was realistic and that's why he insisted that his children seek a secure profession. He once told his son, "See, acting is my first love. I've been polishing my act for years. It took me long to establish myself. There's no need for you to be awed by the profession. You needn't risk your future. You must complete your education." That's why, I joined the Merchant Navy in 1978. I sailed for 11 years. It used to be fun watching his films on the ship.
As an actor he had a great ability to switch on and off. He was not fond of smoking, drinking or parties. His idols were Dilip Kumar, Motilal, Balraj Sahni and Amitabh Bachchan. He worked with Raj Kumar, Dilip saab, Amitji... he was like a student in front of them and had absolutely no ego. Also, a lot of youngsters began their careers with him like Ajay Devgan in Phool Aur Kaante and Shah Rukh Khan in Deewana. He was easy to work with except that he had no patience with people who didn't respect time.
Puri was particular about having nutritious food. He was largely vegetarian but enjoyed fish. He practiced yoga and was an early riser. He was one of the first members of Talwalkars gym in Mumbai. Also, he preserved his vocal chords. He stayed away from fried stuff. He'd just have a piece of sev puri when we insisted. Once he happened to shave off his hair for a Rakesh Kumar film. He was told his personality looked better that way. The bald look appealed to Steven Spielberg, who then offered him Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom, where he played Mola Ram. Puri realized that with a shaved head, he could try different get ups. He was well-versed with the art of make-up and wigs. He knew the concentration of hair that a hairpiece for a 50-year-old character or a 60-year-old character would require. He also spent time with the tailors - in fact, directors often asked him to work on his costumes. He'd pick his own ties, bows, shirts for a role. He enjoyed observing people as he drove in his car. He'd keenly watch the hawaldar, the fit of his shirt, how worn out his shoes were which helped him play one in Gardish.
Puri loved watches. He owned all the possible brands. He was intrigued by its technology and the way each piece was assembled. Each time he'd go abroad, he'd visit a showroom and call me up excitedly, "Tikoo (my pet name) I've bought such a handsome looking watch!" Another fascination he had was for Mercedez Benz cars. He'd keep buying the latest editions. His family maintained his 1983 model in showroom condition.
Known for frequently portraying menacing, sadistic villains, Puri received a huge fan mail of around 50 to 60 letters a day. Some fans would constantly sit on the footpath outside our home to catch a glimpse of him. Women also wrote to him. Many were crazy about him. But he was not a young actor. By the time he got recognition he was 45. My mom did feel possessive with all the attention being showered on him. But she understood. He was at an age where he knew what to absorb and what to keep away from. He was cautious. He did have shades of romance in his role opposite Farida Jalal in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. That subtle equation suited his age. His female co-stars liked him because he was protective about them. He'd check with the production guys whether they were comfortable or not. While he was being pampered, he wanted them to enjoy those facilities too. He was like a father figure to junior artistes too. He'd call up the producers who defaulted on their payments.
Once they were shooting at Amritsar railway station for Gadar - Ek Prem Katha. Huge crowds had gathered and there was so much noise that the shooting couldn't proceed. Sunny Deol wanted to leave. Dad took over and in his baritone said, "Allow us to do our work. I want pin drop silence!" There was a hush and the shooting resumed.
Shyam Benegal cast him in movies such as Nishant (1975), Bhumika (1977), and Manthan (1976). Yash Chopra cast him in Mashaal (1984), the same year that Steven Spielberg cast him in his best-known role outside of India, as Mola Ram in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). His elder brother is none other than Bollywood actor Madan Puri.
Guddu Dhanoa's Jaal The Trap for (2003) was shot in Himachal Pradesh. Unfortunately, Puri met with an accident there. He suffered serious injuries on his face and eye. He lost a lot of blood and consequently had to undergo blood transfusion. Something went wrong there because in the coming years, he developed a blood disorder (myelodysplastic syndrome). It began with weakness and reduced appetite. When he came to know about the fatality of his illness he was shaken. But he had an iron will. He wanted to project a strong side to the world. Puri knew that at age 72 there was little that he could repair and that he was ailing. Jo hona hai woh hoga - that was his stance.
Puri was keen to complete the projects on hand, even though he was in pain. His terminal illness was detected in September 2003 and by December 15, 2004, he had finished all his films - Kachchi Sadak, Mujhse Shaadi Kaoroge, Hulchul, Ksna and Aitraaz despite looking emaciated, pale, frail . He was at home for a brief period. But he didn't want to remain bedridden. When asked how he was feeling he'd just say, "Kal se behtar hoon." Then one day he had a fall at home and suffered a massive brain hemorrhage. He passed away in Mumbai on January 12, 2005 due to a brain hemorrhage
Puri had served as the President of Cine and TV Artistes Association for six years before his demise. As a mark of respect the industry remained shut for two days. The whole road from our house in Juhu to the electric crematorium at Shivaji Park was full with people. There were onlookers perched on trees and buildings.
As a tribute to him the Times Of India carried a piece, which was titled, "No guns only roses." People recall his famous dialogue in Pardes, "What's the bottom line?" Well, for me it would be never doing anything that would disappoint him.Actor
2005- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Manoel de Oliveira was born on 11 December 1908 in Oporto, Portugal. He was a director and writer, known for The Cannibals (1988), I'm Going Home (2001) and Christopher Columbus, the Enigma (2007). He was married to Maria Isabel Brandão de Meneses de Almeida Carvalhais. He died on 2 April 2015 in Oporto, Portugal.Filmmaker
2015- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Frank John Gorshin, Jr. was born on April 5, 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father was a railroad worker and his mother, Frances (Preseren), was a seamstress. His family was originally from Novo Mesto, Slovenia. While in high school, young Frank worked as an usher at the Sheridan Square Theatre and began doing impressions of some of his screen idols: Al Jolson, James Cagney, Cary Grant and Edward G. Robinson. At age 17, he won a local talent contest. The prize was a one-week engagement at Jackie Heller's Carousel nightclub, where Alan King was headlining. It was young Frank's first paid job as an entertainer and launched his show business career. Frank attended local Catholic schools and, later, Carnegie-Mellon Tech School of Drama. He acted in plays and performed in nightclubs in Pittsburgh in his spare time.
In 1953, at age 19, he was drafted into the United States Army and was posted in Germany. Frank served for two years, 1953-1955, as an entertainer attached to Special Services. In the Army, Frank met Maurice A. Bergman, who would introduce Frank to a Hollywood agent when his hitch with Uncle Sam was up. Frank quickly landed a role in The Proud and Profane (1956) and other roles in television dramas followed.
In 1957, while visiting his family in Pittsburgh, his agent phoned him to rush back to Hollywood for an audition for Run Silent Run Deep (1958). For some odd reason, instead of catching a plane, Frank decided to drive his car to Los Angeles. Driving 39 consecutive hours, he fell asleep at the wheel, crashed, suffered a fractured skull and woke up in the hospital four days later. To add insult to injury, a Los Angeles newspaper reported he was killed, and the plum movie role of Officer Ruby went to Don Rickles.
Frank appeared in a number of lovable B-movies for American-International Pictures: Hot Rod Girl (1956) and Dragstrip Girl (1957), and everybody's favorite, Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957). Frank finally got a substantial role in the A-movie, Bells Are Ringing (1960), with Dean Martin and Judy Holliday. He did a thinly-disguised Marlon Brando impression. he also appeared in Hollywood nightclubs, including the Purple Onion. He did Las Vegas engagements, opening for Bobby Darin at The Flamingo. On television, Frank appeared on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956) and had a dozen guest shots on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948).
In 1966, he gave his breakout performance, performing what has become his best-known role: The Riddler on Batman (1966), for which he received an Emmy nomination. He also played The Riddler in the movie, Batman: The Movie (1966), based on the television series. "I could feel the impact overnight", he recalled later. Because of his nationwide recognition, he was given headliner status in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand, Sahara and Aladdin Hotels. He received more good reviews for his performance in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (1969).
In 1970, Frank made his Broadway debut as the star of "Jimmy", for which he got rave reviews. He also starred in many touring company productions, such as "Promises, Promises", "Peter Pan", "Prisoner of Second Street" and "Guys and Dolls". In the 1980s, Frank served as Honorary Chairman, Entertainment Division, for the American Heart Association. Perhaps recalling his early AIP films, Frank worked with the legendary Roger Corman, appearing as Clockwise on the television series Black Scorpion (2001) and on Corman's The Phantom Eye (1999). He had appeared in over 70 movies and made over 40 guest appearances in television series.
Gorshin died at age 72 in Burbank, California on May 17, 2005. He had suffered from lung cancer, emphysema and pneumonia.Actor
2005- Writer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Mario Monicelli was born on 16 May 1915 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a writer and director, known for The Organizer (1963), Speriamo che sia femmina (1986) and Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). He was married to Chiara Rapaccini and Antonella Salerni. He died on 29 November 2010 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.Writer / Director
2010- Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
Leslie Cheung was the youngest of 10 children. His father was tailor to the late William Holden. Leslie's parents divorced when he was young, and he claims this is one reason for his disinterest in marriage. Following graduation from secondary school, he studied at Leeds University in Great Britain. Upon his return to Hong Kong, he entered the 1976 ATV Asian Music Contest, where he took second prize. He went on to perform on stage, television and in teeny-bopper movies. It wasn't until he was cast in the role of "Kit" in John Woo's A Better Tomorrow (1986) that his acting career took off; he has since performed in some of the best-known Hong Kong movies of the last decade, working under the direction of such directors as Kaige Chen, Kar-Wai Wong, Hark Tsui and, of course, Woo. Leslie emigrated to Canada in 1992, but soon returned to Hong Kong, demonstrating his intention to remain past the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China through his purchase of real estate and opening of a coffee shop in the colony.
Leslie jumped from the landmark Mandarin Oriental hotel in the central business district early in the evening on 1st April 2003, leaving a suicide note that was found on the body.Actor / Singer
2003- Make-Up Department
- Actor
- Art Department
John Chambers worked out of his home in a blue collar neighborhood in Burbank, California, just a few short blocks from Disney Studios, (actually, his garage transformed into a makeup lab) where the likes of Lana Turner could be found sitting for a set of teeth, Howard Keel getting a fitting for an Indianesque nose, Leonard Nimoy acquiring the trademark pointed ears for his inimical character Mr. Spock. Marlon Brando, Mickey Rooney and Lee Marvin (who wore one of Chamber's nose jobs in Marvin's 1965 Academy Award-winning "Cat Ballou" role) were also known to have visited his garage for fittings of one thing or another.
Indeed, Chambers was the special effects master, stamping (and molding) his influence with his work in such movies and television series as: Planet of the Apes (1968), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), The Outer Limits (1963), The Munsters (1964), Lost in Space (1965) and Mission: Impossible (1966).
Though he developed many of his makeup innovations in the 1950s and 1960s, they are still in use today. His custom design skull caps, for instance, are a standard in the business. It is perhaps with Planet of the Apes (1968) that Chambers experienced one of his greatest challenges. His preparation and research for the movie included so much time spent making notes and drawings of monkeys at the Los Angeles Zoo, that he became something of a zoo fixture and a drawer himself. In fact, visitors to the zoo, began watching him as much as they watched the monkeys!
For his efforts, before the Motion Picture Academy decided in 1981 to designate a category for a makeup award, Chambers received an honorary Academy Award at the 1969 Oscars ceremony. Through his career, Chambers has received many other honors, most notably an Emmy Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Not unlike many a professional, he began his career in the United States Army during World War II, where he served as a dental technician. It was in this capacity that he found himself working with the scars of war - actually, working against the scars of war - and gaining a great deal of knowledge of repairing more than teeth: entire faces.
