July 11, 200719 yr Figured we should start one of these. Charles Lane died today (7/10/07) at the age of 102! Chances are you probably don't know him very well, but he has over 300 acting credits on imdb. He was mostly a supporting actor and guest star on television shows like I Love Lucy, The Odd Couple, Little House on the Prairie, and more. He was also in It's A Wonderful Life, 42nd Street among others. His last screen appearance was in 2006 as a narrator in a short film. He survived the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. :o Was a founding member of Screen Actors Guild (SAG, 1933). R.I.P.
July 24, 200719 yr Author Laszlo Kovacs, the Hungarian-born cinematographer who shot counterculture classics such as "Easy Rider" as well as more mainstream pics including "Ghostbusters" and "Miss Congeniality" died Saturday in his sleep in Beverly Hills. He was 74. James Chressanthis, who is working on the documentary "Laszlo & Vilmos" about Kovacs and his friend of five decades, fellow d.p. Vilmos Zsigmond, said that although Kovacs, a cancer survivor, had been feeling better lately, he was not able to make a Friday meeting with longtime associate Bob Rafelson. "Their lives intersected with so many great filmmakers," Chressanthis said of the two lensers. "He was my soulmate, like a brother," said Zsigmond. "We escaped together, we worked together, we helped each other. He was a great cinematographer." Kovacs was in his last year of school in his native Budapest when a revolt against the Communist regime started on the streets. With classmate Zsigmond, he borrowed a school camera and filmed the conflict. They smuggled the footage into Austria and entered the U.S. as political refugees in 1957. The historic footage was later featured in a CBS docu narrated by Walter Cronkite. "They risked their lives shooting the revolution," Chressanthis said. "They would have been executed if they had been caught." After working a series of menial jobs on his arrival in America, Kovacs began working in television, moving into features with "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies." "Suddenly all the young filmmakers were looking for younger guys with new ideas -- we came from Europe and they liked us. That was the American New Wave," said Zsigmond of the fertile filmmaking period of the late '60s and early 1970s. During the 1960s, he shot exploitation films ("The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill"), period curios ("Mondo Mod") and four Richard Rush low-budgeters--"A Man Called Dagger," "Hell's Angels On Wheels," "Psych-Out" (both with Jack Nicholson) and "The Savage Seven." Kovacs and Rush subsequently worked together on "Getting Straight" and "Freebie and the Bean." His dazzling location work and independent working methods led him to teamings with other quickly rising and influential young directors. He shot Peter Bogdanovich's first feature, "Targets," Robert Altman's "That Cold Day in the Park," Dennis Hopper's seminal "Easy Rider" and Bob Rafelson's breakthrough "Five Easy Pieces." When Kovacs shot "Easy Rider, "It was like a revolution in Hollywood. It didn't look like any of the other movies the studios made in those days." "Neither he or I believed in a specific style -- just very natural lighting, a kind of poetic realism," said Zsigmond. Through the 1970s, Kovacs continued these associations, for Bogdanovich lensing "Directed by John Ford," "What's Up, Doc?," "Paper Moon," "At Long Last Love," "Nickelodeon" and, later, "Mask." He worked again with Hopper on "The Last Movie" and with Rafelson on "The King of Marvin Gardens." During the decade he also collaborated with Paul Mazursky on "Alex in Wonderland," with Hal Ashby on "Shampoo," with Martin Scorsese on "New York, New York" and "The Last Waltz," and with Arthur Penn on "Inside Moves." He also contributed additional photography to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," for which Zsigmond won an Oscar. Kovacs gradually moved into more mainstream fare on such pictures as "Pocket Money," "Slither," "Huckleberry Finn," "For Pete's Sake," "Harry and Walter Go to New York," "F.I.S.T.," "Paradise Alley," "Butch and Sundance: The Early Days," "The Legend of the Lone Ranger," "Frances," "Ghostbusters," "Legal Eagles," "Say Anything," "Shattered," "Radio Flyer," "Multiplicity," "My Best Friend's Wedding," "Little Nikita," "Jack Frost" and "Miss Congeniality." His last feature was "Two Weeks Notice" in 2002. He received the American Society of Cinematographers Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002 and led the ASC's education committee. He is survived by his wife, Audrey, and two daughters.
