Michael York garnered very favourable reviews for his first three major films in the 1960’s. They were Joseph Losey’s “Accident” and Franco Zefferelli’s “The Taming of the Shrew” and “Romeo and Juliet”. After the success of the film “Cabreet” with Liza Minnelli, he went to Hollywood. Although he makes films all over the world, he is now based in the USA. He recently received recognition with younger audiences with his participation in the Austin Powers film where he plays Basil Exposition.
A classically trained British actor who honed his craft on the stage, Michael York made a smooth transition to the screen with several noted Shakespearean performances in films made by Italian director Franco Zeffirelli. Though not a leading performer, York delivered strong turns as Lucentino in “The Taming of the Shrew” (1967) and Tybalt in “Romeo and Juliet” (1968), before he played more seductively charming men in “Something for Everyone” (1970) and “Cabaret” (1972). While starring as D’Artagnan in “The Three Musketeers” (1973) and Logan in the sci-fi cult classic “Logan’s Run” (1976), he also turned to television to play Pip in “Great Expectations” (NBC, 1974) and John the Baptist in the epic miniseries “Jesus of Nazareth” (NBC, 1977).
In the following decade, York joined the cast of “Knot’s Landing” (CBS, 1979-1993), while stepping back into guest starring spots on shows like “Babylon 5” (TNT, 1993-98) and “Sliders” (Fox, 1995-99). Though he made fewer appearances on the big screen later in his career, York was quite memorable as the affable Basil Exposition in the “Austin Power” series, starring Mike Myers. As he continued forward, York diversified his talents to include voice work for both animated projects and a host of audiobooks, which served to underscore the wide breadth of the actor’s talents.
Born on March 27, 1942 in Fulmer, Buckinghamshire, England, York was raised in the London suburb of Burgess Hill by his father, Joseph Johnson, an ex-army officer-turned-executive for Marks and Spencer department stores, and his mother, Florence, a musician. While receiving his education at Bromley Grammar School for Boys, he began his acting career as a teenager in a production of “The Yellow Jacket” (1956). Three years later, York made his West End debut with a one-line role in a staging of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” He continued to study acting at Oxford University, where he was a member of the Dramatic Society, and spent his summers working with Michael Croft’s Youth Theatre while touring Italy in a production of “Julius Caesar.”
From there, he joined the Dundee Repertory Theatre in Scotland, where he played Sergius in “Arms and the Man” (1964) and first adopted the name Michael York. That same year, he graduated from Oxford and was invited to join England’s National Theatre, which led him to be immediately cast by Italian director Franco Zeffirelli in his production of “Much Ado About Nothing” (1965).
With his stage career taking off, York took the logical next stepping of making his screen debut as Young Jolyon in the acclaimed and fondly remembered drama series “The Forsyte Saga” (BBC, 1966). A year later, Michael York made his feature debut as Lucentino in Zeffirelli’s film, “The Taming of the Shrew” (1967), starring the tumultuous Elizabeth Taylor and her on-again/off-again husband Richard Burton. Now a bona fide movie actor, York scored again as Tybalt in Zeffirelli’s next Shakespearean screen adaptation “Romeo and Juliet” (1968).
Later that same year, York married his sweetheart, Patricia, an American photographer, whom he met while filming “Smashing Time” (1969) when she was assigned to photograph the star. The couple remained husband and wife well into the next century. Meanwhile, York went on to effectively portray a variety of well-bred, charming men like the manipulative bisexual of “Something for Everyone” (1970) and the adventurous expatriate in Bob Fosse’s Academy Award-winning “Cabaret” (1972), opposite Liza Minnelli.
From there, his role as D’Artagnan in Richard Lester’s romping version of “The Three Musketeers” (1973) and as Logan in the cult sci-fi classic “Logan’s Run” (1976) cemented York’s cinematic stardom on both sides of the pond. He played opposite Burt Lancaster in the critically panned adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “The Island of Dr. Moreau” (1977) and he even played himself in Billy Wilder’s old fashioned missive on Hollywood, “Fedora” (1977). A series of well-received landmark TV miniseries followed, including roles as the Charles Dickens’ hero Pip in “Great Expectations” (NBC, 1974) and a reteaming with his illustrious mentor Zeffirelli in “Jesus of Nazareth” (NBC, 1977), where he played John the Baptist to Robert Powell’s titular Jesus. York returned to his theatrical roots in the 1979 Broadway production of “Bent,” where he succeeded Richard Gere in the lead role of Max, a homosexual concentration camp inmate who pretends to be Jewish. That same year he produced his first movie, a slow-moving adaptation of Erskine Childer’s prototypical spy thriller, “The Riddle of the Sands” (1979).
Heading into the 1980s, Michael York attempted his first stage musical, “The Little Prince,” which failed miserably during its Broadway previews and led to his decision to return to the comfort of the small screen. York proved he could still be a dashing and stalwart swashbuckler in “The Master of Ballantrae” (CBS, 1984) and earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for the ABC Afterschool Special, “Are You My Mother?” He next joined the cast of the long-running primetime serial “Knot’s Landing” (CBS, 1979-1993) for the 1987-88 season, playing the love interest to Donna Mills. In the 1990s, York continued to work on the small screen with episodes of popular shows like “Babylon 5” (TNT, 1993-98) and the time travel adventure “Sliders” (Fox, 1995-99), while tackling prominent roles in TV movies like “Not of This Earth” (Showtime, 1995), “Dark Planet” (Syfy, 1997), “The Ripper” (Starz, 1997) and “A Knight in Camelot” (1998). Of course, York continued making big screen appearances, playing the prime and proper head of British intelligence, Basil Exposition, in the Mike Myers franchise “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” (1997), a role he reprised in “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” (1999) and “Austin Powers: Goldmember” (2002).