His experience with creating new ears, noses, and chins, as well as teeth, for veterans ravaged by war, landed Chambers at NBC in 1953 with a job in makeup. His wartime experiences also influenced Chambers to use his skills to help indigent cancer victims acquire prosthetics against the ravages of another kind of war. Few knew of his charitable work, but few who knew him would be surprised by it.
Through his life he took many artists under his wing, giving guidance and training to the like of Michael Westmore, Maurice Stein, Thomas R. Burman, Michael McCracken, David Dittmar, and other accomplished makeup artists, asking only in return that they (to borrow from a recent movie) "pay it forward". Retired since 1982, John Chambers died of diabetes at a hospital in Woodland Hills, California on August 25, 2001.Makeup Artist
2001- Cinematographer
- Animation Department
- Camera and Electrical Department
Kazuo Miyagawa was born on 25 February 1908 in Kyoto, Japan. He was a cinematographer, known for Yojimbo (1961), Rashomon (1950) and Brother (1960). He was married to Kazuko ?. He died on 7 August 1999 in Tokyo, Japan.Cinematographer
1999- Editor
- Editorial Department
- Music Department
Gerald B. Greenberg was born on 29 July 1936 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an editor, known for The French Connection (1971), Apocalypse Now (1979) and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). He died on 22 December 2017 in Santa Monica, California, USA.Editor
2018- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Walter Lassally was born on 18 December 1926 in Berlin, Germany. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Zorba the Greek (1964), Before Midnight (2013) and Heat and Dust (1983). He was married to Nadia Lassali. He died on 23 October 2017 in Crete, Greece.Cinematographer
2017- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Sally Kellerman arrived quite young on the late 1950s film and television scene with a fresh and distinctively weird, misfit presence. It is this same uniqueness that continued to make her such an attractively offbeat performer. The willowy, swan-necked, flaxen-haired actress shot to film comedy fame after toiling nearly a decade and a half in the business, and is still most brazenly remembered for her career-maker in the irreverent hit Korean War dramedy M*A*S*H (1970), for which she received supporting Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. From there, she went on to enjoy several other hallmark moments as both an actress and a vocalist.
California native Sally Clare Kellerman was born in Long Beach on June 2, 1937, to Edith (née Vaughn), a piano teacher, and John Helm Kellerman, a Shell Oil Company executive. Raised along with her sister in the San Fernando Valley area, Sally was attracted to the performing arts after seeing Marlon Brando star in the film Viva Zapata! (1952). Attending the renowned Hollywood High School as a teenager, she sang in musical productions while there, including a version of "Meet Me in St. Louis." Following graduation, she enrolled at Los Angeles City College but left after a year when enticed by acting guru Jeff Corey's classes.
Initially inhibited by her height (5'10"), noticeably gawky and slinky frame and wide slash of a mouth, Kellerman proved difficult to cast at first but finally found herself up for the lead role in Otto Preminger's "A"-level film Saint Joan (1957). She lost out in the end, however, when Preminger finally decided to give the role of Joan of Arc to fellow newcomer Jean Seberg. Hardly compensation, 20-year-old Sally made her film debut that same year as a girls' reformatory inmate who threatens the titular leading lady in the cult "C" juvenile delinquent drama Reform School Girl (1957) starring "good girl" Gloria Castillo and "bad guy" Edd Byrnes of "777 Sunset Strip" teen idol fame, an actor she met and was dating after attending Corey's workshops. Directed by infamous low-budget horror film Samuel Z. Arkoff, her secondary part in the film did little in the way of advancing her career.
During the same period of time, Sally pursued a singing career and earned a recording contract with Verve Records. The 1960s was an uneventful but growing period for Kellerman, finding spurts of quirky TV roles in both comedies ("Bachelor Father," "My Three Sons," "Dobie Gillis" and "Ozzie and Harriet") and dramas ("Lock Up," "Surfside 6," "Cheyenne," "The Outer Limits," "The Rogues," "Slattery's People" and the second pilot of "Star Trek"). Sally's sophomore film was just as campy as the first, but her part was even smaller. As an ill-fated victim of the Hands of a Stranger (1962), the oft-told horror story of a concert pianist whose transplanted hands become deadly, the film came and went without much fanfare.
Studying later at Los Angeles' Actors' Studio (West), Sally's roles increased toward the end of the 1960s with featured parts in more quality filming, including The Third Day (1965), The Boston Strangler (1968) (as a target for serial killer Tony Curtis) and The April Fools (1969). Sally's monumental break came, of course, via director Robert Altman when he hired her for, and she created a dusky-voiced sensation out of, the aggressively irritating character Major Margaret "'Hot Lips" Houlihan. Her highlighting naked-shower scene in the groundbreaking cinematic comedy M*A*S*H (1970) had audiences ultimately laughing and gasping at the same time. Both she and the film were a spectacular success with Sally the sole actor to earn an Oscar nomination for her marvelous work here. She lost that year to the overly spunky veteran Helen Hayes in Airport (1970).
Becoming extremely good friends with Altman during the movie shoot, Sally went on to film a couple more of the famed director's more winning and prestigious films of the 1970s, beginning with her wildly crazed "angelic" role in Brewster McCloud (1970), and finishing up brilliantly as a man-hungry real estate agent in his Welcome to L.A. (1976), directed by Alan Rudolph. Sally later regretted not taking the Karen Black singing showcase role in one of Altman's best-embraced films, Nashville (1975), when originally offered. Still pursuing her singing interests, she put out her first album, "Roll with the Feelin'" for Decca Records in 1972.
Films continued to be a priority and Sally was deemed a quirky comedy treasure in both co-star and top supporting roles of the 1970s. She was well cast neurotically opposite Alan Arkin in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972) and again alongside ex-con James Caan as a sexy but loony delight in Slither (1973), a precursor to the Coen Bros.' darkly comic films. She also co-starred and contributed a song ("Reflections") to the Burt Bacharach/Hal David soundtrack of the Utopian film Lost Horizon (1973), a musical picture that proved lifeless at the box office. More impressive work came with the movies A Little Romance (1979) as young Diane Lane's quirky mom; Foxes (1980) as Jodie Foster's confronting mother; Serial (1980), a California comedy satire starring Martin Mull; That's Life! (1986), a social comedy with Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews; and Back to School (1986), comic Rodney Dangerfield's raucous vehicle hit.
Sally's films from the 1980s on were a mixed bag. While some, such as the low-grade Moving Violations (1985), Meatballs III: Summer Job (1986), Doppelganger (1993), American Virgin (1999) and Women of the Night (2001) were beneath her considerable talents, her presence in others were, at the very least, catchy such as her Natasha Fatale opposite Dave Thomas' Boris Badenov in Boris and Natasha (1992); director Percy Adlon's inventive Younger and Younger (1993), which reunited her with MASH co-star Donald Sutherland, and in Robert Altman's rather disjointed, ill-received all-star effort Ready to Wear (1994) in which she played a fashion magazine editor.
When her film output waned in later years, Sally lent a fine focus back to her singing career and made a musical dent as a deep-voiced blues and jazz artist. She started hitting the Los Angeles and New York club circuits with solo acts. In 2009, Kellerman released her first album since "Roll with The Feelin'" simply titled "Sally," a jazz and blues-fused album. Along those same lines, Sally played a nightclub singer in the comedy Limit Up (1989) Kellerman's seductively throaty voice has also put her in good standing as a voice-over artist of commercials, feature films, and television.
Among her offbeat output in millennium films were prime/featured roles in the soft-core thriller Women of the Night (2001), written and director by Zalman King, in which she played a lady deejay (she also gets to sing); the real estate musical Open House (2004) in which she played an agent (who gets to sing again); the Florida senior citizens' romantic comedy Boynton Beach Club (2005); the comedy Night Club (2011) where friends and residents start a club in a retirement home; the social dramas A Place for Heroes (2014) and A Timeless Love (2016); and the family dramedy The Remake (2016).
Divorced from Rick Edelstein, Kellerman married Jonathan D. Krane in 1980 and the couple adopted twins, Jack and Hanna. Sally was also the adoptive mother of her niece, Claire Graham. Her husband died unexpectedly in August 2016; less than three months later, daughter Hanna died from heroin and methamphetamine use. Sally died on February 24, 2022 in Los Angeles.Actress
2022- Writer
- Director
- Actor
The first film director from an African country to achieve international recognition, Ousmane Sembene remains the major figure in the rise of an independent post-colonial African cinema. Sembene's roots were not, as might be expected, in the educated élite. After working as a mechanic and bricklayer, he joined the Free French forces in 1942, serving in Africa and France. In 1946, he returned to Dakar, where he participated in the great railway strike of 1947. The next year he returned to France, where he worked in a Citröen factory in Paris, and then, for ten years, on the dock in Marseilles. During this time Sembene became very active in trade union struggles and began an extraordinarily successful writing career. His first novel, "Le Docker Noir", was published in 1956 to critical acclaim. Since then, he has produced a number of works which have placed him in the foreground of the international literary scene. Long an avid filmgoer, Sembene became aware that to reach a mass audience of workers and preliterate Africans outside urban centers, cinema was a more effective vehicle than the written word. In 1961, he traveled to Moscow to study film at VGIK and then to work at the Gorky Studios. Upon his return to Senegal, Sembene turned his attention to filmmaking and, after two short films, he wrote and directed his first feature, Black Girl (1966)(english title: Black Girl). Received with great enthusiasm at a number of international film festivals, it also won the prestigious Jean Vigo Prize for its director. Shot in a simple, quasi-documentary style probably influenced by the French New Wave, BLACK GIRL tells the tragic story of a young Senegalese woman working as a maid for an affluent French family on the Riviera, focusing on her sense of isolation and growing despair. Her country may have been "decolonized," but she is still a colonial -- a non-person in the colonizers' world. Sembene's next film, Mandabi (1968) (english title: The Money Order), marked a sharp departure. Based on his novel of the same name and shot in color in two language versions--French and Wolof, the main dialect of Senegal--THE MONEY ORDER is a trenchant and often delightfully witty satire of the new bourgeoisie, torn between outmoded patriarchal traditions and an uncaring, rapacious and inefficient bureaucracy. Emitai (1971) records the struggle of the Diola people of the Casamance region of Senegal (where Sembene grew up) against the French authorities during WWII. Shot in Diola dialect and French from an original script, EMITAI offers a respectful but unromanticized depiction of an ancient tribal culture, while highlighting the role of women in the struggle against colonialist oppression. In Xala (1975), Sembene again takes on the native bourgeoisie, this time in the person of a rich, partially Westernized Moslem businessman afflicted by "xala" (impotence) on the night of his wedding to a much younger third wife. Outsiders (1977), considered by many to be Sembene's masterpiece, departs from the director's customary realist approach, documenting the struggle over the last centuries of an unspecified African society against the incursions of Islam and European colonialism. Featuring a strong female central character, CEDDO is a powerful evocation of the African experience.Director / Writer
2007- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Shohei Imamura's films dig beneath the surface of Japanese society to reveal a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath. Along with his colleagues Nagisa Ôshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Imamura began his serious directorial career as a member of the New Wave movement in Japan. Reacting against the studio system, and particularly against the style of Yasujirô Ozu, the director he first assisted, Imamura moved away from the subtlety and understated nature of the classical masters to a celebration of the primitive and spontaneous aspects of Japanese life. To explore this level of Japanese consciousness, Imamura focuses on the lower classes, with characters who range from bovine housewives to shamans, and from producers of blue movies to troupes of third-rate traveling actors. He has proven himself unafraid to explore themes usually considered taboo, particularly those of incest and superstition. Imamura himself was not born into the kind of lower-class society he depicts. The college-educated son of a physician, he was drawn toward film, and particularly toward the kinds of films he would eventually make, by his love of the avant-garde theater. Imamura has worked as a documentarist, recording the statements of Japanese who remained in other parts of Asia after the end of WWII, and of the "karayuki-san"--Japanese women sent to accompany the army as prostitutes during the war period. His heroines tend to be remarkably strong and resilient, able to outlast, and even to combat, the exploitative situations in which they find themselves. This is a stance that would have seemed impossible for the long-suffering heroines of classical Japanese films. In 1983, Imamura won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for The Ballad of Narayama (1983), based on a Shichirô Fukazawa novel about a village where the elderly are abandoned on a sacred mountaintop to die. Unlike director Keisuke Kinoshita's earlier version of the same story, Imamura's film, shot on location in a remote mountain village, highlights the more disturbing aspects of the tale through its harsh realism. In his attempt to capture what is real in Japanese society, and what it means to be Japanese, Imamura used an actual 40-year-old former prostitute in his The Insect Woman (1963); a woman who was searching for her missing fiancé in A Man Vanishes (1967); and a non-actress bar hostess as the protagonist of his History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (1970). Despite this anthropological bent, Imamura has cleverly mixed the real with the fictional, even within what seems to be a documentary. This is most notable in his A Man Vanishes (1967), in which the fiancée becomes more interested in an actor playing in the film than with her missing lover. In a time when the word "Japanese" is often considered synonymous with "coldly efficient," Imamura's vision of a more robust and intuitive Japanese character adds an especially welcome cinematic dimension.Writer / Director
2006- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Paul William Walker IV was born in Glendale, California. He grew up together with his brothers, Caleb and Cody, and sisters, Ashlie and Amie. Their parents, Paul William Walker III, a sewer contractor, and Cheryl (Crabtree) Walker, a model, separated around September 2004. His grandfather, William Walker, was a Pearl Harbor survivor and a Navy middleweight boxing champion, while his maternal grandfather commanded a tank battalion in Italy under General Patton during World War II. Paul grew up active in sports like soccer and surfing. He had English and German ancestry.