July 30, 200719 yr Author I'm tempted to give this man his own thread. One of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th Century. Somewhere, Woody Allen is crying his eyes out. R.I.P. Ingmar Bergman STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, one of the great masters of modern cinema, has died. He was 89 years old. Bergman died at his home in Faro, Sweden, Swedish news agency TT said, citing his daughter Eva Bergman. A cause of death wasn't immediately available. Through more than 50 films, Bergman's vision encompassed all the extremes of his beloved Sweden: the claustrophobic gloom of unending winter nights, the gentle merriment of glowing summer evenings and the bleak magnificence of the island where he spent his last years. Bergman, who approached difficult subjects such as plague and madness with inventive technique and carefully honed writing, became one of the towering figures of serious filmmaking. He was "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera," Woody Allen said in a 70th birthday tribute in 1988. Bergman first gained international attention with 1955's "Smiles of a Summer Night," a romantic comedy that inspired the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music." "The Seventh Seal," released in 1957, riveted critics and audiences. An allegorical tale of the medieval Black Plague years, it contains one of cinema's most famous scenes — a knight playing chess with the shrouded figure of Death. "I was terribly scared of death," Bergman said of his state of mind when making the film, which was nominated for an Academy Award in the best picture category. The film distilled the essence of Bergman's work — high seriousness, flashes of unexpected humor and striking images. In an interview in 2004 with Swedish broadcaster SVT, the reclusive filmmaker admitted that he was reluctant to view his work. "I don't watch my own films very often. I become so jittery and ready to cry ... and miserable. I think it's awful," Bergman said. Though best known internationally for his films, Bergman was also a prominent stage director. He worked at several playhouses in Sweden from the mid-1940s, including the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm which he headed from 1963 to 1966. He staged many plays by the Swedish author August Strindberg, whom he cited as an inspiration. The influence of Strindberg's grueling and precise psychological dissections could be seen in the production that brought Bergman an even-wider audience: 1973's "Scenes From a Marriage." First produced as a six-part series for television, then released in a theater version, it is an intense detailing of the disintegration of a marriage. Bergman showed his lighter side in the following year's "The Magic Flute," again first produced for TV. It is a fairly straight production of the Mozart opera, enlivened by touches such as repeatedly showing the face of a young girl watching the opera and comically clumsy props and costumes. Bergman remained active later in life with stage productions and occasional TV shows. He said he still felt a need to direct, although he had no plans to make another feature film. In the fall of 2002, Bergman, at age 84, started production on "Saraband," a 120-minute television movie based on the two main characters in "Scenes From a Marriage." In a rare press conference, the reclusive director said he wrote the story after realizing he was "pregnant with a play." "At first I felt sick, very sick. It was strange. Like Abraham and Sarah, who suddenly realized she was pregnant," he said, referring to biblical characters. "It was lots of fun, suddenly to feel this urge returning." The son of a Lutheran clergyman and a housewife, Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born in Uppsala on July 14, 1918, and grew up with a brother and sister in a household of severe discipline that he described in painful detail in the autobiography "The Magic Lantern." The title comes from his childhood, when his brother got a "magic lantern" — a precursor of the slide-projector — for Christmas. Ingmar was consumed with jealousy, and he managed to acquire the object of his desire by trading it for a hundred tin soldiers. The apparatus was a spot of joy in an often-cruel young life. Bergman recounted the horror of being locked in a closet and the humiliation of being made to wear a skirt as punishment for wetting his pants. He broke with his parents at 19 and remained aloof from them, but later in life sought to understand them. The story of their lives was told in the television film "Sunday's Child," directed by his own son Daniel. Young Ingmar found his love for drama production early in life. The director said he had coped with the authoritarian environment of his childhood by living in a world of fantasies. When he first saw a movie he was greatly moved. "Sixty years have passed, nothing has changed, it's still the same fever," he wrote of his passion for film in the 1987 autobiography. But he said the escape into another world went so far that it took him years to tell reality from fantasy, and Bergman repeatedly described his life as a constant fight against demons, also