Finding a new audience, York played media mogul Stone Alexander in the religious-themed “The Omega Code” (1999) and its sequel “Megiddo: Omega Code 2” (2001) – two films that were not theatrical blockbusters, but nevertheless performed extremely well in their niche market. Meanwhile, York’s highly distinctive voice made him perfect for recording audio books, in which he was credited with over 70 productions, such as The Book of Psalms, Carl Jung’sMemories, Dreams, Reflections, Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat, and his own children’s book, The Magic Paw Paw.
Of course, York also voiced numerous characters on screen, from Murdstone in “Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield” (NBC, 1993), King Sarastro in “The Magic Flute” (ABC, 1994) and Kanto on “Superman” (ABC, 1996-99) to The King in “A Monkey’s Tale” (2001) and Prime #1 in “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” (2009).
In live action, he appeared in episodes of “The Gilmore Girls” (The WB, 2000-07) and “How I Met Your Mother” (CBS, 2005- ), before joining Rutger Hauer and Charlotte Rampling for the Polish-made religious drama “The Mill and the Cross” (2011). The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Cillian Murphy was born in Cork in 1976. He acted with the Cork theatre group Corcadorca and from there acted in both the play and film of “Disco Pigs” with Elaine Cassidy. He has had a swift path to movie stardom in many different genre of film. Cillian Murphy has also mantained his stage acting and has performed in Druid’s “The Playboy of the Western World”. He showed a profound dept and range in Ken Loach’s “The Wind that Shakes the Barley”, He makes both big Hollywood blockbusters and small independent movies in a very deft fashion. In July 2011 he won rave reviews for his performance in Edna Walsh’s “Misterman” at the Galway Arts Festival.
Page at Lisa Richard’s Agency:
illian is currently filming season two of BBC’s gangster saga “Peaky Blinders” where he reprises the role of Thomas Shelby. Upcoming films include the sci-fi drama, “Transcendence” opposite Johnny Depp, Martin Freeman and Kate Mara and “Heart of the Sea” directed by Ron Howard.
Cillian will shortly begin rehearsals for “Ballyturk”, a new play by Enda Walsh which will run as part of the Galway Arts Festival in July 2014 before a National Theatre run.
He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the BIFA for his performance in “Broken” opposite Tim Roth directed by Rufus Norris. He reprises his role as Dr. Jonathan Crane in “The Dark Knight Rises” for Christopher Nolan’s Batman finale. Cillian recently appeared as the lead role of Tom Buckley opposite Robert De Niro and Sigourney Weaver in “Red Lights” directed by Rodrigo Cortes. Cillian appeared in “In Time”, directed by Andrew Niccol, opposite Justin Timberlake, Olivia Wildewild and Amanda Seyfried.
Cillian most recently appeared on stage in the one man show Misterman, written and directed by Enda Walsh for Landmark Productions, the show first appeared at the Galway Arts festival (for which Cillian won the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Actor for 2011) and went on to appear in sold out runs at London’s National Theatre (Lyttelton Theatre) and at St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn, NYC where Cillian won the prestigious Drama Desk Award for his performance in 2012.
Cillian appeared in “Inception” (Warner Bros.), a contemporary sci-fi thriller set within the architecture of the mind. The film, which also stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard and Ellen Page, marks Cillian’s third collaboration with director Christopher Nolan. In 2005, Cillian made an indelible impression as Dr. Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow in “Batman Begins” and reprised the role in last year’s “The Dark Knight”.
Cillian starred opposite Brendan Gleeson and Jim Broadbent in Ian Fitzgibbon’s “Perrier’s Bounty”, a dark comedy that follows three unlikely fugitives on the run from a gangster kingpin in Dublin. He also stars in Mandate Pictures’ “Peacock”, a psychological thriller about a man with split personalities.
Cillian first garnered international attention for his performance as the reluctant survivor Jim in Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later”. Following “Batman Begins” he starred opposite Rachel McAdams in Wes Craven’s hit thriller “Red Eye” and garnered a Golden Globe nomination for his performance as Patrick “Kitten” Brady in Neil Jordan’s “Breakfast on Pluto”. In Ken Loach’s 2006 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner “The Wind That Shakes the Barley”, Cillian portrayed a guerilla fighter who battles the British Black and Tan squads that attempt to thwart Ireland’s bid for independence. Cillian re-teamed with Boyle and writer Alex Garland (“28 Days Later”) on “Sunshine” (2007), a thriller in which a group of scientists attempt to re-ignite a dying sun.
Cillian’s screen credits also include Beeban Kidron’s “Hippie Hippie Shake”, John Maybury’s “Edge of Love”, John Crowley’s “Intermission”, Peter Webber’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring”, Anthony Minghella’s “Cold Mountain”, “How Harry Became a Tree”, “On the Edge”, “Sunburn” and “Tron: Legacy”.
Cillian made his mark on stage with a stunning performance in Enda Walsh’s “Disco Pigs.” After receiving commendations for Best Fringe Show at the 1996 Dublin Theatre Festival and the Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival 1997, “Disco Pigs” went on to tour extensively in Ireland, the U.K., Canada and Australia. Murphy later starred in the film version directed by Kirsten Sheridan. In 2006, Cillian made his West End debut at the New Ambassador Theatre in John Kolvenbach’s “Love Song,” directed by John Crowley. His stage collaborations with Tony Award-winning director Garry Hynes include “The Country Boy,” “Juno and the Paycock,” and “Playboy of the Western World” at the Gaity Theatre in Dublin. Murphy also starred as Konstantin in the Edinburgh Fest production of “The Seagull” directed by Peter Stein, as Adam in Neil LaBute’s “The Shape of Things” at the Gate Theatre in Dublin and as Claudio in “Much Ado About Nothing.”