Paul was cast for the first season of the family sitcom, Throb (1986) and began modeling until he received a script for the 1994 movie, Tammy and the T-Rex (1994). He attended high school at Village Christian High School in Sun Valley, California, graduating in 1991. With encouragement from friends and an old casting agent who remembered him as a child, he decided to try his luck again with acting shortly after returning from College.
He starred in Meet the Deedles (1998), a campy, silly but surprisingly fun film which failed to garner much attention. However, lack of attention would not be a problem for Paul Walker for long. With Pleasantville (1998), he appeared in his first hit. As the town stud (a la 1950s) who more than meets his match in modern day Reese Witherspoon, he was one of the most memorable characters of the film. That same year, Paul and his then-girlfriend Rebecca had a baby girl named Meadow Walker (Meadow Rain Walker). Even though Paul publicly admitted that Meadow was not planned, he said that she is his number one priority. Paul and Rebecca separated and Meadow lives with her mother in Hawaii. She often visited with Paul as his homes in Santa Barbara and Huntington Beach, California.
Roles in the teen hits Varsity Blues (1999), She's All That (1999) and The Skulls (2000) cemented Walker's continued rise to celebrity. He was chosen to be one of the young stars featured on the cover of Vanity Fair's annual Hollywood issue in April 2000. While the other stars on the cover, brooded and tried their best to look sexy and serious, Paul smiled brightly and showed why he is not part of the norm. This is one young actor who certainly stood apart from the rest of the crowd, not only with his talent but with his attitude. The Dallas Morning News commented in March of 2000 that, "Paul is one of the rarest birds in Hollywood- a pretension free movie star." The latest blockbuster hit, The Fast and the Furious (2001), had raised his stardom to an even higher level.
His fighting scenes in movies lead to a passion for martial arts. He has studied various forms of Jujitsu, Taekwondo, Jeet Kune Do and Eskrima. Paul mentioned in a magazine interview that he had hoped enroll in the Keysi Fighting Method when it comes to the United States. Other than practicing martial arts, Paul enjoyed relaxing at home with his daughter, Meadow Rain, surfing near his Huntington Beach abode, walking his dogs and just driving.
When Paul seriously did get a break from the entertainment business, he said he loved traveling. Paul had traveled to India, Fiji, Costa Rica, Sarawak, Brunei, Borneo and other parts of the Asian continent. Tragically, Paul Walker died in a car crash on Saturday November 30, 2013, after attending a charity event for "Reach Out Worldwide".
Several of Paul's films were released after his death, include Hours (2013), Brick Mansions (2014), and his final starring role in The Fast and the Furious series, Furious 7 (2015), part of which was completed after his death. The film's closing scenes paid tribute to Walker, whose character met with a happy ending, and rode off into the sunset. He appeared archival footage in Fast X (2023).Actor
2013- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Brittany Murphy was born Brittany Anne Bertolotti on November 10, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia, to Sharon Kathleen Murphy and Angelo Joseph Bertolotti. Her father's ancestry is Italian, and her mother is of Irish and Slovak descent. Her father moved the family back to Edison, New Jersey as a native New Yorker and to be closer to other siblings from previous marriages. While dining out one night in the presence of Hollywood royalty, Brittany at the age of 5 approached an adjoining table when Academy Award nominee Burt Reynolds and George Segal were seated. Brittany introduced herself to the Hollywood legends and confidently told them that someday she too would be a star.
She comes from a long line of international musicians and performers with three half-brothers and a sister. Angelo Bertolotti was torn from their tight-knit family as a made-man with the Italian Mafia. The Senior Bertolotti, who coined the nickname of "Britt" for his daughter, was also an entrepreneur and diplomat for organized crime families and one of the first to be subjected to a RICO prosecution. Brittany's interests and well-being were always her father's first goal and objective. To distance his talented daughter from his infamous past, Angelo allowed Sharon to use her maiden name for Brittany's, so that her shining star would not be overshadowed by a father's past, with the couple divorcing thereafter.
Brittany began receiving accolades and applause in regional theater at the early age of 9. At the age of 13, she landed several national commercials. She appeared on television and caught the attention of a personal manager and an agent. Soon, Brittany's mother Sharon turned full-time to being a "Stage Mom" where Angelo provided financial support throughout and their relationship is memorialized with a long and close history in pictures. The hopeful daughter and mother moved to Burbank, CA, where Brittany landed her first television role on Blossom (1990). Hearts and doors opened up for a starring role on Drexell's Class (1991), a short lived TV series.
Brittany's big screen movie debut started with Clueless (1995), where she was co-starring with Alicia Silverstone. Britt soared, demonstrating her musical and artistic talents with dramatic and comedic roles landing a nomination for best leading female performance in the Young Artist Awards for her role in the television film David and Lisa (1998). She garnered tremendous attention for her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999) with Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie. Brittany's band, "Blessed Soul" was growing with her as lead singer and Britt lent her vocal talents to the TV hit, cartoon sensation, King of the Hill (1997) as the voice of Luanne.
She is alleged to have been a witness in the case of the former Department of Homeland Security employee and persecuted whistleblower Julia Davis. According to Davis, Brittany and her fiancée Simon Monjack were then targeted for retaliation that included land and aerial surveillance and a threatened prosecution. Monjack was arrested and detained by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Brittany and Simon confided in Alex Ben Block of the Hollywood Reporter, telling him in an interview that they were under surveillance by helicopters and their telephones have been wiretapped. This information was published by THR posthumously, in an article entitled "The Last Difficult Days of Brittany Murphy."
On December 20, 2009, Brittany Murphy died an untimely death. The LAPD and Los Angeles County Coroner closed the case within one hour, attributing her death to pneumonia and anemia. Five months after Brittany's unexpected demise, her husband Simon Monjack was found dead in the house he shared with Brittany. The chief/spokesperson at the Los Angeles County Dept of Coroner, Craig Harvey, stated that Simon also died from the same exact causes as his wife, namely pneumonia and anemia. Neither Brittany, nor Simon, were given a thorough and complete forensic autopsy for poisons. Brittany's father, Angelo "AJ" Bertolotti, is pursuing the investigation of the true reasons behind Brittany's and Simon's sudden demise, as he believes that the two were murdered. Abnormally high levels of heavy metals and poisons were discovered in Brittany's hair, tested by two other independent forensic labs with famed Pathologist, attorney Cyril Wecht concluded from the appearances, Brittany could have been murdered and should be exhumed. Her father Angelo is preparing court actions to ensure she obtains justice.Actress
2010- Editor
- Director
- Actor
Jim Clark was born on 24 May 1931 in Boston, Lincolnshire, England, UK. He was an editor and director, known for The Mission (1986), The Killing Fields (1984) and Marathon Man (1976). He was married to Laurence Méry-Clark and Jessica Andrew. He died on 25 February 2016 in the UK.Editor
2016- Laura Antonelli was born on 28 November 1941 in Pola, Istria, Italy [now Pula, Istria, Croatia]. She was an actress, known for Passion of Love (1981), Malicious (1973) and The Innocent (1976). She was married to Enrico Piacentini. She died on 22 June 2015 in Ladispoli, Rome, Lazio, Italy.Actress
2015 - Actress
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef was born on December 28, 1925 in Ulm, Germany. In 1940, she began to study acting. Even before the fall of the Third Reich, she appeared in several films, but most of them were only released after the war. To avoid being raped by Soviet soldiers, she dressed like a young man and was sent to a camp for prisoners of war. She escaped and returned to war-shattered Berlin, where she played her first parts on stage. The first German movie after World War II, Murderers Among Us (1946), made her a star. David O. Selznick invited her to Hollywood and offered her a contract--with two conditions: Hildegard Knef should change her name to Gilda Christian, and she should pretend to be Austrian instead of German. She refused both and returned to Germany. In 1951 she provoked one of the greatest scandals in German film history when she appeared naked in the film The Sinner (1951). The Roman Catholic Church protested vehemently against that film, but Hildegard just commented: "I can't understand all that tumult--five years after Auschwitz!"
With the support of her first husband, the American Kurt Hirsch, she tried a second time to launch a Hollywood career and changed her surname from Knef to Neff (Americans could not pronounce Knef), but the only worthwhile part she got was a supporting role in the Hemingway adaptation of The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952). She became a leading lady in German, French, and British films. Finally, America offered her another chance, this time on the stage. She achieved a kind of stardom as Ninotchka in the very popular Broadway play "Silk Stockings".
In 1963 she began a new career as a singer, surprising audiences with her typical, deep, smoky voice and the fact that she wrote many of her own song lyrics. In 1970, she wrote the autobiographical bestseller "Der Geschenkte Gaul". She got sympathy from all over the world for her fight against cancer, which she defeated several times.
After the German reunification, Hildegarde Knef moved back to Berlin and died at age 76 of a lung infection on February 1, 2002.Actress
2002- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
James Albert Varney, Jr. was born in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nancy Louise (Howard) and James Albert Varney, Sr. He became interested in theater as a teenager, winning state titles in drama competitions while a student at Lafayette High School in Lexington, Kentucky. At age 15 he played Ebeneezer Scrooge in a local children's theater production of "A Christmas Carol", and by 17 was performing professionally in nightclubs and coffee houses. He chose Nashville rather than New York or Los Angeles as a place to pursue his acting career and, with advertising executive John R. Cherry III, turned "Ernest P. Worrell" into a cash cow, making commercials for clients ranging from soft drinks to food stores and, eventually, Disney. Even though Ernest's catchphrase "KnowhutImean?" became a national craze almost immediately, Jim worked in TV and film for more than a decade before his famous alter-ego hit the big screen in Ernest Goes to Camp (1987).Actor
2000- Desmond Llewelyn was born in South Wales in 1914, the son of a coal mining engineer. In high school, he worked as a stagehand in the school's productions and then picked up sporadic small parts. His family would not give up their effort to prevent him from a life on stage, so an uncle who was a high-ranking police officer arranged for Llewelyn to take the department's physical exam.
