Sally Kellerman, who was Oscar nominated for her supporting role as Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in Robert Altman’s “Mash” feature film, died Thursday in Woodland Hills, Calif. She was 84.
Her publicist Alan Eichler confirmed her death, and her daughter Claire added that she had been suffering from dementia for the past five years.
Among her other roles were a cameo in Altman’s “The Player,” a professor in Rodney Dangerfield’s “Back to School” and a Starfleet officer in the “Star Trek” episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”
The willowy blonde actress with the characteristically throaty voice appeared in two Altman films in 1970; the other was the more experimental “Brewster McCloud,” in which she starred with Bud Cort and Michael Murphy. In this film, which did not have a conventional narrative, Kellerman played Louise, the mother of Cort’s bewinged character, Brewster.
She next starred opposite Alan Arkin...
Her publicist Alan Eichler confirmed her death, and her daughter Claire added that she had been suffering from dementia for the past five years.
Among her other roles were a cameo in Altman’s “The Player,” a professor in Rodney Dangerfield’s “Back to School” and a Starfleet officer in the “Star Trek” episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”
The willowy blonde actress with the characteristically throaty voice appeared in two Altman films in 1970; the other was the more experimental “Brewster McCloud,” in which she starred with Bud Cort and Michael Murphy. In this film, which did not have a conventional narrative, Kellerman played Louise, the mother of Cort’s bewinged character, Brewster.
She next starred opposite Alan Arkin...
- 2/24/2022
- by Carmel Dagan
- Variety Film + TV
Mal Z. Lawrence, whose defiantly old-school Borscht Belt stand-up comedy delighted audiences and happily surprised critics when the Catskills on Broadway revue became a hit in 1991, died Monday at a hospice facility in Delray Beach, Florida. He was 88.
His death was announced to The New York Times by his talent agent Alison Chaplin.
The comedian Marilyn Michaels, who co-starred in Catskills on Broadway, wrote in a Facebook tribute, “The passing of Mal Z Lawrence is cause for great sadness, as he was a terrific talent and a very funny guy.. A true Bon Vivant. Attention must be paid! …Rip Mal Z.. you are making the angels laugh.”
Born Manny Miller in the Bronx, Lawrence became interested in comedy during an early-1950s Army stint. Performing for other soldiers as half of a duo patterned on Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, Lawrence soon played the Jewish resorts of New York’s...
His death was announced to The New York Times by his talent agent Alison Chaplin.
The comedian Marilyn Michaels, who co-starred in Catskills on Broadway, wrote in a Facebook tribute, “The passing of Mal Z Lawrence is cause for great sadness, as he was a terrific talent and a very funny guy.. A true Bon Vivant. Attention must be paid! …Rip Mal Z.. you are making the angels laugh.”
Born Manny Miller in the Bronx, Lawrence became interested in comedy during an early-1950s Army stint. Performing for other soldiers as half of a duo patterned on Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, Lawrence soon played the Jewish resorts of New York’s...
- 9/3/2021
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
For a certain generation of women, director Susan Seidelman’s second feature, “Desperately Seeking Susan,” is a formative text, an indelible record of New York in the ‘80s, from Madonna’s iconic hair bow to Rosanna Arquette’s spirited performance as the lead. With its cast of New York underground habitués, and fizzy pace set to the tune of Madonna’s “Into the Groove,” “Desperately Seeking Susan” was a fashion-forward change of pace from the teen comedies and slick action fare of the time.
Seidelman’s first feature, the scrappy microbudget “Smithereens,” shocked everyone when it was selected as one of the first American independent films to be accepted into official competition at the Cannes Film Festival. With a cast that included proto-punk rocker Richard Hell, the 1982 “Smithereens” captured the East Village in all its grungy, pre-gentrification glory, and has become a cult classic.
A die-hard New Yorker, Seidelman never felt comfortable in Hollywood.
Seidelman’s first feature, the scrappy microbudget “Smithereens,” shocked everyone when it was selected as one of the first American independent films to be accepted into official competition at the Cannes Film Festival. With a cast that included proto-punk rocker Richard Hell, the 1982 “Smithereens” captured the East Village in all its grungy, pre-gentrification glory, and has become a cult classic.