reflected in his work. The demons sometimes drove him to great art — as in "Cries and Whispers," the deathbed drama that climaxes when the dying woman cries "I am dead, but I can't leave you." Sometimes they drove him over the top, as in "Hour of the Wolf" where a nightmare-plagued artist meets real-life demons on a lonely island. Bergman also waged a fight against real-life tormentors: Sweden's powerful tax authorities. In 1976, during a rehearsal at the Royal Dramatic Theater, police came to take Bergman away for interrogation about tax evasion. The director, who had left all finances to be handled by a lawyer, was questioned for hours while his home was searched. When released, he was forbidden to leave the country. The case caused an enormous uproar in the media and Bergman had a mental breakdown that sent him to hospital for over a month. He was later absolved of all accusations and in the end only had to pay some extra taxes. In his autobiography he admitted to guilt in only one aspect: "I signed papers that I didn't read, even less understood." The experience made him go into voluntary exile in Germany, to the embarrassment of the Swedish authorities. After nine years, he returned to Stockholm, his longtime base. It was in the Swedish capital that Bergman broke into the world of drama, starting with a menial job at the Royal Opera House after dropping out of college. In 1942, Bergman was hired by the script department of Swedish Film Industry, the country's main production company, as an assistant script writer. In 1944 his first original screenplay was filmed by Alf Sjoeberg, the dominant Swedish film director of the time. "Torment" won several awards including the Grand Prize of the 1946 Cannes Film Festival, and soon Bergman was directing an average of two films a year as well as working with stage production. After the acclaimed "The Seventh Seal," he quickly came up with another success in "Wild Strawberries," in which an elderly professor's car trip to pick up an award is interspersed with dreams. Other noted films include "Persona," about an actress and her nurse whose identities seem to merge, and "The Autumn Sonata," about a concert pianist and her two daughters, one severely handicapped and the other burdened by her child's drowning. The date of the funeral has not yet been set, but will be attended by a close group of friends and family, the TT news agency reported.
July 30, 200719 yr Author R.I.P. Ingmar Bernman :o Wow. Is that reffering to the typo or Ingmar's death? Just noticed it right now. :|
July 30, 200719 yr Author It boils my blood that Bill Walsh is getting headlines but hardly any mention of the greatest filmmaker who ever lived. I would imagine that international media is giving Bergman a lot of attention today. Not so much here in the States, since he's not a Hollywood guy.
July 31, 200719 yr I loved Ingmar's work. I was so saddened when I heard he died. The Seventh Seal is one of my all time favorite movies. So profound.
August 1, 200719 yr Oh, and Antonioni died. Well that sucks. I got to see The Passenger when they re-released it and thought it was amazing.
August 1, 200719 yr Author Oh, and Antonioni died. I'm not familiar with his work. I'm more inclined to check it out now. Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, who became an icon of arthouse cinema with films such as "L'avventura" and "Blowup," died Monday in Rome. He was 94.The enigmatic British-made drama "Blowup" (1966) took the Palme d'Or in Cannes, was Oscar-nommed for director and original screenplay and became a surprise international hit. A striking visual stylist who excelled at depicting the alienation of modern life through sparse dialogue and long takes, Antonioni enjoyed a greater following with critics and intellectuals than with general audiences. Along with Federico Fellini, he helped turn postwar Italian film away from neorealism and toward a personal cinema of imagination. In 1995, Hollywood honored his career work -- about 25 films and several screenplays -- with a special Oscar for lifetime achievement. By then, Antonioni was a physically frail but mentally sharp 82, unable to speak but a few words because of a stroke but still translating his vision into film. (The Oscar was stolen from Antonioni's home in 1996, together with several other film prizes.) On Oscar night, his wife, Enrica Fico, 41 years his junior and "translator" for him since his 1985 stroke, said, "Michelangelo always went beyond words to meet silence, the mystery and power of silence." Born in Ferrara, Italy, Antonioni did not set out to be a filmmaker. His studies at the U. of Bologna were centered on business and economics. But on the side, he experimented with 16mm films and wrote criticism for a local newspaper. For a time he wrote for Cinema, the official film magazine of the Fascist party that was edited by Mussolini's son, but was reportedly fired for his left-of-center opinions. In 1940, he briefly attended the renowned Italian film school Centro Sperimentale di Cinematographia. Two years later, he got his first professional jobs collaborating on Roberto Rossellini's "Un pilota ritorna" and Enrico