"Thank God, I flunked the eye test, and they wouldn't take me. I suspect the inspector had a hangover because he also failed this other chap I knew, who went out the same day and passed the physical for the Royal Navy, which had a lot tougher test."
After failing the police exam, Llewelyn thought about becoming a minister, realizing after a week-long retreat of quiet and meditation that the ministry "was definitely not for me." Llewelyn persevered in his acting quest, and was accepted to the Royal Academy for the Dramatic Arts in the mid 1930s.
The outbreak of World War II in September 1939, halted his acting career, and Llewelyn was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the British army. He was assigned to the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and was sent to France in early 1940.
In a short time, his regiment was fighting the Germans, and Llewelyn's company was holding off a division of German tanks. Llewelyn explained that "eventually, the tanks broke through and many of us jumped into this canal and started swimming down it to the other side, figuring that our chaps were still over there. But the Germans were the only ones there," and Llewelyn was captured, and held as a prisoner of war for five years.
At one prison camp, the prisoners had dug a tunnel and were planning to escape the next morning. Llewelyn was down in the tunnel doing some maintenance work in preparation of the escape when the Germans found out about the tunnel and caught him down in it, a crime that earned Llewelyn 10 days in solitary, which Llewelyn called "a blessing of sorts. After spending every day of several years sleeping in a room with 50 other people, the quiet and privacy was rather nice."
After the war, Llewelyn returned to London and revived his career, eventually being cast as his trademark Q in From Russia with Love (1963). Since 1963, Llewelyn has appeared as Q in every Eon Productions Bond film, except Live and Let Die (1973).
Llewelyn was omitted from Live and Let Die (1973) because producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli felt that too much was being made of the gadgets and they would play it down. Llewelyn said he "was quite disappointed" at being left out of Live and Let Die (1973).
Fans, however, missed Q, and Llewelyn got a call shortly after the release of Live and Let Die (1973) telling him that he would be in the next Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
Llewelyn, who admits that his mechanical abilities in real life are virtually nil, is geared up for the next Bond movie. "I'd love to be in the next one," Llewelyn said. "Of course, if you consider my age, they should have put me out to grass a long time ago."Actor
1999 or 2000 - Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
He once jokingly described himself as 'a frustrated song-and-dance man' who wound up typecast as a TV crime fighter. Tall, handsome Armenian-American Mike Connors had a minor career in the movies before becoming a star on the small screen as the impeccably dressed macho sleuth Joe Mannix. Towards the end of the series, his earnings per episode averaged a respectable $40,000. He was four times nominated for an Emmy Award and won a Golden Globe in 1969. Mannix (1967) was highly innovative in its day: among its winning combination were an upbeat jazzy score (composed by Lalo Schifrin), teasers, fast cuts from scene to scene, a car replete with a computer transmitting and receiving fingerprints and an African-American co-star (the charming Gail Fisher, who played Joe's secretary Peggy Fair). Many notable names guested in the show, some at very beginning of their careers (Diane Keaton and Martin Sheen, among others). 'Mannix' ran for eight seasons (1967-1975), a testament to its enduring popularity.
Connors was born Krekor Ohanian in Fresno, California. His mother wanted him to become an attorney. After wartime service in the Army Air Force he enrolled at UCLA on the G. I. Bill of Rights, began in law school but eventually took up theatre studies as his major. The nickname "Touch', Mike acquired on the basketball court where he first came to the attention of the director William A. Wellman who considered his features 'expressive'. He was first signed by Goldwyn studios on a 90-day contract. However, Goldwyn never took up the option and Mike never appeared in any of his films (it turned out that his signing had been no more than leverage to bring Farley Granger back in line who was causing Goldwyn some trouble). Through a talent agent, Mike got an interview at Republic to do a film with Joan Crawford called Sudden Fear (1952). That same guy also decided that his original surname Ohanian sounded too much like O'Hanlon -- George O'Hanlon was already a well-established film actor and writer -- and consequently changed his name to 'Connors'. Until 1957, Mike appeared in mainly low budget movies and TV anthologies, billed as 'Touch Connors' (an appellation he thoroughly disliked). He did several films for Roger Corman for $400 a pop. Arguably, the one highlight of his film career -- several years later -- could be said to be his role as one of a pair of American bomber crew (the other being Robert Redford) held captive in a cellar by a lonely German drug store clerk who chooses to withhold from them the trivial matter of Germany's surrender to the Allies (played with whimsical aplomb by the brilliant Alec Guinness) in the underrated and very funny black comedy Situation Hopeless -- But Not Serious (1965).
After many years as a struggling actor, Mike's first TV hit was Tightrope (1959) for CBS in which he starred as an undercover cop infiltrating an organized crime syndicate. Though the story lines became increasingly repetitive through its 37 episodes, the role pretty much defined his subsequent tough-guy image. During the original pilot for 'Mannix', which initially had Joe Mannix as the top investigator for the computerized Intertect detective agency under boss Joseph Campanella, Mike performed many of the stunts himself, in the process breaking a wrist and dislocating a shoulder. In an effort to make his character 'more real' than the traditional cynical Bogart-style gumshoe, he played Mannix as being more 'humane', often becoming emotionally involved in his cases and -- just as often -- ending up on the wrong end of a knuckle sandwich (in the course of the 194 episodes, poor old Joe was knocked unconscious on fifty-five occasions and shot seventeen times), or watching his beautiful client walk off with another man.
Another subsequent starring role as a modern-day G-Man in the short-lived Today's F.B.I. (1981) did not come close to rekindling his earlier success. Most of Mike's later appearances were as guest stars, notably a return as Joe Mannix in an episode of Diagnosis Murder (1993). Later interviews revealed him to have been acutely aware of the transitory nature of TV stardom and exceedingly grateful for his one opportunity to shine. Mike Connors was happily married to Mary Lou Willey for 67 years.Actor
2017- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Costume Designer
- Production Designer
Patricia Norris was born on 22 March 1931 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was a costume designer and production designer, known for 12 Years a Slave (2013), 2010 (1984) and Days of Heaven (1978). She was married to Richard Harry Norris. She died on 20 February 2015 in Westlake Village, California, USA.Costume Designer
2015- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
Born in Danbury, Connecticut, USA, to Greg and Mary, Jonathan Brandis began his career at age 5, acting in several television commercials. He also appeared in small parts in several films and TV shows before his first starring role in the 1990 film The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990). He starred in popular films such as Ladybugs (1992) and starred as Lucas Wolenczak in Steven Spielberg's television series SeaQuest 2032 (1993). He doubled up his high school courses so he could finish a year early for his role on SeaQuest. After his career stalled for a bit, he was hoping his role in serious drama film Hart's War (2002) would relaunch it. However, most of his scenes ended up being cut from the finished film. This caused him to fall into a deep depression in which he would drink heavily and tragically end his own life on November 12th, 2003.Actor
2003- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Michael Cacoyannis was born on 11 June 1922 in Limassol, Cyprus. He was a director and writer, known for Zorba the Greek (1964), Electra (1962) and Eroika (1960). He died on 25 July 2011 in Athens, Greece.Director
2011- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Jordan Cronenweth was born on 20 February 1935 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a cinematographer and actor, known for Blade Runner (1982), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Altered States (1980). He was married to Carolyn June Ervin. He died on 29 November 1996 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Cinematographer
1996- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Born in Los Angeles on Nov. 15, 1926, Kline, with the help of his dad, landed a job in the camera department at Columbia Pictures after he graduated from high school in 1943. He worked as a slate boy on Cover Girl (1944), starring Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly. Richard is the fourth member of my family to be a part of the ASC. His father was cinematographer Benjamin H. Kline (Danger Street, Fireside Theatre, dozens of Westerns), and his uncles were, Phil Rosen, co-founded the American Society of Cinematographers in 1919 and served as its first president, and Sol Halperin who also served as president.
Kline assisted and operated on more than 200 motion pictures before becoming a director of photography in 1963, after which he compiled 46 feature credits. He is a product of the Hollywood studio-system heyday of the 1940s, '50s and '60s, an invaluable link to a time when filmmakers could focus almost exclusively on practicing their craft and improving with each picture. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1944, stationed at the Photo Science Laboratory in Washington, D.C., before shipping out to the Pacific theater, where he stayed until mid-1946. After returning to the States, he began working as an assistant at Columbia. His first assignment upon his return became one of his most memorable assisting during the shooting of Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai.
As a cinematographer, Kline earned Academy Award nominations for the lavish 1968 musical Camelot and the 1976 remake of the epic King Kong. His other credits include Hang 'em High, The Boston Strangler, The Andromeda Strain, The Mechanic, Soylent Green, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Mr. Majestyk, The Fury, Who'll Stop the Rain, Star Trek - The Motion Picture, Breathless, Body Heat, All of Me and The Competition.
Based on the hit Broadway musical, Camelot was shot on location in Spain and on expansive sets built on the Warner Bros. lot. The picture would be one of Kline's greatest challenges. The scope was overwhelming at times. Winter forest set, built on Stage 8, was immense required more than 400 10K lamps. However, Kline's reliance on mere candlelight for the film's soft-lit wedding between Arthur (Richard Harris) and Guenevere (Vanessa Redgrave) proved equally tricky, in part because the producers didn't believe real candles would actually read on film,Kline using more than 1,000 candles for the scene. The actors were supposed to walk through darkness, surrounded by all these candles, before kneeling and taking their vows. Employing a team of 30 prop men to simultaneously light the candles, while Kline doubled the wicks' effectiveness by placing mirrors in strategic positions around the set. To add a mystical glow to the proceedings, he placed an 8'x8' pane of glass in front of the camera at a 30-degree angle. Then, behind the camera, he beamed light onto a 20'x20' white flat, which was reflected by the glass into the lens. Onscreen, shot through the glass, the royal couple seemed to pass through a warm aura of mysterious illumination that was softened even more by a hint of gauze diffusion. Kline controlled colors and contrast on the picture by pre-flashing his negative, a technique he had heard about but never used. Because the process opened up the shadows slightly, he used far less fill than usual. Pre-flashing also muted the colors a bit, lending the realm of Camelot a burnished, more naturalistic look.Cinematographer
2018- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
David Watkin was born on March 23rd 1925 to a middle class family in Kent, England. Being fond of classical music, he originally wanted to become a pianist despite the lack of support from his religious father.