Aidan Quinn was born in the U.S. of Irish parents in 1959. He spent much of his childhood in Ireland in Birr Co. Offaly. Among his earlier work of note is the television film “An Early Frost” one of the first films to tackle the subject of AIDs. Aidan Quinn has made many films in Ireland including “Michael Collins”, “Desperately Seeking Susan” and “This Is My Father”.
TCM overview:
An actor known for the depth and intensity of his performances, Aidan Quinn eschewed the typical leading man roles in favor of complex characters in projects he found artistically appealing, rather than commercially attractive. After honing his craft in the theaters of Chicago, Quinn auditioned for and won his first feature film role – the lead in the romantic melodrama “Reckless” (1984). Even as he continued to perform on stage, he added to his screen credits with a charming turn in the quirky romantic comedy “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985) and a daring portrayal of an AIDS victim in the made-for-TV drama “An Early Frost” (NBC, 1985). Quinn was endearing as a Baltimore family patriarch in “Avalon” (1990) and played put-upon brothers in films such as “Benny & Joon” (1993) and “Legends of the Fall” (1994). He was affecting as a doomed Irish farmer in love with an underage girl in “This is my Father” (1998), and as a troubled priest on the short-lived series “The Book of Daniel” (NBC, 2005-06). Never content to be confined to a single genre or character type, Quinn moved with ease from low-key family fare like the coming-of-age drama “Flipped” (2010) to the adrenaline-fueled action of “Unknown” (2011), continuing a career that highlighted diversity over publicity.
Born on March 8, 1959 in Chicago, IL to parents Teresa and Michael, Quinn’s family vacillated between the city of Rockford – where his father was a professor of English literature at the community college – and his parents’ home country of Ireland for the majority of his childhood. After graduating from high school, splitting his attendance between schools in the States and in Belfast, Ireland, he returned to Chicago at the age of 19 and began earning a living as a roofer in the construction business, while also taking acting classes at the Piven Theatre Workshop. Almost immediately, Quinn found himself bit by the acting bug and began auditioning with local theater companies. He made his professional stage debut in a Chicago production of “The Man in 605,” later appearing off-Broadway in Sam Shepard’s “Fool for Love” in 1983. Quinn launched his film career when he won the lead role of young rebel Johnny Rourke in James Foley’s “Reckless” (1984), co-starring Daryl Hannah as the privileged girl irresistibly drawn to him. The following year he returned to the stage in another Shepard production, “A Lie of the Mind,” before reappearing on the silver screen in that quintessential slice of mid-1980s pop culture “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985). Co-starring Rosanna Arquette and Madonna – the latter in her screen debut – the quirky fairy tale of mistaken identity did big box-office business, propelling Quinn into the upper echelon of young acting talent at the time.
At the height of the AIDS epidemic, Quinn took a risk when he accepted the role of Michael Pierson, a closeted gay man diagnosed with HIV in his first made-for-television movie, “An Early Frost” (NBC, 1985), opposite Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara as his devastated parents. Although the network lost substantial revenue due to several advertisers pulling commercial spots, the controversial film was a ratings winner and Quinn garnered an Emmy nomination for his performance. He made a short, impressive contribution alongside Robert De Niro in “The Mission” (1986) prior to starring in the “Great Performances” production of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” (PBS, 1987). Next, Quinn explored his villainous side in John Badham’s buddy-cop comedy “Stakeout” (1987) before taking to the stage as Stanley Kowalski the following year in the Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire.” He essayed the title role in “Crusoe” (1989), a poorly-received revisionist adaptation of the oft-filmed 1719 Daniel Dafoe novel. Quinn went on to play the illicit lover of conscripted concubine Natasha Richardson in the problematic adaptation of Margret Atwood’s futuristic novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” (1990) and played a character based on Barry Levinson’s father in the director’s third film set in his hometown of Baltimore, MD, “Avalon” (1990).
Quinn played an idealistic missionary in the jungles of the Amazon in the well-intentioned, but ultimately disappointing drama, “At Play in the Fields of the Lord” (1991), followed by a turn as a member of a traveling Irish theater troupe courting Robin Wright in “The Playboys” (1992). He then carried the burden of an undeniably thankless role opposite the eccentric performances of Johnny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson in the romantic comedy “Benny & Joon” (1993). Busier than ever, Quinn starred opposite Madeline Stowe in the romantic thriller “Blink” (1994), followed by a small cameo as the captain of a doomed Arctic vessel in the messy Francis Ford Coppola-produced adaptation of “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” (1994). He closed out the year in the unenviable position of being overshadowed by the preternaturally handsome Brad Pitt in the historical melodrama, “Legends of the Fall” (1994). Later, he appeared as Richmond in Al Pacino’s ingenious documentary exploration of Shakespeare, “Looking for Richard” (1996), and proved convincing as Harry Boland, co-strategist and romantic rival of “Michael Collins” (1996), Neil Jordan’s epic take on the Irish freedom fighter.
Director Christian Duguay gave Quinn the opportunity to play the unconventional dual roles of Carlos “The Jackal” Sanchez, as well as a naval officer who bears an uncanny resemblance to the international terrorist in the gripping thriller, “The Assignment” (1997). On television that same year, he portrayed Henry Morton Stanley in the historical docudrama “Forbidden Territory: Stanley’s Search for Livingston” (ABC, 1997). Quinn returned to his beloved Ireland for “This is My Father” (1998), a family affair written and directed by his brother Paul and shot by cinematographer brother Declan. Appearing in flashbacks, he deftly played the shy son of poor farmers whose romance with a spirited underage girl was doomed to end in tragedy. As the decade drew to a close, Quinn picked up supporting roles as the love interest of a modern day witch in the whimsical romance “Practical Magic” (1998), and as the concerned husband of nightmare-plagued Annette Bening in the thriller “In Dreams” (1999). He lent his services to efforts like the Pierce Brosnan family drama “Evelyn” (2002) and appeared in the critically drubbed “Stolen Summer” (2002), the first movie produced by the filmmaking reality show, “Project Greenlight” (HBO, 2001-03/Bravo, 2004-05). Quinn was, however, in much better company as part of the esteemed ensemble cast of the award-winning, two-part miniseries “Empire Falls” (HBO, 2005), starring Ed Harris and Paul Newman.