Fulchignoni's "I due foscari," on which he also served as assistant director. Soon thereafter, he worked with French director Marcel Carne on "Les Visiteurs du soir" and began his first film, "Gente del Po," a short documentary about the Po River fishermen, which he did not complete until after the war. In the late 1940s, he directed several other docu shorts and collaborated on the screenplay of the fictional saga "Caccia Tragica." In 1950, he directed his first feature film, "Story of a Love Affair," and spent the next 10 years developing a fluid, cinematic language to demonstrate the wounding aftermath of love affairs in such films as "I Vinti," "The Lady Without Camelias" and "Il Grido." He also collaborated with Fellini on the script for the latter's "The White Sheik." In 1960, Antonioni had his international breakthrough with "L'Avventura," a mysterious tale of a woman's disappearance that is merely an excuse to study "the human condition at the higher social and economic levels -- a study of adjusted compromising modern man, afflicted by short memory, thin remorse and the capacity for easy betrayal," according to critic Pauline Kael. "L'Avventura" remains one of the masterpieces of world cinema and regularly appears on lists of the best movies ever made, although the audience hissed when it was first presented at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. It also served as the first installment in a trilogy of films about contemporary postwar Italian middle-class society and the ennui and existential unrest that afflicted it. "La Notte" and "Eclipse" followed; all starred Monica Vitti as a troubled, introspective heroine caught naked by the camera's unrelenting gaze. "Red Desert" (1964), starring Vitti and Richard Harris, was Antonioni's bold first attempt at filming in color; sets and industrial exteriors were painted different hues to convey the character's psychological states. Pic won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The boldness of his use of color influenced an entire generation of filmmakers, as did his next film, "Blowup," a rather circumspect take on London's swinging mod generation. Again the sets were painted, and the camera revealed as much as it concealed -- which worked perfectly with the plot concerning a photographer who does or does not inadvertently capture a real murder. It was the closest Antonioni ever came to a film with genuine humor. "Zabriskie Point," funded in 1970 by MGM, tried to comment on American materialism and the youth culture in the same way that "Blowup" had addressed contemporary England. Magnificently photographed, "Zabriskie Point" was perplexing and obtuse, and it failed as dramatically as "Blowup" had succeeded. After the documentary "Chung Kuo," made in 1972, Antonioni recaptured his reputation, at least with critics, with "The Passenger," starring Jack Nicholson, a beautifully conceived and realized melodrama about a man who gets in over his head after stealing another's identity. During the 1980s, he made "Identification of a Woman" and, following his recovery from a stroke, was set to direct "The Crew," from a script by "The Last Emperor" screenwriter Mark Peploe, but was unable to begin production. In 1993, Antonioni traveled to the U.S. for a retrospective of his films. Despite failing health, he went on to make "Beyond the Clouds," with John Malkovich, Jeremy Irons, Irene Jacob and Fanny Ardant, in 1994, using a notepad to communicate. Worried that Antonioni would be too frail to finish the movie, investors had German director Wim Wenders shadow the director, ready to step in if the Italian maestro couldn't go on. But Wenders wound up watching in awe and letting Antonioni put his vision on film. His last work was a segment of the three-parter "Eros" in 2004, to which Steven Soderbergh and Wong Kar-wai also contributed. Antonioni is survived by his wife, Enrica.
August 1, 200719 yr Oh, and Antonioni died. I'm not familiar with his work. I'm more inclined to check it out now. I recommend Blowup and L'Avventura.
September 15, 200718 yr Author Oscar winner Jane Wyman died earlier this week. Jane Wyman dies at 93 Actress won Oscar for 'Johnny Belinda' By ASSOCIATED PRESS Jane Wyman, Oscar winner as the deaf rape victim in "Johnny Belinda,'' star of the long-running TV series ``Falcon Crest'' and first wife of Ronald Reagan, has died at her desert home. She was 93. Wyman died Monday morning at her Palm Springs home, said Richard Adney of Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary in Cathedral City. There were no other details immediately available. Wyman's film career began with ``Gold Diggers of 1937'' and ended in 1969 co-starring with Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason in ``How to Commit Marriage.'' From 1981 to 1990 she played Angela Channing, a Napa Valley winery owner who maintained her power with a steely will on ``Falcon Crest.'' Her marriage in 1940 to fellow Warner Bros. contract player Reagan was celebrated in the fan magazines as one of Hollywood's ideal unions. While he was in uniform during World War II, her career ascended, signaled by her 1946 Academy Award nomination for ``The