Watkin served shortly in World War II before finally beginning his career in cinema. His break into the film world arrived when he shot the memorable title sequence for the film 'Goldfinger', in 1964. Being an innovator in cinematography, he was known as having an artistic technique- almost picturesque. His most famous works are 'Jesus of Nazareth', 'Moonstruck', 'Out of Africa', and many other known titles.Cinematographer
2008- Mario Puzo was born October 15, 1920, in "Hell's Kitchen" on Manhattan's (NY) West Side and, following military service in World War II, attended New York's New School for Social Research and Columbia University. His best-known novel, "The Godfather," was preceded by two critically acclaimed novels, "The Dark Arena" and "The Fortunate Pilgrim." In 1978, he published "Fools Die," followed by "The Sicilian" (1984) and "The Fourth K" (1991). Mario Puzo has also written several screenplays, including Earthquake (1974), Superman (1978), and all three "Godfather" movies, for which he received two Academy Awards. Mario's latest novel, 1996's "The Last Don," was made into a CBS television miniseries in May 1997, starring Danny Aiello, Kirstie Alley and Joe Mantegna. In 1997, Part II was aired. Also in 1997, Mario's "The Fortunate Pilgrim" was re-released by Random House. Mario passed away July 2, 1999, at his home in Bay Shore, Long Island. His last novel, "Omerta," will be published July, 2000. He is survived by his companion of 20 years, Carol Gino, and five children.Writer
1999 - Actress
- Soundtrack
Claudine Auger, a former Miss France 1st Runner-up (1958), received her dramatic training at the Paris Drama Conservatory and is best known to US / UK audiences as the stunning brunette "Domino" opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond thriller Thunderball (1965), She has kept fairly busy since her Bond days, acting in a number of Italian, French and Spanish films including The Bermuda Triangle (1978), Credo (1983), and La bocca (1991).Actress
2020- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Vittorio Taviani studied law at the University of Pisa, becoming interested in the cinema after seeing Roberto Rossellini's Paisan (1946). After writing and directing short films and plays with his brother Paolo, he made his first feature in 1962. The brothers have continued to work together ever since, with each directing alternate scenes with the other watching but never interfering.Writer / Director
2018- Editor
- Editorial Department
- Producer
New York-born William Reynolds was a self-effacing editor with a distinguished sixty-year career in the motion picture industry, noted for his unobtrusive, seamless work on movies of every genre, from romantic melodramas to gangster films. A graduate of Princeton University, he started in the business, moving props as part of the 20th Century Fox swing gang. Displaying a keen interest in the art of editing, he was taken under the wing of the experienced Robert L. Simpson, whom he accompanied to Paramount as assistant in 1935. After just two years, Reynolds was promoted to full editor, his most prestigious assignment being Algiers (1938). In 1942, he moved across to 20th Century Fox, but wartime service put a temporary halt to his career. However, he did manage to sustain continuity by editing U.S. Army training films.
From 1946, Reynolds was part of a top-notch editing team assembled by Darryl F. Zanuck, himself a former editor and famous for his hands-on approach to post-production. During the remainder of his tenure at Fox, Reynolds cut some of the studio's best films, including the excellent sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951); and glossy romances and musicals like Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). Reynolds was a frequent collaborator and preferred editor for directors like Robert Wise and Joshua Logan. He did some of his most acclaimed work after free-lancing for three years, back at Fox, on The Sound of Music (1965) -- winning an Oscar and caustically commenting, "when in doubt, cut to Julie Andrews" (NY Times, July 22 1997)). Free-lancing again from 1970, he edited the first half of The Godfather (1972) (Francis Ford Coppola assigned the second half to Peter Zinner) and The Sting (1973) (which Reynolds regarded as one of his most demanding assignments). However, towards the end of his career, he was also involved in several significant commercial failures: Heaven's Gate (1980) -- on which he also acted as executive producer, Pirates (1986) and Ishtar (1987). In 1977, Reynolds was named by his peers in a Film Comment poll as one of the three best-ever film editors.Editor
1997- Camera and Electrical Department
- Cinematographer
Brilliant, much-respected camera operator and cinematographer, who worked for some of the biggest names in British, American and Italian Cinema. Starting out as an operator and working on many beautifully shot films throughout his career, he later served as cinematographer for Dario Argento and Richard Attenborough, sharing the Best Cinematography Oscar with the great Billy Williams for "Gandhi". He collaborated three times with Italian horror master, Dario Argento, most notable on the audaciously shot 1987 film, "Opera".Cinematographer
2018- Production Designer
- Art Department
- Art Director
Terence Marsh was born on 14 November 1931 in London, England, UK. He was a production designer and art director, known for Doctor Zhivago (1965), The Hunt for Red October (1990) and Oliver! (1968). He was married to Sandra Marsh and Lorna Wrapson. He died on 9 January 2018 in Pacific Palisades, California, USA.Production Designer
2018- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Harris Savides was born on 28 September 1957 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a cinematographer and actor, known for Elephant (2003), Zodiac (2007) and Birth (2004). He was married to Medine Chenet. He died on 9 October 2012 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.Cinematographer
2012- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
Christopher Crosby Farley was born on February 15, 1964, in Madison, Wisconsin, to Mary Anne (Crosby) and Thomas Farley, who owned an oil company. Among his siblings are actors Kevin P. Farley and John Farley. He was of Irish heritage. Farley studied theatre and communications on Marquette University. After finishing university he was in the cast of the Second City Theatre, where he was discovered by the producer of the great comedy show Saturday Night Live (1975), Lorne Michaels. Farley worked on Saturday Night Live (1975) for five years during which he appeared in movies like Wayne's World (1992), Coneheads (1993), Billy Madison (1995) and finally Tommy Boy (1995), with his comic partner and SNL cast member David Spade. The duo later made one more movie called Black Sheep (1996). From that time on, Farley was one of the big comedy stars, and his fame was growing and growing.
After some more time, he made another "lone" movie, Beverly Hills Ninja (1997), which featured former SNL member Chris Rock. Farley was made even more famous, but with his growing fame, his problems grew bigger as well; he didn't want to be the "fat guy who falls down" any longer. Farley had several other problems, too, with alcohol and drug dependency. On December 18th, 1997, he died from a heroin (opiate) and cocaine overdose in his apartment in Chicago, where his body was found by his brother John the next day. Farley's weight of 296 pounds was a contributing factor in his death, but according to his autopsy the alcohol, marijuana and Prozac that was also found in his body, were not. Less than two months prior to his death, he had appeared alongside Chevy Chase on what would be Farley's only SNL show as host. Not unlike his idol John Belushi, he was credited for one more appearance after having left SNL and died at age 33. His death cause was also the same. In the year after Farley's departing, the movie Almost Heroes (1998), where he plays the leading role alongside Matthew Perry was released. He also makes cameo appearances in Dirty Work (1998)Actor
1997 or 1998- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Phil Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. His surname was originally "Hartmann", but he later dropped the second "n". He was one of eight children of Doris Marguerite (Wardell) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann, a salesman. He was of German, Irish, and English descent. The family moved to the United States when Phil was around ten, and he spent the majority of his childhood in Connecticut and Southern California. He later obtained his American citizenship in the early 1990s. He often would visit his homeland of Canada throughout his career, and the City of Brantford even erected a plaque on the Walk of Fame in the town in honor of Phil's career and memory. The Humber College Comedy: Writing & Performance program in Toronto, Ontario, also has an award in Phil's memory that is given out to their Post-Graduate comedy students.
Phil originally studied Graphic Design at California State University. He began to work part time as a graphic artist, designing album covers for such bands as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (see Crosby Stills Nash & Young) and Poco. In 1975, alongside doing album work, Phil joined the California comedy troupe, The Groundlings. While in The Groundlings, Phil worked with Paul Reubens and Jon Lovitz, who became good friends of his until his death. Phil and Paul created the character Pee Wee Herman together, and Phil even had a role on Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986) as pirate Captin' Carl.
In 1986, Phil joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (1975) and was on the show for a record of 8 seasons (which was later broken by Tim Meadows). Phil played a wide range of characters including: Frank Sinatra, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, and many others. He was known to help out other writers who wanted to get their sketches read and onto the show. He held Saturday Night Live (1975) together during his 8-year reign, thus the nickname he garnered while on the show, "The Glue." Phil was also known for his voice work on commercials and cartoons. He was probably most well known for the voices of Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz on the animated comedy The Simpsons (1989). He also provided other minor voices for The Simpsons (1989). Phil left Saturday Night Live (1975) in 1994, and in 1995, was cast in the critically acclaimed NBC show NewsRadio (1995) as arrogant radio show host Bill McNeal.
After Phil's death, Phil's good friend Jon Lovitz attempted to fill the void as Max Lewis on NewsRadio (1995), but the struggling show's ratings dropped, and the show later fizzled out and ended in 1999. Phil had an interesting career in movies, mostly playing supporting characters. He was the lead in Houseguest (1995) and was also in Greedy (1994), Jingle All the Way (1996), Sgt. Bilko (1996), and his last live action film, Small Soldiers (1998). His last role was the English language dub of Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), as the quick-witted cat Jiji, which featured Small Soldiers co-star Kirsten Dunst in the lead voice role.
On May 28th, 1998, Phil was shot to death while sleeping in his Encino, California home by his wife, Brynn Hartman. Brynn left the house and later came back with a friend to show him Phil's body. When her friend went to call 911, Brynn locked herself in the bedroom with Phil's lifeless body and shot herself. It was later discovered by the coroner that Brynn had alcohol, cocaine, and the antidepressant, Zoloft, in her system. They left behind two children, Sean Edward (b. 1988) and Birgen (b. 1992). Phil and Brynn's bodies were cremated and spread upon Catalina Island, just off the coast of California, on June 4, 1998. Phil had specifically stated in his will that he wanted the ashes spread on Catalina Island because it was his favorite holiday getaway as he was an avid boater, surfer and general lover of the sea.
Phil was a very caring and sensitive person and was described as "very sweet and kind of quiet."Actor
1998- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Édouard Molinaro was born on 13 May 1928 in Bordeaux, Gironde, France. He was a director and writer, known for The Birdcage (1996), La Cage aux Folles (1978) and A Mistress for the Summer (1960). He was married to Catherine Molinaro, Marie-Hélène Breillat and Pierrette Carvallo. He died on 7 December 2013 in Paris, France.Director / Writer
2013- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
The incredibly gifted comedienne-actress Anne Meara is known for her comedic efforts alongside husband-comedian, Jerry Stiller; together, they were 'Stiller and Meara'; they were original members of the improvisational company, the Compass Players, which later evolved as the Second City Theater. They gained popularity with their skits on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948), but the act dissolved following the demise of variety television. Meara went on to offer her talents to a variety of television roles, notably the Golden Globe-winning Sally Gallagher in Rhoda (1974), and Veronica Rooney, an outspoken Irish cook in the hit sitcom Archie Bunker's Place (1979). In later years, Meara played reoccurring characters in Sex and the City (1998) and The King of Queens (1998).Actress
2015- Editor
- Editorial Department
- Additional Crew
Ralph Winters and his wife Teddy have five grandchildren. He is a two-time Academy Award-winning editor, an incredibly intelligent, kind, unique and loving man who began using a computer when in his 90s and lived to see the publication of his memoirs, "Some Cutting Remarks: Seventy Years a Film Editor", which he wrote on his own PC. He was highly admired and sought-after by up-and-coming editors for his advice and experience, and always gave of himself to these young people. An interviewer once asked him whether he would someday enjoy directing movies. His answer: "You betcha". Ralph E. Winters was incredibly loved and is desperately missed.Editor
2004- Actor
- Art Department
Daniel Peter "Dan" O'Herlihy was born on 1 May 1919 at Odessa Cottage, Wexford Town, County Wexford (Ireland) to John Robert O'Herlihy, a civil servant from Cork who later worked in the Department of Industry and Commerce, and Ellen (née Hanton). Dan had at least two siblings, a sister and a younger brother (Michael O'Herlihy, who became a television director). The family moved to Dublin when Dan was one year old. Educated at CBS Eblana (Dún Laoghaire Christian Brothers School), as a teenager he developed literary ambitions. Upon entering UCD, he applied to study law but rapidly switched to architecture which allowed him to use his drawing skills. While a student he published political cartoons in Irish newspapers under the initials "TOC".