Aidan Quinn
Quinn gave episodic television a shot when he led the cast of “The Book of Daniel” (NBC, 2005-06) as Daniel Webster, a priest who regularly converses with the literal embodiment of Christ, even as he battles his own personal demons. Touted as “edgy” and “challenging” by the network and at the same time maligned by certain church groups, the drama was pulled after just a few episodes. He returned to TV in the role of crusading attorney Julianna Margulies’ husband in yet another short-lived show, the crime drama “Canterbury’s Law” (Fox, 2007-08). Quinn went on to play a dogmatic cosmology professor in the fact-based tragedy “Dark Matter” (2008), the story of a frustrated Chinese foreign exchange student driven to violence after being the victim of perceived academic politics. He played President Grant in “Jonah Hex” (2010), a flawed adaptation of the comic book Western, as well as a loving dad in the Rob Reiner-directed family drama “Flipped” (2010). In the action-thriller “Unknown” (2011), Quinn played a conspirator impersonating a recent accident victim and possible amnesiac portrayed by Liam Neeson. Back on the small screen, Quinn had guest appearances on “White Collar” (USA Network, 2009- ) and “Weeds” (Showtime, 2005-2012), before landing a regular series role as the lieutenant of a rude, crude and occasionally reckless homicide detective (Maria Bello) on the well-received but ultimately short-lived “Prime Suspect” (NBC, 2011-12), a U.S. remake of the popular British series starring Helen Mirren. The following year, he returned with another regular series role, this time playing a New York City police captain genuinely fond of former Scotland Yard consultant Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and his partner, Dr. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu), on the critically acclaimed series “Elementary” (CBS, 2012- ). The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Interesting interview with Barry Egan in “Independent.ie” here.
Aidan Gillen is quietly building up a very impressive resume of roles on film, television and stage. On TV he has created such memorable characters as ‘Stuart Alan Jones’ in “Queer As Folk” in 1999, as ‘Tommy Carcetti’ in “The Wire”, ‘John Boy’ in”Love/Hate” and as ‘Petyr Baelish in “Game of Thrones”. He was born in Dublin in 1968. Among his films are “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” in 1987 with Maggie Smith, “The Courier” with Gabriel Byrne, “Shadow Dancer” and “Dark Knight Rises”.
TCM overview:
A human chameleon with a deft touch at playing charismatic heels, Aidan Gillen became an intrinsic player to some of the most groundbreaking television shows of the 1990s and 2000s, including such prestige fare as the U.K.’s “Queer as Folk” (Channel 4, 1999-2000) and HBO’s “The Wire” (2002-08) and “Game of Thrones” (2011- ). In the early 1990s, the Irish-born Gillen established a footprint in the U.K. theater scene and a run of well-regarded independent films like “Circle of Friends” (1995), “Some Mother’s Son” (1996), “Mojo” (1997) and “Buddy Boy” (1999). In 1999, he landed one of the leads on the daring British series “Queer as Folk,” one of the first humanizing looks at gay culture in television history. In 2003, Gillen’s Broadway debut in Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker” earned him a Tony nomination, setting him up for a memorable splash on U.S. television as Mayor Tommy Carcetti on HBO’s magnum opus urban drama “The Wire.” Gillen carved a niche playing textured, scene-stealing villains in projects such as “Lorna Doone” (BBC, 2000), “The Final Curtain” (2002), “Shanghai Knights” (2003), “Blackout” (2008), “Freefall” (BBC, 2009) and “Blitz” (2011), capped deftly by his return home to play a mob boss in the Irish drama “Love/Hate” (RTE, 2010-11) and the Machiavellian counselor Littlefinger on “Game of Thrones.” Boasting a CV “teeming with reptiles, chancers and scumbags,” as the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper summarized, Gillen continues to build an élan as one of Ireland’s best thespian imports.
Gillen was born as Aidan Murphy on April 24, 1968, in Dublin, Ireland, the youngest of six children of a nurse and an architect. He grew up in artistic ranks, with his sister Fionnuala becoming an actress and his brother John Paul a television writer and playwright. Aidan came of age fascinated by film, the home video revolution affording him a chance to devour movie classics. He began acting at age 13, studying the craft at the Dublin Youth Theatre. At age 15, he started dating a neighborhood girl, Olivia O’Flanagan, and it would become a long-term relationship. He took a featured role in the DYT’s production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” when he was 16 and secured his Equity card the next year, picking up some minor film roles, most notably the Irish-shot feature “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne,” which starred Bob Hoskins and Maggie Smith. Upon graduating from St. Vincent’s C.B.S. secondary school in Glasnevin, he was already working regularly in the theater. He adopted his mother’s maiden name, Gillen, as his stage name when he discovered there was another actor already working as Aidan Murphy.