A die-hard New Yorker, Seidelman never felt comfortable in Hollywood.
- 3/16/2021
- by Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
Susan ("Desperately Seeking Susan") Seidelman has spent her Aarp-eligible years making movies for that oft-ignored corner of the filmgoing public -- her Aarp-eligible peers. She tries her best to give a little R-rated edge to an audience that is too often served warmed-over mush.
So "Boynton Beach Club" was a retirement community romantic comedy that was as frank about sex as any movie Dyan Cannon made in the '70s. And Seidelman's latest, "The Hot Flashes," squeezes in a sex scene and plenty of ribald remarks in between heaping helpings of formulaic sports comedy cheese.
It's a "Best of Times" about menopausal ex-high school basketball players who take on the current crop of state champ teens in their small Texas town, all in the name of saving the local mammogram-mobile. And the movie is a golden opportunity for actresses who have hit Hollywood's "hard-to-employ" age to try their hands at Southern-fried wisecracks.
So "Boynton Beach Club" was a retirement community romantic comedy that was as frank about sex as any movie Dyan Cannon made in the '70s. And Seidelman's latest, "The Hot Flashes," squeezes in a sex scene and plenty of ribald remarks in between heaping helpings of formulaic sports comedy cheese.
It's a "Best of Times" about menopausal ex-high school basketball players who take on the current crop of state champ teens in their small Texas town, all in the name of saving the local mammogram-mobile. And the movie is a golden opportunity for actresses who have hit Hollywood's "hard-to-employ" age to try their hands at Southern-fried wisecracks.
- 7/11/2013
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Pop2it
Susan Seidelman is one of the few women directors who is still making films and who began when I began in the business. In other words, she is my contemporary. Her first film, Smithereens (1982), was a defining film for me as I had just moved to New York (to work for ABC Video) and this was a definitive New York movie. The second, Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), was even more defining. Starring Madonna who lived a few blocks away from Susan herself who also knew the music scene where Madonna was just beginning to make a name, the film shares a certain theme...a bored suburbanite girl was the impetus to make both. Susan S. and I were both bored suburbanite girls looking for a way out...She went to Nyu film school and I moved to the east coast for my university studies.
In 1993 Susan made an extraordinary short, The Dutch Master, a part of Tales of Erotica produced by the German producer Regina Zeigler and made up of shorts by such directors as Bob Rafelson and Ken Russell. Not only does Susan have a filmography that surpasses the 3 to 4 that usually top off the filmographies of most other women directors, but she remains in the top tier of truly independent filmmakers.
Her last two films were Boynton Beach Club (2005) which did fine under the sewardship of Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films. It played the Paris Theater in N.Y. for several weeks and fared well in L.A. at the NuArt and in the Valley as well as in the heartland. Its investors were happy and she was happy to find the audience for this story of seniors in a retirement community who were dating and interested in love and sex.
Mark Urman released her last film Musical Chairs (2011) through Paladin. Unfortunately it opened the same weekend in the same multiplex as The Hunger Games which "proceeded to predictably beat the stuffing out of the box office, scoring $155 million, the third highest opening weekend in history. "(The Playlist) That was not so good for Musical Chairs. What's worse, or I may be wrong, it had no international sales representation. The film had no "names" and she was unavailable to promote the film as it rolled out theatrically because she was already in production filming The Hot Flashes.
Which brings us to the current film The Hot Flashes, which does have international representation (Lightning Entertainment) and will premiere at Afm, screening for U.S. and other distributor/ buyers on November 3 at 1pm and November 5 at 11 am.
There will also be a panel discussion with all the actresses -- Brooke Shields, Daryl Hannah, Virginia Madsen, Wanda Sykes and Camryn Manheim -- on November 2nd at 2:30. Eric Roberts also stars in the film.
Here's the brief imdb logline: An unlikely basketball team of unappreciated middle-aged Texas women, all former high school champs, challenge the current arrogant high school girls' state champs to a series of games to raise money for breast cancer prevention. Sparks fly as these marginalized women go to comic extremes to prove themselves on and off the court, and become a media sensation."