O'Herlihy decided not to follow in his father's footsteps, forsaking the life of an architect in favour of the acting profession. The tall, distinguished-looking university graduate boasted a rich, resonant voice which enabled him to easily find work in radio plays, as well on the stage. He first came to note as a small part actor with the Gate and Abbey Theatre Players, on occasion putting his architectural qualifications to use as a set designer. His first leading role was in Sean O'Casey's play 'Red Roses for Me' in 1944. During one of his performances in Dublin, he was spotted by the director Carol Reed and cast as an IRA terrorist in Odd Man Out (1947). This, and another London-produced film, Hungry Hill (1947), resulted in good critical notices , prompting another genial filmmaker, Orson Welles, to cast O'Herlihy in the role of Macduff for his Mercury/Republic production of Macbeth (1948). While this enterprise was far from successful, the actor's rugged, bearded appearance sufficiently impressed Luis Buñuel to cast him in the titular role of Robinson Crusoe (1954).
Until the arrival of "Friday", the only other featured character, this definitive version of Daniel Defoe's shipwrecked 17th century mariner was a tour-de-force one man show, a compelling, wordless portrayal of agonised solitude. However, as the Mexican production was considered merely a B-movie in Hollywood, O'Herlihy was forced to invest some of his own money to have the film exhibited in Los Angeles. While he was rewarded with an Oscar nomination, few worthy job offers came his way. For the remainder of the decade, he worked under short-term contracts as a character actor (often billed as "Daniel O'Herlihy") for Universal and 20th Century Fox, typically cast in costume dramas like The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), The Purple Mask (1955) and The Virgin Queen (1955). When movie roles became scarce, he branched out into anthology television, eventually becoming a much sought-after guest star on popular prime time shows like The Untouchables (1959), Bonanza (1959) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964). Work on radio shows, like 'Johnny Dollar', 'Suspense' and 'Lux Radio Theatre', also continued to provide him with a steady source of income.
From the mid-1960s, he was afforded several better film opportunities: first, in a memorable dual role as the sinister, voyeuristic Dr.Caligari AND the handsome psychiatrist treating repressed mental patient Jane Lindstrom (Glynis Johns), in Robert Bloch's off-beat psycho-thriller, The Cabinet of Caligari (1962). Second, he played an anguished U.S. Air Force general contemplating orders to drop a hydrogen bomb over New York, in Sidney Lumet's gripping anti-war drama Fail Safe (1964). He was also, among later big screen appearances, one of many name actors in the star-studded military epic Waterloo (1970) (as Napoleon's "Marshal Ney"); unrecognisable in make-up as a reptilian alien in the 'Star Wars' clone The Last Starfighter (1984); as irredeemable villains in Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) and RoboCop (1987); and as the inscrutable Andrew Packard in Twin Peaks (1990) on television. He continued to alternate film work with acting on stage in Los Angeles and at the Abbey Theater. Dan O'Herlihy died on 17 February 2005, aged 85. He left his papers to the care of University College Dublin (UCD) where he had graduated with a degree in architecture in 1945.Actor
2005- Set Decorator
- Art Director
- Production Designer
Gil Parrondo was born on 17 June 1921 in Luarca, Asturias, Spain. He was a set decorator and art director, known for Patton (1970), The Boys from Brazil (1978) and Tiovivo c. 1950 (2004). He died on 24 December 2016 in Madrid, Spain.Production Designer / Art Director / Set Decorator
2017- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Visual Effects
Stanley Cortez was born Samuel Krantz in New York City, New York, the son of Sarah (Lefkowitz) and Moses/Morris Krantz, Austrian Jewish immigrants. His famous actor brother, born Jacob Krantz, changed his name to Ricardo Cortez in order to acquire a more suitably romantic Hollywood image. Stanley changed his name accordingly. After studies at New York University he embarked on a photographic career, first as assistant to noted portrait photographers Streichan and Bachrach (he designed many of their lavish background sets), then as camera assistant for Pathé Revue and for various Manhattan-based film companies. Grabbing the chance to join Gloria Swanson Productions, Stanley then spent a lengthy apprenticeship in the 1920s and early 1930s learning the intricacies of his craft from such established Hollywood cinematographers as Lee Garmes and Hal Mohr. After moving from studio to studio, either as a camera assistant or shooting screen tests, he was signed to a seven-year contract by Universal in 1936, albeit consigned to its "B" unit. His first film as full director of photography was Four Days Wonder (1936). During World War II, he was assigned to the Army Pictorial Service of the Signals Corps.
Much of his subsequent career was spent on fairly routine and undistinguished second features and it was not until he started working for charismatic filmmakers like Orson Welles and David O. Selznick that he was able to fully develop some of his experimental techniques. One of his low-budget outings, a gothic old-dark-house horror/comedy entitled The Black Cat (1941), rather impressed the genial Mr. Welles who promptly hired him for The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). This was the first of two Cortez films generally regarded as visual masterpieces, with beautiful lighting effects, clever angles and lingering close-ups. Of particular note are the staircase scene and the famous long shot -- via hand-held camera -- of the abandoned mansion. Despite critical plaudits, "Ambersons" was a financial disaster for RKO (it cost $1,1 million and lost $624,000 at the box office) and Cortez was partly blamed for costly delays and extravagant scenes, some 40-50 minutes of which were cut by direct orders from studio boss George Schaefer without consulting either Welles or Cortez. The latter ended up being indirectly censured by receiving lesser assignments. What remained of "Ambersons" has become more appreciated as a sublime visual experience with the passing of time.
The second outstanding Cortez contribution was the chillingly dark, haunting thriller The Night of the Hunter (1955)--a brilliant allegory of good versus evil masterminded by Charles Laughton in his sole directorial effort. Cortez's lighting and use of irises are reminiscent of German expressionist cinema, or, at least, the work of Karl Struss and Charles Rosher on Sunrise (1927). Among many indelible images are the flowing hair of drowned Shelley Winters in the underwater current and the lights flickering across the water in what is an almost surreal nightly landscape.
A third Cortez effort deserving of mention is the superior psychological drama The Three Faces of Eve (1957), his differential lighting for the face of schizophrenic Eve White (Joanne Woodward) effectively contrasting the multiple personalities within her psyche. Sadly, by the end of the decade Cortez's career went into a decline. It continued that way through the 1960s, the quality of his assignments fluctuating wildly between the occasional "A" picture (The Bridge at Remagen (1969)) and Z-grade turkeys like The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966) and The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966).Cinematographer
1998- Costume Designer
- Additional Crew
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
John Mollo was born on 18 March 1931 in Lambeth, London, England, UK. He was a costume designer, known for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Alien (1979). He was married to Louise Alexandra Mary Pongracz and Ann Mollo. He died on 25 October 2017.Costume Designer
2017- Music Department
- Editor
- Producer
Peter Zinner was born on 24 July 1919 in Vienna, Austria. He was an editor and producer, known for The Deer Hunter (1978), The Godfather (1972) and An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). He was married to Christa Zinner. He died on 13 November 2007 in Santa Monica, California, USA.Editor
2007- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Best known as Scotty in Star Trek he was educated at High School in Sarnia, Ontario, where he acted in school productions.
When WWII began he joined the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery eventually obtaining the rank of Captain. He was wounded on D-Day, suffering severe damage to his right middle finger which was removed ahead of first knuckle, then became a flying observer for the rest of the war. His daring aerial maneuvers flying in an observation plane got him known as the craziest pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Once the war ended, he found himself on many other adventures although none of them would come anywhere close to what he experienced before.
He would become a popular voice actor who participated in thousands of CBC programs spread across both radio and television.
Later on, during the mid-1960's, he would develop into the Star Trek great we now know as Montgomery Scott, "Scotty".
In 1946 he won a 2 year scholarship to the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York City and from there went to teach for three years.
In 1953 he returned to Canada and lived in Toronto for 8 years acting on radio, television and some films before moving to Hollywood where he also appeared in a number of popular television series such as the Canadian version of The Howdy Doody Show, Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans, R.C.M.P., Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Hazel, The Gallant Men, Bonanza, The Richard Boone Show, The Outer Limits, Ben Casey, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Fugitive, Laredo, Bewitched, The Virginian, The Man from Uncle, The F.B.I., Peyton Place, Daniel Boone, Marcus Welby M.D., Fantasy Island, Magnum P.I., Danger Bay and The Bold and The Beautiful, while in between he made a return to the stage for various plays.
James Doohan departed the scene at the age of 85 on 20 July 2005.
Many current-day engineers credit Scotty with being their childhood inspiration and in honour of his memory a portion of Doohan's ashes were sprinkled in space by the rocket SpaceLoft XL.Actor
2005- Composer
- Music Department
- Writer
Jóhann Jóhannsson was born on 19 September 1969 in Reykjavík, Iceland. He was a composer and writer, known for Last and First Men (2020), The Theory of Everything (2014) and Sicario (2015). He died on 9 February 2018 in Berlin, Germany.Composer
2018- Editor
- Actress
- Editorial Department
Françoise Bonnot was born on 17 August 1939 in Bois-Colombes, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France. She was an editor and actress, known for Z (1969), Missing (1982) and The Tenant (1976). She was married to Henri Verneuil. She died on 9 June 2018 in Paris, France.Editor
2018- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jerry Orbach was born in the Bronx, New York, the only child of Leon Orbach, a former vaudevillian actor, was a German Jewish immigrant, who was born in Hamburg, Germany, and Emily (nee Olexy), a radio singer, was born in Pennsylvania to immigrant Polish-Lithuanian Roman Catholic parents, Alexander Olexy and Susanna (nee Klauba). The family moved frequently. He spent part of his childhood in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania and eventually settled in Waukegan, Illinois, where he went to high school.
The constant moving made him the new kid on the block and forced him to become "a chameleon" to blend in his new settings. He studied drama at the University of Illinois and at Northwestern University. He then went to study acting in New York and got constant work in musicals. He slowly pushed to get acting roles in television and films after being overlooked due to his musical roots.
Orbach died at age 69 on December 28, 2004, after a decade-long battle with prostate cancer. His widow, Elaine Cancilla Orbach died on April 1, 2009, from pneumonia. Orbach and Cancilla both predeceased Orbach's mother, Emily Orbach, who died on July 28, 2012, at the age of 101.Actor
2005- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Maurice Pialat was a French film director. Film critics have noted the naturalist style of his films, and their autobiographical elements.
Pialat obtained his first camera when only 16-years-old, but his early career involved creating documentary short films. His ambition was to become a painter and not a filmmaker. He made his feature film debut at the age of 43 with the drama film "Naked Childhood" (1968), concerning a child of the French foster care system who is moved through a series of foster families. The film also explored aspects of French working-class life in the 1960s, while being apolitical.
Pialat's second feature film was "We Won't Grow Old Together" (1972),concerning a loveless marriage. Lead actor Jean Yanne won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his role in the film. Pialat's third feature film was the "The Mouth Agape" (1974), depicting in realistic fashion a woman struggling with a terminal illness. The film also dealt with the escapades of the woman's husband and son in their attempts to find new sexual partners. The film was noted for its lack of sentimentality, and incorporated experiences that Pialat had from the death of his own mother.
Pialat's fourth feature film was the teen drama "Graduate First" (1978). It dealt with teenagers from working class families dealing with the end of their school lives, with their limited prospects of passing their final exams and gaining a Baccalauréat academic qualification, and with the ominous specter of high unemployment in northern France in their immediate future.
Pialat's fifth film was "Loulou" (1980), concerning the self-destructive affair between a married woman and a lower-class criminal (the eponymous Loulou) who has just been released from prison. The film dealt with the issues of pregnancy and abortion in a realistic manner. The film was nominated for the Golden Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Pialat's sixth film was "To Our Loves" (1983), and concerned the sexuality of a 15-year-old girl. The film's protagonist Suzanne (played by Sandrine Bonnaire) becomes increasingly promiscuous, as sex is the only pleasure in her life. But at the same time struggles with an inability to feel genuine love for any of her sexual partners, struggles with growing feelings of boredom and frustration about other aspects of her life, and even struggles with suicidal thoughts. The film won the César Award for Best Film, while film critics noted that the film's message was that happiness was rare and sorrow last forever.