At age 19, Aidan moved to London, U.K., where he soon found himself working in top-tier productions on the West End, such as revivals of dramas by playwright Billy Roche, “A Handful of Stars” and “Belfry” – both shot for broadcast on the BBC – Mamet’s “The Water Engine,” the groundbreaking AIDS-coping drama “Marvin’s Room” and a revival of the Irish classic “Playboy of the Western World.” Gillen won his first major screen role in the 1993 BBC telefilm “Safe,” playing a young grifter amid a stark cross-section of homeless people. He garnered a broader international audience as the love interest of one of the two Dublin University co-eds (one of them played by Minnie Driver in her breakthrough role) central to the critically adored indie “Circle of Friends” (1995). Gillen continued to play countrymen the next year in “Some Mother’s Son,” which saw him as an imprisoned IRA member who puts his mother (Helen Mirren) in the thick of an awful moral dilemma when he undertakes a hunger strike to secure political prisoner status. In 1997, he reprised a previous stage credit in the film adaptation of Jez Butterworth’s “Mojo,” a tale of the London gang culture’s interspliced relationship with the early days of rock-n-roll, with Gillen playing the manic, murderous son of a club-owner.
He again excelled at creepy in the Mark Hanlon-helmed indie thriller “Buddy Boy,” rendering a man largely sequestered from the world to take care of his aging mother but developing an unhealthy fascination with a comely neighbor. In 1999, Gillen landed a television series, Channel 4’s “Queer as Folk,” Russell T. Davies’ trailblazing, unflinching look at the gay subculture of Manchester’s Canal Street district. With charismatic abandon, Gillen donned the character of Stuart Alan Jones, an unabashedly out, devil-may-care, randy PR executive. The show drew both condemnation from conservative cloisters and critical praise, much of it directed at Gillen. Channel 4 brought the series back for a two-episode sequel in 2000. The role scored him a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor. In 2001, Gillen married O’Flanagan. His demand rising, Gillen took another TV gig, starring as an amateur sleuth helping to track a serial killer in the miniseries “Dice” (CBC, 2001). Hoping to avoid being pigeonholed by TV stardom, he returned to one-off projects. He continue to hone his heel bona fides with variously menacing performances, playing the scheming villain of the BBC’s high-profile retelling of the Scottish period adventure “Lorna Doone” (2000); a corrupt cop in the King Lear contemporary version of “My Kingdom;” and an unscrupulous, deranged game show host in a vicious feud with rival Peter O’Toole in “The Final Curtain” (2002).
In 2003, he took it to Hollywood, tapped to play the smarmy cad in the de rigueur Jackie Chan/Owen Wilson action comedy “Shanghai Knights.” That year, he returned to the stage in high style, starring alongside Patrick Stewart and Kyle MacLachlan in a Broadway revival of Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker.” He played Mick, a slick, borderline violent Londoner whose big-hearted brother (MacLachlan) helps out a homeless man (Stewart), which soon turns out to be a more menacing prospect than expected. Though the production opened to mixed notices, The New York Times, like many others, singled out Gillen’s intense performance, calling it a “smashing Broadway debut.” The performance drew him a Tony Award nomination, as well as the attention of producers of the HBO drama “The Wire.” The intricate, exhaustively textured series of stories about weary cops and the drug trade denizens on the decaying streets of Baltimore, MD, was moving into its third season, heralded nearly universally as the new bar for narrative fiction in the U.S., and producer David Simon planned to expand the storyline beyond the street and into big-city politics. Gillen joined the cast in 2004 as the centerpiece of that arc, Tommy Carcetti, outwardly no-nonsense and liberal, but privately a manipulative city councilman, given to pulling strings in his oversight of the city’s public safety functions.
Gillen continued with the show through 2008, seeing Carcetti make an unlikely ascent to mayor and eventually governor. With the show’s importation to Ireland television, Gillen took the Best Actor laurel from the Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTAs) in 2009. He revisited Mamet’s works in 2007, starring in revivals of “American Buffalo” in Dublin and “Glengarry Glen Ross” in London. He donned the heavy again in multivariate sequence of films: an unbalanced doctor in the indie thriller “Blackout;” a gleefully avaricious investment banker in BBC’s telefilm of the credit meltdown, “Freefall” (2009); a standard con in another attempt to make pro wrestler Jon Cena an action star, “12 Rounds” (2009); and a self-styled rock star serial killer in the Jason Statham cop procedural “Blitz” (2011). Relocating with Olivia and their two children to Kerry, Ireland, in 2009, Gillen took the lead in the homegrown ensemble crime drama “Love/Hate,” scoring the role of John Boy, an organized crime boss whose cool steadily unravels along with his criminal empire. In 2011, the show swept the IFTA awards, with Gillen again taking the Best Actor award. He kept his hand in more sympathetic roles on the ITV procedural “Identity” (2010), playing a hotshot identity crimes detective living a double life; in the sweet low-budget Brit comedy “Treacle Jr.” (2010); and the Irish-set horror flick “Wake Wood” (2011).
In an internationally star-making role, Gillen would stride the rapier edge between heel and hero as the morally ambiguous Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish, high-class pimp and counselor to the king on the ambitious HBO series “Game of Thrones.” Premiering in 2011, the epic fantasy adventure, based on George R.R. Martin’s series of novels under the rubric A Song of Ice and Fire, followed a vast cross-section of a fictional island confederation of fiefdoms thrown into political intrigue and eventually war over control of their unifying throne, pitting the draconian southern aristocrats, the Lannisters, against the brothers of the fallen king, the Baratheons, the Iron Islands-dwelling Greyjoys, and the honorable, largely sympathetic northern house, The Starks, led by Ned Stark (Sean Bean) and his strong-willed wife Catelyn (Michelle Fairley). Baelish’s seemingly pragmatic parlays between Baratheons, Lanisters and Starks made him an enigma in the first season, clouded by his revealed previous suitorship of Catelyn Stark, then clarified by his ultimate betrayal of Ned with the smirk-delivered line, “I did warn you not to trust me.” “Thrones” debuted to rave reviews, developing tsunami of pop cultural buzz and seeing ratings climbing throughout the season to reach an impressive-for-cable three million-plus viewers on initial airing and an average of nine million per episode with rebroadcasts. The show earned 13 Emmy nominations in 2011 and made Gillen and his many fellow cast members much-in-demand for interviews in fanatical sci-fi/fantasy circles.