Lightning came in early with a minimum guarantee based on the script and package (Susan and the stellar cast). They believe in the film though the biggest challenge in the U.S. will be finding that underserved audience, not for art films but for a film about heartland women of a certain age showing they can still struff their stuff.
When Susan started out 30 years ago, there was a greater variety of studio films than there are today. With the likes Jim Brooks or Woody Allen making fun, intelligent movies, not arty but character driven, both studios and audiences were in sync. Today it is no longer the case, though Alexander Payne may still fit that profile, there is not much in the middle between the big Hollywood movies and the smaller art house fare.
From directing the pilot and certain episodes of Sex and the City, she knows this film is not for the upper middle class ladies who like Manolo Blahnik shoes. This is about small town, working class women who get together to save the local mobile clinic that gives mammograms by playing basketball which will also prove that they still have "it". Her target audience is middle America filmgoers rather than the art film lovers on the east and west coasts. She recognizes that the film is very dependent on marketing and on having money for marketing.
Partnerships and alliances have been made with the American Cancer Society, Wmba, Harley Davidison, Butterball Turkey who can put in some P&A and/ or in-kind advertising and promotion. This strategy was in place at the start of the film's life. Today Title 9 also encourages girls to go into sports, another area which has opened up only recently.
When Susan is not directing features, she directs TV and teaches a directing seminar at Nyu. To have been able to sustain
She truly hopes that with the current changes going on now in the film world that the women who have broken down some barriers will keep their collective feet in the door and that the changes will make it easier for women to sustain careers in directing as she has been lucky enough to have done...30 years and still going strong.
In 1993 Susan made an extraordinary short, The Dutch Master, a part of Tales of Erotica produced by the German producer Regina Zeigler and made up of shorts by such directors as Bob Rafelson and Ken Russell. Not only does Susan have a filmography that surpasses the 3 to 4 that usually top off the filmographies of most other women directors, but she remains in the top tier of truly independent filmmakers.
Her last two films were Boynton Beach Club (2005) which did fine under the sewardship of Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films. It played the Paris Theater in N.Y. for several weeks and fared well in L.A. at the NuArt and in the Valley as well as in the heartland. Its investors were happy and she was happy to find the audience for this story of seniors in a retirement community who were dating and interested in love and sex.
Mark Urman released her last film Musical Chairs (2011) through Paladin. Unfortunately it opened the same weekend in the same multiplex as The Hunger Games which "proceeded to predictably beat the stuffing out of the box office, scoring $155 million, the third highest opening weekend in history. "(The Playlist) That was not so good for Musical Chairs. What's worse, or I may be wrong, it had no international sales representation. The film had no "names" and she was unavailable to promote the film as it rolled out theatrically because she was already in production filming The Hot Flashes.
Which brings us to the current film The Hot Flashes, which does have international representation (Lightning Entertainment) and will premiere at Afm, screening for U.S. and other distributor/ buyers on November 3 at 1pm and November 5 at 11 am.
There will also be a panel discussion with all the actresses -- Brooke Shields, Daryl Hannah, Virginia Madsen, Wanda Sykes and Camryn Manheim -- on November 2nd at 2:30. Eric Roberts also stars in the film.
Here's the brief imdb logline: An unlikely basketball team of unappreciated middle-aged Texas women, all former high school champs, challenge the current arrogant high school girls' state champs to a series of games to raise money for breast cancer prevention. Sparks fly as these marginalized women go to comic extremes to prove themselves on and off the court, and become a media sensation."
Lightning came in early with a minimum guarantee based on the script and package (Susan and the stellar cast). They believe in the film though the biggest challenge in the U.S. will be finding that underserved audience, not for art films but for a film about heartland women of a certain age showing they can still struff their stuff.
When Susan started out 30 years ago, there was a greater variety of studio films than there are today. With the likes Jim Brooks or Woody Allen making fun, intelligent movies, not arty but character driven, both studios and audiences were in sync. Today it is no longer the case, though Alexander Payne may still fit that profile, there is not much in the middle between the big Hollywood movies and the smaller art house fare.
From directing the pilot and certain episodes of Sex and the City, she knows this film is not for the upper middle class ladies who like Manolo Blahnik shoes. This is about small town, working class women who get together to save the local mobile clinic that gives mammograms by playing basketball which will also prove that they still have "it". Her target audience is middle America filmgoers rather than the art film lovers on the east and west coasts. She recognizes that the film is very dependent on marketing and on having money for marketing.