Yearling.'' The couple divorced in 1948, the year she won the award for ``Johnny Belinda.'' Reagan reportedly cracked to a friend: ``Maybe I should name Johnny Belinda as co-respondent.'' After Reagan became governor of California and then president of the United States, Wyman kept a decorous silence about her ex-husband, who had married actress Nancy Davis. In a 1968 newspaper interview, Wyman explained the reason: ``It's not because I'm bitter or because I don't agree with him politically. I've always been a registered Republican. But it's bad taste to talk about ex-husbands and ex-wives, that's all. Also, I don't know a damn thing about politics.'' A few days after Reagan died on June 5, 2004, Wyman broke her silence, saying: ``America has lost a great president and a great, kind and gentle man.'' It was 1936 when Warner Bros. signed Wyman to a long-term contract. She long remembered the first line she spoke as a chorus girl to show producer Dick Powell: ``I'm Bessie Fuffnik. I swim, ride, dive, imitate wild birds and play the trombone.'' Warner Bros. was notorious for typecasting its contract players, and Wyman suffered that fate. She recalled in 1968: ``For 10 years I was the wisecracking lady reporter who stormed the city desk snapping, `Stop the presses! I've got a story that will break this town wide open!''' In 1937, Wyman married a wealthy manufacturer of children's clothes, Myron Futterman, in New Orleans. The marriage was reported as her second, but an earlier marriage was never confirmed. She divorced him in November 1938, declaring she wanted children and he didn't. The actress became entranced by Reagan, a handsome former sportscaster who was a newcomer to the Warner lot. She wangled a date with him, and a romance ensued. After returning from a personal appearance tour with columnist Louella Parsons, they were married on Jan. 26, 1940. The following year she gave birth to a daughter, Maureen. They later adopted a son, Michael. They also had a daughter who was born several months premature in June 1947 and died a day later. In Reagan's autobiography ``An American Life,'' the index shows only one mention of Wyman, and it runs for only two sentences. ``That same year I made the Knute Rockne movie, I married Jane Wyman, another contract player at Warners,'' Reagan wrote. ``Our marriage produced two wonderful children, Maureen and Michael, but it didn't work out, and in 1948 we were divorced.'' The final divorce decree was issued in 1949. Their daughter Maureen died in August 2001 after a battle with cancer. At the funeral, Wyman, balancing on a cane, put a cross on the casket. Reagan, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was not well enough to attend. Early in their marriage, Reagan's career grew with ``Knute Rockne - All American'' and ``King's Row'' while Wyman languished as ``Joan Blondell of the B's.'' That changed after Reagan joined the army. Wyman escaped B pictures by persuading Jack Warner to loan her to Paramount for ``The Lost Weekend.'' The film won the Academy Award for 1945 and led to another loanout - to MGM for ``The Yearling.'' De-glamourized as a backwoods wife and mother, the actress received her first Academy Award nomination. After 40 films at Warner Bros., Wyman achieved her first acting challenge with ``Johnny Belinda.'' When Jack Warner saw a rough cut of the film, he ranted to the director, Jean Negulesco: ``We invented talking pictures, and you make a picture about a deaf and dumb girl!''
October 1, 200718 yr As per www.deadoraliveinfo.com Lois Maxwell the original Moneypenny from the james Bond movies died this weekend... RIP Moneypenny
October 19, 200718 yr Author Last member of the Rat Pack died yesterday. Joey Bishop R.I.P. Eerie connection: The hotel where Sinatra & company hung out was imploded last night. :o
October 31, 200718 yr Goulet Dead. Robert Goulet, the handsome, big-voiced baritone whose Broadway debut in "Camelot" launched an award-winning stage and recording career, has died. He was 73. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/obit_robert_goulet
November 26, 200718 yr Quiet Riot Speechless. Kevin DuBrow, lead singer of the popular 1980s heavy metal band Quiet Riot, has been found dead from unknown causes at his home in Las Vegas, authorities said on Monday. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071126/us_nm/quietriot_death_dc
February 11, 200818 yr Roy Scheider dies at age 75. R.I.P. His work in "Jaws" is simply unforgettable. Another personal favorite of mine is "2010"; he was good in that also. An underrated talent indeed.
April 6, 200818 yr Film Legend Charlton Heston Dead at 84. The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, family spokesman Bill Powers said. Wow! The end of an era. All those Biblical films he did. He was such a great actor. And I never read any bad thing about him. Truly classy. "Take your hands off of me, you damned dirty Ape!" Heston Obit
April 6, 200818 yr And I never read any bad thing about him. Truly classy. He certainly didn't have to hold a massive NRA convention within a week or so after the Columbine shootings in that city...
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