By Matthew Grimm
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Interview with Aidan Gillen on “Game of Thrones” for “Rolling Stone” magazine can be obtained online here.
Christopher WalkenOriginal Cinema Belgian Poster – Movie Film Posters
Christopher Walken. TCM Overview
TCM Overview:
Christopher Walken has to be included in the Top Ten Favourite Actors of any self respecting movie buff. He continues to surprise with his quirky characters in both mainstream films and independent movies. A native New Yorker he has most recently been on Broaday in Martin McDonagh’s new play “A Beheading in Spokane”. Walken won an Oscar for “The Deer Hunter” and also shone in Michael Cimino’s flop epic “Heaven’s Gate”. This movie is in definite need of reappraisal.
Born on March 31, 1943 the same night as the Broadway debut of “Oklahoma!” â¿¿ and raised in Astoria, Queens, NY, Walken was raised by his father, Paul, a baker who emigrated from Germany, and his mother, Rosalie, also a baker who emigrated from Scotland. Since his mother was enamored by show business, Walken and his two brothers, Glenn and Kenneth, were pushed into dance, modeling and acting at a very young age. After beginning his career at the age of three as a catalog model, he was used as an extra whenever the likes of Jerry Lewis, Steve Allen or Jackie Gleason need children in the background for their comedy skits. Later, he was enrolled at the Professional Childrenâ¿¿s School, where he continued training as an actor and dancer while he occasionally replaced brother Glenn as Mike Bauer on the daytime soap opera, “The Guiding Light” (CBS, 1952-2009) between 1954-56. While in his mid-teens, Walken made his Broadway debut in Archibald MacLeish Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “J.B.” (1959), a contemporary take on the Book of Job set in a modern circus.
Walken finished his studies at the Professional Childrenâ¿¿s School in 1961, during which time he spent a summer working as a lion tamer for the Tarryl Jacobs Circus, where he entered the cage of an old, toothless lion with a whip and demanded “Up, Sheba, up!” By the middle of the decade, Walken performed in several musicals, including as a member of the chorus in “Baker Street” (1965). While few chorus players managed to segue into dramatic roles, Walken was an exception when he landed the role of King Philips in the historical drama, “The Lion in Winter” (1966) â¿¿ a role from which he was almost fired for being too nervous to perform, but ultimately earned him a Clarence Derwent Award. Later that same year, he tackled his first Shakespearean role in “Measure for Measure” for the New York Shakespeare Festival. He soon made his feature debut with a bit part in the innovative pseudo-documentary, “Me and My Brother” (1968). After winning a Drama Desk Award for his performance in “Lemon Sky” (1970), Walken had a more significant onscreen part as a young electronics expert opposite Sean Connery in the Sidney Lumet-helmed crime thriller, “The Anderson Tapes” (1971).
The following year, Walken had his first lead role in “The Happiness Cage” (1972), a mad scientist thriller in which he played an obnoxious young man who is used in an experiment that involves removing pain through a brain operation. Returning to the New York Shakespeare Festival, he tackled the lead role in “Macbeth” (1974) while starring the following year in stagings of “Kid Champion” (1975) and “Sweet Bird of Youth” (1975). Walken made his first memorable impression upon the movie-going public with his portrayal of Diane Keatonâ¿¿s comically suicidal brother in “Annie Hall” (1977). That same year, he danced for the first time onscreen in “Roseland” (1977), director James Ivoryâ¿¿s urban drama centered around the famed New York City ballroom. Perhaps because of his demented portrayal in “Annie Hall,” Walken was cast as a young man ravaged by his experiences in the Vietnam War in “The Deer Hunter” (1978). Co-starring Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep, and directed by Michael Cimino, “The Deer Hunter” featured four friends who go off to war expecting adventure, but instead experience hell after being captured by the Vietcong and forced to play Russian roulette. Walkenâ¿¿s brilliant portrayal of a disintegrated man who becomes obsessed with the suicidal game earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Following his Oscar win, he reunited with Cimino to play a gunslinger in the disastrous “Heaven’s Gate” (1980). Though the epic Western was a financial wreck and marked the end of the auteur era in Hollywood, Walken himself emerged unscathed. On the small screen, he offered a memorable turn as a Method actor in “Who Am I This Time?” (PBS, 1981), directed by Jonathan Demme, while on the silver screen he paid tribute to his theatrical background as the oily villain who performs a sinuous dance number in the underrated Steve Martin musical comedy, “Pennies From Heaven” (1981). After a leading role opposite Tom Berenger in “The Dogs of War” (1981), Walken was perfectly cast as a man cursed with the ability to see the future in “The Dead Zone” (1983), based on the Stephen King novel. Also that year, he co-starred in “Brainstorm” (1983), the last film made by famed actress Natalie Wood, who drowned off the coast of Catalina Island while filming the sci-fi thriller in 1981. In fact, Walken was a guest on the yacht of Wood and her husband, Robert Wagner, when the actress fell overboard while allegedly trying to secure a dinghy that was keeping her awake. The filmâ¿¿s release was delayed two years while producers figured out a way to film a climatic scene. Meanwhile, Walken remained mum for almost two decades about the incident until finally giving his take in a 1997 interview with Playboy. His account matched the official police report of the events.