Partnerships and alliances have been made with the American Cancer Society, Wmba, Harley Davidison, Butterball Turkey who can put in some P&A and/ or in-kind advertising and promotion. This strategy was in place at the start of the film's life. Today Title 9 also encourages girls to go into sports, another area which has opened up only recently.
When Susan is not directing features, she directs TV and teaches a directing seminar at Nyu. To have been able to sustain
She truly hopes that with the current changes going on now in the film world that the women who have broken down some barriers will keep their collective feet in the door and that the changes will make it easier for women to sustain careers in directing as she has been lucky enough to have done...30 years and still going strong.
- 10/29/2012
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Trailer and Poster for Musical Chairs, starring Leah Pipes and E.J. Bonilla. Susan Seidelman (Boynton Beach Club) directs the romantic drama which opens in theaters on March 23rd, and also stars Jaime Tirelli, Laverne Cox, Morgan Spector, Auti Angel, Jerome Preston Bates, Nelson R. Landrieu, and Angelic Zambrana. Set against the exciting backdrop of competitive ballroom dancing, Musical Chairs is about Armando a Bronx-bred Latino who aspires to be a dancer but whose only way in is as handyman at a Manhattan dance studio, and Mia, an Upper East Side princess who is the studio's star performer. Though worlds apart, their shared passion for dance promises to bring them together until a tragic accident changes Mia's life forever, and she finds herself wheelchair-bound at a rehab facility, with her dreams of a dance career shattered. Fortunately, Armando has enough dreams for both of them and, when he hears about a...
- 2/13/2012
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Trailer and Poster for Musical Chairs, starring Leah Pipes and E.J. Bonilla. Susan Seidelman (Boynton Beach Club) directs the romantic drama which opens in theaters on March 23rd, and also stars Jaime Tirelli, Laverne Cox, Morgan Spector, Auti Angel, Jerome Preston Bates, Nelson R. Landrieu, and Angelic Zambrana. Set against the exciting backdrop of competitive ballroom dancing, Musical Chairs is about Armando a Bronx-bred Latino who aspires to be a dancer but whose only way in is as handyman at a Manhattan dance studio, and Mia, an Upper East Side princess who is the studio's star performer. Though worlds apart, their shared passion for dance promises to bring them together until a tragic accident changes Mia's life forever, and she finds herself wheelchair-bound at a rehab facility, with her dreams of a dance career shattered. Fortunately, Armando has enough dreams for both of them and, when he hears about a...
- 2/13/2012
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Trailer and Poster for Musical Chairs, starring Leah Pipes and E.J. Bonilla. Susan Seidelman (Boynton Beach Club) directs the romantic drama which opens in theaters on March 23rd, and also stars Jaime Tirelli, Laverne Cox, Morgan Spector, Auti Angel, Jerome Preston Bates, Nelson R. Landrieu, and Angelic Zambrana. Set against the exciting backdrop of competitive ballroom dancing, Musical Chairs is about Armando a Bronx-bred Latino who aspires to be a dancer but whose only way in is as handyman at a Manhattan dance studio, and Mia, an Upper East Side princess who is the studio's star performer. Though worlds apart, their shared passion for dance promises to bring them together until a tragic accident changes Mia's life forever, and she finds herself wheelchair-bound at a rehab facility, with her dreams of a dance career shattered. Fortunately, Armando has enough dreams for both of them and, when he hears about a...
- 2/13/2012
- Upcoming-Movies.com
"Boynton Beach Club" director Susan Seidelman's latest, the romantic dance drama "Musical Chairs" will be released by Mark Urman's Paladin Films in March 2012. The film starring rookies Leah Pipes and E.J. Bonilla as dancers in love in contemporary New York debuted as a work in progress at the Woodstoick Film Festival and will first officially debut at Lincoln Center on January 28th as the centerpiece film of their annual “Dance On Camera” festival. Set in the world of competitive ballroom dancing, "Musical Chairs" stars Bonilla as a Bronx Latino would-be dancer; he works as a handyman at the Manhattan dance studio where East Side...