Pialat's seventh film was the crime drama "Police" (1985). It concerned a jaded police detective investigating a drug smuggling ring, while being romantically attracted to the girlfriend of a drug smuggler. The film's lead actor Gérard Depardieu won the Best Actor of the Venice Film Festival for this role.
Pialat's eighth film was the romantic drama "Under the Sun of Satan" (1986), an adaptation of the 1926 novel by Georges Bernanos (1888-1948). The film dealt with a Catholic priest who falls in love with a female murderer. The film won the Palme d'Or award at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, despite being seen as controversial due to its subject matter. It was the first time in 21 years that a French film won the Palme d'Or.
Pialat's ninth film was the biographical film "Van Gogh" (1991), concerning the last months in the life of painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) and dealing with van Gogh's relationship with his few close associates. The film dealt primarily with van Gogh's "difficult personal relationships and declining mental state", and not with his paintings. Film critics commented that it successfully covered the artist's humanity, without being either melodramatic or sensationalist.
Pialat's tenth was "The Son Of..." (1995), concerning the family life of a 4-year-old boy. The titular boy's parents are divorced, and the boy is raised by a single father who has an unsteady love life. The film was poorly received compared to Pialat's previous works, and Pialat had plans to re-edit the film to achieve better results. Pialat's increasingly poor health aborted these plans, and Pialat retired from filmmaking in 1995, at the age of 70.
Pialat died in January, 2003, at the age of 77. His work is considered unique among the French directors, but he has had few imitators. Film critic Kent Jones has commented that Pialat always marched to the beat of a different drummer, and never cared whether anyone marched beside or behind him.Director / Writer
2003- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Berlanga commenced his studies in Valencia in1928, although in 1929 his family sent him and his brother Fernando (due to a lung disease) to the Beau-soleil hospital school in Switzerland. In 1930, he returned to the San José School in Valencia where he stayed until 1931, the year in which the Jesuits were expelled from Spain. In 1936, while he was studying at the Academia Cabanilles, the Spanish Civil War began, and he saw active service in the riflemen's 40th Division. After the war Franco's dictatorship imprisoned his father, then a member of the Spanish Parliament for the 'Frente Popular' (Popular Front). In an attempt to improve his father's situation in jail, he joined the División Azul (Blue Division) in 1941, and fought in Russia at the Novgorod front, returning to Spain in 1942.
Towards 1943 he began to take an interest in poetry and cinema, and started to write a screenplay entitled 'Cajón de perro', together with his first cinematographic reviews. In 1947 he entered the 'Instituto de Investigaciones y Experiencias Cinematográficas' (IIEC) (Institute of Cinematographic Research and Experiences). During his second year at the institute, he filmed a short entitled 'Paseo por una guerra antigua', {which he finished with the help of Juan Antonio Bardem, Florentino Soria and Agustín Navarro}. In 1951, he directed (together with Bardem) the film Esa pareja feliz (1953), starring Fernando Fernán Gómez and Elvira Quintillá.
After being expelled from the Falange, Berlanga started to adopt an individualistic and libertarian position, far removed from politics and considered fairly permissive. However, his open and conciliatory nature kept him out of trouble during the post-war period. Sadly his father died six months after being released from prison.
Berlanga and Bardem continued to collaborate on Welcome Mr. Marshall! (1953); this film received an International Award and a Special Mention Award at the Cannes Festival. It was also shown at the Venice Festival, where the president of the Jury, Edward G. Robinson, expressed his indignation at what he interpreted as an anti-American film.
Berlanga's conceptual and political audacity, so evident in Welcome Mr. Marshall! (1953) continued in his other films during the 50s, which tended not to be very well received by the censor. In fact, his film Los jueves, milagro (1957), was modified by the censors and was delayed for several years before its eventual release.
In 1955 he participated in the 'Conversaciones de Salamanca' (Salamanca's Discussions) where the future of Spanish cinema was debated. In 1956 he filmed Calabuch (1956), and in 1958 began lecturing at the IIEC. His subsequent film Se vende un tranvía (1959) was his first professional liaison with Rafael Azcona. Their next joint venture was Placido (1961), which received an Oscar nomination in 1963. That same year, Berlanga made of his best films: The Executioner (1963); however, his cruel portrait of Spanish society didn't please the pro-Franco authorities, although the film was well-received at the Venice Festival. In 1973 he went to Paris to begin filming _Grandeur nature (1973)_, another polemic film, focussing this time on the fetishism of a man who falls in love with a doll.
Several years later, after Franco's death, he filmed a trilogy comprising La escopeta nacional (1978), Patrimonio nacional (1981) and Nacional III (1982), where he clarified the disorders evident in the Spanish upper middle-class upon being confronted with a new political status quo. Following the same theme he filmed La vaquilla (1985), set in the Spanish Civil War and also beset by difficulties with the censors.
The quality of his cinematography and independence of criteria was welcomed during the years following the end of the dictatorship. In 1978 he was made president of the 'Filmoteca Nacional' (National Archive), in 1980 he won the 'Premio Nacional de Cinematografía' (National Cinematography Award), in 1982 he received the 'Medalla de Oro a las Bellas Artes' (Gold Medal to Arts), in 1986 he won the 'Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes' (Príncipe de Asturias Arts' Award), in 1988 he was named member of the 'Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando' (San Fernando's Art's Real Academy), and in 1997 he was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa title by the 'Universidad Politécnica de Valencia' (Valencia's Politechnical University). In addition he was made president of the 'Asociación de Titulados en Cinematografía' (Graduates in Cinematography's Association) and he was the first president of the Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de España (Spanish Academy of Arts and Cinematographic Sciences).
In 1994, his film Todos a la cárcel (1993) won three Goya Awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Sound. In 2002, the 'Asociación de Directores de Cine' (Cinema Directors' Association) gave him an honorary award.Writer / Director
2010- Raf Vallone was an internationally acclaimed Italian movie star known for his rugged good looks. The athletic Vallone, a former soccer player who often was compared to Burt Lancaster, was born Raffaele Vallone in 1916 in Tropea in Calabria, Italy, the son of a prominent lawyer and his aristocratic wife. At the University of Turin, Vallone took degrees in law and philosophy and then entered his father's law firm.
Vallone played semi-professional soccer but never realized his dream of becoming a professional athlete. Subsequently, he became a sports reporter for L'Unita, a communist newspaper, and also a drama critic for La Stampa. During World War II, Vallone served with the anti-Fascist resistance.
His first job as a movie actor was a bit part in We the Living (1942) (aka, "We the Living"), but Vallone was not serious about acting as a career. Hired as a researcher on a film about labor unrest, director Giuseppe De Santis cast Vallone as a soldier competing with Vittorio Gassman for the love of Silvana Mangano in what became the neo-realist classic Bitter Rice (1949) ("Bitter Rice"). The film propelled Vallone, pronounced a natural actor by De Santis, into international stardom and ended his journalism career.
Vallone became a major star in Italy in the 1950s and then a player in the global film industry, making movies in Italian, French and English. Vallone achieved popularity with American audiences in the 1960s, starting with his supporting roles in Two Women (1960) ("Two Women") and El Cid (1961), both co-starring Sophia Loren. Other major actresses he co-starred with on film and stage included Gina Lollobrigida, Anna Magnani, Melina Mercouri, Simone Signoret, and Elena Varzi, to whom he was married for 52 years, until his death in 2002.
Vallone's first "American" role was as the incest-minded Italian-American longshoreman Eddie Carbone in Sidney Lumet's film of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge (1962) ("A View from the Bridge"). Other prominent roles in American films included Otto Preminger's The Cardinal (1963), Roger Corman's The Secret Invasion (1964), Harlow (1965) starring Carroll Baker, and Henry Hathaway's Nevada Smith (1966).
Vallone played many priests during his long career, culminating with the cardinal-confessor of mobster Michael Corleone, a priest who becomes pope and is murdered in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III (1990). Appearing for the other side, Vallone was memorable as the Mafia boss Altabani in the original The Italian Job (1969).Actor
2002 - Set Decorator
- Art Department
Stuart A. Reiss was born on 15 July 1921 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a set decorator, known for Fantastic Voyage (1966), The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971). He died on 21 December 2014.Set Decorator
2015- Editor
- Editorial Department
- Producer
Richard Marks was born on 10 November 1943 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an editor and producer, known for As Good as It Gets (1997), Dick Tracy (1990) and Apocalypse Now (1979). He was married to Barbara Marks. He died on 31 December 2018 in New York City, New York, USA.Editor
2019- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Theadora Van Runkle was born on 27 March 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. She was a costume designer, known for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and The Godfather Part II (1974). She was married to Bruce McBroom and Robert Van Runkle. She died on 4 November 2011 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Costume Designer
2011- Editor
- Editorial Department
- Director
Ray Lovejoy was born on 18 February 1939. He was an editor and director, known for Aliens (1986), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Krull (1983). He died on 19 October 2001 in London, England, UK.Editor
2001- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Francis Lai was born on 26 April 1932 in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France. He was a composer and actor, known for Love Story (1970), Stranger Than Fiction (2006) and Kingpin (1996). He was married to Dagmar Puetz. He died on 7 November 2018 in Paris, France.Composer
2018- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Basil Poledouris was born on August 21, 1945 in Kansas City. He started taking piano lessons when he was 7 years old. Eventually, he went on to become a student at USC, where he studied the arts of directing, cinematography, editing, sound and, of course, music. It was also at USC he met John Milius and Randal Kleiser, both acclaimed directors with whom he would work in the future. Even though Basil had already composed music to John Milius' much talked about Big Wednesday (1978), his real breakthrough came in 1982 when he composed the score to Milius' epic fantasy movie, Conan the Barbarian (1982). The powerful themes that Basil created for this movie opened the eyes of the movie industry, as well as the public, and it is arguably one of the best soundtracks of the 80s. Basil went on to make soundtracks for such movies as: RoboCop (1987) (the second Paul Verhoeven movie of many for which he has composed, the first being 1985's Flesh+Blood (1985)), Lonesome Dove (1989) (for which he won an Emmy), Farewell to the King (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Free Willy (1993), in Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (1997) with Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards and Les Misérables (1998).Composer
2006- Actor
- Producer
Roddy Piper was born Roderick George Toombs on April 17, 1954 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. He was a pro wrestler from 1973-1987 in the NWA, Pacific Northwest, California. He was a longtime mainstay in the WWF, and was one of the biggest "bad guys" in the WWF during the early '80s, before becoming a fan favorite in the late '80s. He became infamous for his mouth as much as his skills in the ring. He hosted Pipers Pit, which saluted the bad guys of professional wrestling, the most famous of which involved him smashing Jimmy Superfly Snuka over the head with a coconut. He was wrestling's most popular villain because of his feud with Hulk Hogan that culminated at Wrestlemania I. He went into semi-retirement after Wrestlemania III, when he beat and shaved the late Adrian Adonis.
He continued to wrestle into the '90s, but spent much of his time doing color commentary for WWF TV. In January 1992, he won the WWF Intercontinental Title from "The Mountie", the only title he would ever hold in his storied WWF career. After losing the title three months later, he left the WWF, and only made the occasional appearance in the ring over the next few years. In 1995, he had a stint as the WWF's interim president. He later resurfaced in WCW during the late '90s to continue his feud with "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, until the company's demise in 2001.