Back on the stage, Walken performed in an off-Broadway production of David Rabeâ¿¿s “Hurlyburly” (1984-85), directed by Mike Nichols. He left the production to play the campy villain Max Zorin, a microchip industrialist looking to destroy Silicon Valley with a man-made earthquake in “A View to a Kill” (1985), widely considered to be the worst James Bond movie of all time. The following year, he was Stanley Kowalski in a Williamstown Theatre Festival production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1986), playing the role to comic effect to avoid comparisons to Marlon Brandoâ¿¿s Oscar-nominated performance in the 1951 film version. After a chilly turn as an abusive father in “At Close Range” (1986), Walken was the hard-driving drill sergeant nemesis of a wisecracking new recruit (Matthew Broderick) in the film adaptation of Neil Simonâ¿¿s play, “Biloxi Blues” (1988). Returning to Shakespeare, he essayed the titular Roman general in “Coriolanus” (1988) for the New York Shakespeare Festival. After playing real-life author Whitley Streiber who claimed visitation by aliens in “Communion” (1989), Walken began a long-running collaboration with director Abel Ferrara, playing the first of several crime lords in “The King of New York” (1990).
Making a rare appearance on television, Walken played a widower and father of two living on a turn-of-the-century Midwestern farm who places an advertisement for a new wife and mother to his children, which is answered by a single New England schoolteacher (Glenn Close), in “Sarah, Plain and Tall” (CBS, 1991). In “Batman Returns” (1992), he played powerful and corrupt businessman Max Shreck, who joins forces with the grotesque Penguin (Danny De Vito) to take on Gotham Cityâ¿¿s Caped Crusader (Michael Keaton). Returning to familiar territory, Walken played a gangland boss hunting down two unconventional lovers (Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette) who have made off with a briefcase full of cocaine. Though his role was small, Walkenâ¿¿s performance was memorable, particularly in a long scene opposite Dennis Hopper, where his character learns the origins of a Sicilianâ¿¿s dark hair and olive skin. The scene between the two heavyweights became an all-time classic. Following a return to television as the formerly widowed farmer in the second installment, “Skylark” (CBS, 1993), Walken had a small, but pivotal role in Quentin Tarantinoâ¿¿s “Pulp Fiction” (1994). He played a Vietnam veteran who explains the strange journey of a family heirloom to a young boy who later grows up to be a boxer (Bruce Willis) who earns the wrath of a local gangster (Ving Rhames) for botching a fixed fight.
Walken returned to the stage as both the playwright and star of his off-Broadway one-man show, “Him” (1995), a satirical look at the afterlife of Elvis Presley. He followed up by portraying the Man with the Plan in the mediocre Tarantino rip-off, “Things to Do in Denver When Youâ¿¿re Dead” (1995) and the archangel Gabriel, who leads a rebel army against God, in “The Prophecy” (1995). Joining forces once again with director Abel Ferrera again, he starred in “The Funeral” (1996), a Depression-era crime thriller about two mobster brothers (Walken and Chris Penn) who stop at nothing to avenge the murder of their brother (Vincent Gallo). By the mid-1990s, Walken was seemingly in every film that needed a dark, calculating bad guy. After playing an enforce for an Irish mobster (David Patrick Kelly) in “Last Man Standing” (1996), he was the creepy right-hand man of a millionaire (Jack Thompson) who refuses to pay the ransom for his spoiled daughter (Alicia Silverstone) in “Excess Baggage” (1997). Following a wildly over-the-top cameo as a determined exterminator in “Mouse Hunt” (1997), he reprised the vengeful archangel Gabriel for “The Prophecy II” (1998) while essaying an effete early 20th century drama critic in John Turturro’s valentine to his wife and the theater, “Illuminata” (1998).
By the end of the 1990s, Walken was well-established as a go-to supporting and leading actor whose off-beat, deadpan delivery was invaluable in both dramatic and comedic roles. Often cited as being one of the most popular actors to play villains, he was also one of the most widely impersonated performers, with many actors â¿¿ Kevin Spacey, Johnny Depp, Jay Mohr â¿¿ giving spot-on interpretations of the Walken persona. Meanwhile, he gave voice to the brutal insect Cutter in the CGI-animated “Antz” (1998) and for a third time played the turn-of-the-century widower in “Sarah: Plain and Tall: Winter’s End” (CBS, 1999). Taking campy villains to a new level, Walken played the vicious Headless Horseman in Tim Burton’s uneven “Sleepy Hollow” (1999), which he followed by playing a retro dad living in a bomb shelter in the Brendan Fraser comedy “Blast From the Past” (1999). After a four-year absence, Walken returned to his stage roots to star opposite Blair Brown in a musical adaptation of James Joyce’s short story “The Dead” (1999), before returning to the big screen for “The Opportunists” (2000), in which he was a reformed safecracker who returns to a life of crime in order to support his daughter (Vera Farmiga).
Though known for playing downright evil villains, Walken was also viciously funny, which led to producer Lorne Michaels inviting him to host “Saturday Night Live” (NBC, 1975- ) on numerous occasions. Always a welcomed guest â¿¿ Michaels gave the actor an open invitation to host whenever the urge surfaced â¿¿ Walken was the focus of many funny skits, including playing a suave womanizer in the recurrent sketch “The Continental” and spoofing “View to a Kill” villain Max Zorin in a segment called “Lease with an Option to Kill.” But none were so revered and remembered than when he played fictional record producer Bruce Dickinson in “More Cowbell.” A spoof of VH1â¿¿s “Behind the Music” series, “More Cowbell” focused on a mock recording of the Blue Oyster Cult song “(Donâ¿¿t Fear) the Reaper,” which featured Will Ferrell playing fictional cowbell player, Gene Frenkle. As the band stops a few times in the middle of the song, Walken emerges from the recording booth to urge Gene to play “a little more cowbell,” much to the dismay of the other band members. After a speech from Frenkle lamenting his lack of enthusiasm, Walken declares, “Guess what? I got a fever, and the only prescription…is more cowbell!” The skit quickly became a phenomenon, with the phrase “More cowbell” becoming a cultural catchphrase.