- 11/18/2011
- Thompson on Hollywood
Susan Seidelman’s influential 1982 feature debut, “Smithereens,” has launched on iTunes and Amazon VOD this week. Later in her directing career, Seidelman went on to helm such acclaimed projects as Madonna’s big-screen debut, “Desperately Seeking Susan,” and the pilot episode for HBO’s “Sex and the City.” Recently, she directed the arthouse hit “Boynton Beach Club.” In honor of the digital re-release of “Smithereens,” Seidelman reflects on how her career began in …...
- 11/3/2009
- Indiewire
Susan Seidelman’s influential 1982 feature debut, “Smithereens,” has launched on iTunes and Amazon VOD this week. Later in her directing career, Seidelman went on to helm such acclaimed projects as Madonna’s big-screen debut, “Desperately Seeking Susan,” and the pilot episode for HBO’s “Sex and the City.” Recently, she directed the arthouse hit “Boynton Beach Club.” In honor of the digital re-release of “Smithereens,” Seidelman reflects on how her career began in …...
- 11/3/2009
- indieWIRE - People
The name Meyer Lansky usually conjures up the image of a mobster. But to Joseph Bologna, Lansky was a tragic figure. "He was a brilliant man who could have been anything he wanted, but he chose the wrong road," says Bologna, author (with Richard Krevolin) and director of the Off-Broadway solo play Lansky, starring Mike Burstyn. "Lansky was never convicted of a crime, he never served time in jail, and if he did it was for a misdemeanor. At the end of [Lansky's] life his father [symbolically] sat shiva for him, and they never spoke again. And he was unable to be buried next to his beloved zeda [grandfather], who had moved to Palestine, because the law of return that allows all Jews to be repatriated to Israel was denied him. For the real Lansky, it all might have been a façade -- he may have just wanted to go to Israel to...
- 2/26/2009
- by Simi Horwitz
- backstage.com
Susan Seidelman has directed Miami-set films such as "The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club" and now she'll join the Miami International Film Festival for a special night with "A Conversation with Susan Seidelman." The free seminar will take place Tuesday, February 10th at the Art Center/South Florida Gallery on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.
Seidelman will be on hand to discuss her film career of over two decades. Her 1982 film "Smithereens" was the first American independent film to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival. She then went on to direct the hit Madonna-starrer "Desperately Seeking Susan" and the Meryl Streep comedy "She-Devil."
Seidelman has also directed episodes of "Sex & the City", including "The Baby Shower." She recently joined the Miami Filmmaker Project Advisory Board.
Seidelman will be on hand to discuss her film career of over two decades. Her 1982 film "Smithereens" was the first American independent film to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival. She then went on to direct the hit Madonna-starrer "Desperately Seeking Susan" and the Meryl Streep comedy "She-Devil."
Seidelman has also directed episodes of "Sex & the City", including "The Baby Shower." She recently joined the Miami Filmmaker Project Advisory Board.
- 2/10/2009
- icelebz.com
Bonneville, which will debut in a gala slot Monday at the Toronto International Film Festival, is one of the hot titles vying for buyers' attention. The road movie, which stars Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Joan Allen, is targeting older female moviegoers, a niche that has seen success with such recent movies as Something's Gotta Give, The Banger Sisters, Ladies in Lavender and The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club. Bonneville is one of six films that Cinetic's John Sloss, who sold The Station Agent and The Fog of War, is handling at the festival. "I'm a little concerned over the hype," he said. "It delivers to its target audience of mature women. Distributors are getting smart and realize that a movie can work with this demo with the right cast and high concept."...
NEW YORK -- After gaining a cult following among Florida's senior citizens, the geriatric sex comedy Boynton Beach Club has been picked up for national distribution by Roadside Attractions and Samuel Goldwyn Films. The companies nabbed all North American rights to Susan Seidelman's look at dating in a retirement community, which has earned $635,000 since the director began distributing the film with Chris Dugger of Frank Theatres. It has played on 28 screens in Florida and one in Palm Springs since March. Boynton is expected to receive a PG-13 or R rating because of brief nudity, but the distributors don't seem deterred by losing the lucrative "tween" audience.
- 6/14/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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