Roddy Piper appeared in many action films. He died of a heart attack on July 31, 2015, in Hollywood, California.Actor
2015- Actor
- Stunts
- Director
With a decades-long career as an actor and stuntman, Verne Troyer was best known for playing "Mini-Me," Dr. Evil's smaller and more concentrated pure evil protégé, in the hit comedies Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), and for his role in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001). Troyer, born in Sturgis, Michigan, had always dreamed of getting into showbiz. Shortly after his high school graduation in 1987, he moved with some friends to Arlington, Texas, where, in 1993, he got his first break as a stunt double for a 9-month-old baby on the film Baby's Day Out (1994). In his early years of film and television work, he often portrayed animals or small children.Actor
2018- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Director
Syrian-American Moustapha Akkad produced a series of "Halloween" movies but it was The Lion of the Desert (1980) and The Message (1976), on the history of Islam, into which he poured his heart. It was reportedly difficult for him to make it in Hollywood but no one could deny his talent as a director and producer. He was killed along with his daughter, Rima Al Akkad Monla, in a bombing in 2005 in Amman, Jordan.Producer / Director
2005- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Nelsan Ellis was an award-winning American film and television actor and playwright, perhaps best known as Lafayette Reynolds on HBO's True Blood (2008).
Nelsan was born on November 30, 1977, in Harvey, Illinois, the son of Jackie Ellis and Tommie Lee Thompson. Following his parents' divorce, Ellis and his mother moved to Alabama. He moved back to Illinois as a teenager, and graduated from Thornridge High School in Dolton, Illinois, in 1997. Ellis attended Juilliard and, while there, wrote a semi-autobiographical play titled Ugly that was performed at the school and later won the Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award. Ellis won a 2008 Satellite Award from the International Press Academy for best supporting actor in a television series for his role as Lafayette Reynolds in HBO's True Blood. Ellis won the "Brink of Fame: Actor" award at the 2009 NewNowNext Awards.
Tragically, Ellis died at the age of 39 on July 8, 2017, in Los Angeles, California, after complications from heart failure. His family released a statement on July 10, saying that Nelsan had been trying to quit alcohol in the days before his death, and suggesting that he suffered from alcohol withdrawal syndrome, leading to his heart failure.Actor
2017- Editor
- Sound Department
- Editorial Department
Gerry Hambling was born on 14 June 1926 in Croydon, Surrey, England, UK. He was an editor, known for Mississippi Burning (1988), Midnight Express (1978) and Evita (1996). He was married to Margaret Speakman. He died on 5 February 2013 in Burwell, Cambridgeshire, England, UK.Editor
2013- Editor
- Director
- Editorial Department
Educated at UCLA, Harold F. Kress entered the film business in the late 1930s as an editor. Although he directed a few documentaries and made a stab at directing features, his real niche was as an editor, and he became one of the most respected editors in the industry, winning an Academy Award for editing How the West Was Won (1962) and another for The Towering Inferno (1974).Editor
1999- Art Director
- Production Designer
- Art Department
The distinguished art director and production designer Edward Carfagno had a long career under contract to MGM (1943-1970). During that time, he worked on some of the studio's most prestigious films and established a reputation for creating an authentic and accurate period feel. He frequently worked on costume epics made by MGM at Cinecitta in Rome. Carfagno was nominated thirteen times for Academy Awards, winning for The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), sharing with Cedric Gibbons, Edwin B. Willis and F. Keogh Gleason; Julius Caesar (1953)with Gibbons, Gleason and Hugh Hunt); and Ben-Hur (1959)with Gibbons, Hunt and William A. Horning). His other notable contributions include Quo Vadis (1951), Soylent Green (1973) and Pale Rider (1985) (one of five Clint Eastwood-directed films he worked on as set designer).
A graduate from the University of Southern California, Carfagno started work at MGM in 1939 as a draftsman on The Wizard of Oz (1939), quickly working his way up to production designer. His first fully credited film in that capacity was the Lucille Ball comedy Best Foot Forward (1943). Edward Carfagno was inducted into the Art Director's Guild Hall of Fame in 2007.Art Director / Production Designer
1997- Art Director
- Production Designer
- Art Department
Alexander Golitzen was a legendary art director, a field in which most worker's names remain relatively unknown. His prolific work in hundreds of films, predominantly at Universal, made his name familiar to many film-goers, at least among those who read credits. Possibly only Cedric Gibbons, at MGM, shared a similar fame. Golitzen was nominated for Academy Awards fourteen times, winning on three occasions.
Golitzen's family, noble descendants of princes of Lithuania, fled Moscow following the Russian Revolution, so he found himself in America at the age of 16. The family settled in Seattle and Alexander earned a degree in architecture from the University of Washington. He moved to Los Angeles in 1933 and became an assistant to the fellow Russian-born art director, Alexander Toluboff at MGM working as an illustrator for Queen Christina (1933). He became an art director in 1935, and went on to work at various studios for independent producers, including Samuel Goldwyn and Walter Wanger. His older sister, Natalie Galitzine, appeared in two Hollywood films, including Cecil B. DeMille's King of Kings.
Golitzen was Oscar-nominated for his work on Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940) before Wanger brought Golitzen to work with him at Universal on the film Arabian Nights (1942) for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination. He continued to show his flair for the design of Technicolor films at this studio, and won his first academy award the very next year for Phantom of the Opera (1943).
In 1954 Alexander was named Supervising Art Director at Universal, a title he held until his retirement in 1974. Although considered a genius for his work in color films, with his contributions adding considerably to the impact of diverse film subjects, including westerns, musicals, and even the science fiction film, This Island Earth (1955), he was also adept in black & white, earning an Oscar for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Golitzen also did some notable work for television series such as The Twilight Zone (1959) and One Step Beyond (1959). He retired on a high note, with his very last work, on the film Earthquake (1974), being Oscar-nominated.Art Director
2005- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Masaki Kobayashi was born on 14 February 1916 in Hokkaido, Japan. He was a director and writer, known for Harakiri (1962), Samurai Rebellion (1967) and The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961). He died on 4 October 1996 in Tokyo, Japan.Director
1996- Born in Berlin, Germany. After her role in Metropolis (1927) she made a string of movies in which she almost always had the starring role, easily making the transition to sound films. Her last film was An Ideal Spouse (1935) which was released in 1935. She died on June 11th 1996 of heart failure in Ascona, Switzerland.Actress
1996 - Writer
- Director
- Actor
Born on November 6, 1947 in Shanghai, China, Edward Yang has become one of the most talented international filmmakers of his generation. Along with Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Tsai Ming-Liang, Yang ranks among the leading artists of the Taiwanese New Wave, and one of the world's most brilliant auteurs. Growing up in Taipei, Taiwan, he was very interested in Japanese Manga/Comic Books, which led to the writing of his own screenplays. After studying engineering in Taiwan, he enrolled in the Electrical Engineering program at The University of Florida, receiving his Masters degree in 1974 while doing work with The Center for Informatics Research. Yang did not pursue a PhD and instead attended USC Film School briefly, but dropped out after feeling disenchanted by the program's commerce-and-business focus and his own misgivings of pursuing a Film Career. Upon working in Seattle with microcomputers and Defense software, an encounter with a piece by Werner Herzog (Aguirre, Wrath of God) gave him inspiration to observe classics in world cinema and reignited his interest in Film. He eventually wrote the script and served as a production aide on the Hong Kong TV movie, The Winter of 1905 (1981). Although he returned to Taiwan to direct a number of television shows, his break came in 1982 with the direction and writing of the film short, Desires (1982), in the seminal Taiwanese New Wave collaboration In Our Time(1982). While Hou Hsiao-Hsien's movies dealt primarily with history or Taiwan's countryside, Yang created films analyzing and revealing the many themes of city and urban life. His first major piece was That Day On The Beach (1983), a modernist narrative reflecting on couples and family. He followed with the urban films Taipei Story (1984), a reflection on urban-Taiwan through a couple - where he cast fellow auteur Hou Hsiao Hsien as the lead - and The Terrorizer (1986), a complex multi-narrative tale. In Yang's brilliant A Brighter Summer Day (1991), a sprawling examination of teen gangs, societal clashes, the influence of American pop-culture and youth, his first authentic masterpiece was crafted. He has followed with the satires A Confucian Confusion (1995), and Mahjong (1996), films that looked at the struggle between the modern and the traditional, the relationship between business and art, and how capitalistic greed may corrupt, influence, or effect art. It is, however, his most recent film, Yi Yi (2000), that is considered his magnum opus, an epic story about the Jian family seen through their different perspectives. The three-hour masterwork begins with a wedding, ends with a funeral, and examines all areas of human life in a variety of interesting, artistic ways. He has also collaborated with fellow auteur, novelist, and screenwriter Nien-Jen Wu on the piece, casting him as one of the leads, NJ. Yang's filmmaking style looks at the uncertain future of modernizing Taiwan in an enlightening manner, and his vision is one of the most original operating in world cinema today.Writer / Director
2007- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born Kätherose Derr in Wiesbaden, Karin Dor studied acting and ballet at school and began in films as an extra. The attractive redhead made an indelible impression on Austrian director Harald Reinl (who became her first husband in 1954) and this paved the way to higher profile roles. Her first significant featured appearance was in Reinl's melodrama Der schweigende Engel (1954). Karin subsequently shared top billing in a classroom drama about wayward matriculation students, Ihre große Prüfung (1954). During the initial segment of her career she played nice girls, mainly wide-eyed ingénues, innocent victims and assorted naive juveniles in war and period dramas (As Long as You Live (1955)), Heimatfilms (Almenrausch und Edelweiß (1957)) and operettas (The White Horse Inn (1960)).
By 1960, a more glamorous, lithe and sensual Karin had graduated to juicer roles as heroines in Edgar Wallace potboilers (beginning with Der grüne Bogenschütze (1961)) and a series of Karl May European westerns, invariably directed by Reinl and co-starring Tarzan actor Lex Barker (a combination which proved equally successful for other crime/sci-fi franchises, including The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (1962)). Many of these pictures enjoyed only limited release and were rarely exhibited outside Germany.
Karin succeeded at last to break her stereotyping by playing a pathological serial killer wielding a cutthroat razor in another Wallace/Reinl outing, Room 13 (1964), and - for a total change of pace -- essayed Brunhilde in a two-part filming of the epic 'Die Nibelungen' (also directed by Reinl). With her international appeal now widening, she appeared in The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), a British-West German co-production, as a scientist's daughter menaced by the titular villain. To follow was arguably her best-known international role as an early 'Bond girl', Helga Brandt (alias Number Eleven), a SPECTRE operative whose failure to eliminate J.B. results in her being dropped into a piranha-infested pool by super villain Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) in You Only Live Twice (1967). She was then engaged by Alfred Hitchcock for the part of Cuban resistance leader Juanita de Cordoba in Topaz (1969) in which her character came to a similarly sticky end. Karin's career never quite recovered from this director's rare box-office aberration. British Times reviewer and Hitchcock specialist John Russell Taylor described the picture as "generally flat, undistinguished, and lacking in any sign of positive interest or involvement on his (Hitchcock's) part". In the wake of Topaz, Karin's screen appearances became infrequent, except for a couple of guest spots on American crime shows, followed by an of unsuccessful feature film comeback attempt in the incongruous thriller Warhead (1977). She was latterly seen on German television in several episodes of Rosamunde Pilcher (1993). Karin's third husband was actor and stuntman George Robotham who predeceased her in 2007.Actress
2017- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Elem Klimov was born on 9 July 1933 in Stalingrad, Nizhne-Volzhskiy kray, RSFSR, USSR [now Volgograd, Volgogradskaya oblast, Russia]. He was a director and actor, known for Come and See (1985), Rasputin (1981) and Pokhozhdeniya zubnogo vracha (1965). He was married to Larisa Shepitko. He died on 26 October 2003 in Moscow, Russia.Director
2003