Continuing an ever-busy schedule â¿¿ the actor reportedly only turned down roles if he was booked solid â¿¿ Walken played a cop named McDuff in “Scotland, PA” (2001), an off-kilter retelling of “Macbeth” set in a 1970s fast food joint. Also that year, he was part of David Spade’s white trash ensemble in “Joe Dirt” (2001), took a supporting role in the lackluster Julia Roberts comedy “America’s Sweethearts” (2001), portrayed mesmerist Count Cagliostro in “The Affair of the Necklace” (2001) and displayed his far-out, but graceful dance moves in the multi-award winning music video for Fatboy Slimâ¿¿s “Weapon of Choice” (2001). But just when it seemed that he had given up serious acting to specialize in self-parody, Walken turned in a moving and poignant performance in director Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can” (2002), playing the father of teen con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), the youngest man ever to make the FBI’s Most Wanted list. His performance as a once-prosperous businessman whose life was torn asunder by an IRS investigation proved to be a revelation, reminding audiences of his ability to convey the genuine pathos behind emotionally tortured men. Walken subsequently received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the film.
Walken followed his critical triumph with comedic turns as a Mafioso in the less-than-stellar comedy “Kangaroo Jack” (2003) and a kooky, but out-of-place police detective in the dismal flop “Gigli” (2003) opposite Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. The actor did, however, still have his share of scene-stealing roles ahead of him, delivering another offbeat performance as a villain with a penchant for speech-making in “The Rundown” (2003) opposite Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Seann William Scott. Further strategic guest roles followed in films of varying genres and qualities; some successful â¿¿ like his turn as Denzel Washington’s sympathetic friend in the revenge thriller “Man on Fire” (2004) â¿¿ and others not, like his performance as the bizarre J-Man in the horribly unfunny Ben Stiller-Jack Black comedy “Envy” (2004). Walken next played the formidable Mike Wellington, the mayor of Stepford, whose secret, singular vision surrounding spouse-subservient women of “The Stepford Wives” (2004) proves too seductive for most of the community’s men to resist. He was better utilized in the Owen Wilson-Vince Vaughn comedy “Wedding Crashers” (2005), playing the powerful politico father of leading lady Rachel McAdams. Refreshingly, Walken was allowed to play that role straight, without overdoing the quirks that had previously defined him.
Christopher Walken
Walken next appeared in director Tony Scott’s hyperkinetic pseudo-biopic “Domino” (2005), playing a reality television producer who becomes embroiled in the life of model-turned-bounty hunter Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley). He then co-starred in the Adam Sandler comedy vehicle “Click” (2006), playing a strange Bed, Bath and Beyond clerk who gives an overworked architect (Sandler) a remote control that can rewind, fast-forward or pause his life. Walken co-starred in “Man of the Year” (2006), playing the ailing talent manager of a popular talk show host (Robin Williams) whose surprise run for the presidency shocks the nation when he actually wins. After “Man of the Year” took a drubbing at the box office, Walken had moved on to his next feature, “Hairspray” (2007), an adaptation of the 2003 musical which was itself adapted from John Watersâ¿¿ 1988 film. Walken played Wilbur Turnblad, the easygoing father of an optimistic, but overweight teenager (Nikki Blonsky) who loves to dance despite the disapproval of her large, reclusive and rather androgynous mother, Edna (John Travolta). In the comedy “Balls of Fury” (2007), he was the criminal host of an annual ping-pong tournament where the losers are executed. Showing no signs of slowing down, the hard-working actor next filmed “Citizen Brando” (2009), a half documentary, half fictional take on a young manâ¿¿s fascination with Marlon Brandon and the American Dream. In “Kill the Irishman” (2011), “Stand Up Guys (2012) and “Seven Psychopaths” (2012), Walken played close to type in a variety of criminal roles. This was followed by the classical music drama “A Late Quartet” (2012) and a cameo in Clint Eastwood’s “Jersey Boys” (2014), an adaptation of the stage hit based on the life and career of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. In December 2014, Walken appeared on live television, playing Captain Hook in “Peter Pan Live!” (NBC 2014), a live adaptation of the popular children’s classic.
The above TCM Overview can also be accessed online here.
A recent interview with Christopher Walken in “The Guardian” can be accessed online here.
Harrison FordHarrison Ford Harrison FordHarrison Ford
Harrison Ford has starred in two of the greatest film series of all time. He is Han Solo in the “Star Wars” and of course Indiana Jones in the quartet directed by Spielberg. Ford has made many other fine films including “Witness”, “Presumed Innocent” and “Working Girl”. Now in his late sixties, he is still hanging in there as a leading man and is rumoured to be preparing for his fifth outing as Indiana Jones.
” ‘I want to be recognised for the job I do’ he said once,’which is acting. I get paid money for that, not for being a movie star. The business of being a star and promoting yourself as a fascinating personality is something I’m inadequate to do. I don’t consider myself unique. I just work in the movie business’. The statement shows a realism entirely in keeping with his screen image, which is that of a nice guy – good looks, good manners without the aura of such predecessors as Gabel and Cooper” – David Shipman on “The Great Movie Stars – The Independent Years”. (1991).
TCM Overview:
Once deemed the highest-grossing actor of all time, Harrison Ford almost languished in thankless walk-on roles when he began his career in the early 1960s. Instead of accepting any role that came along, Ford was picky about his choices right from the start, despite a severe lack of Hollywood clout. While he made ends meet as a carpenter, Ford patiently pursued his career – even turning down several roles over the objections of his manager. But his persistence paid off with a memorable supporting role in “American Graffiti” (1973), George Lucas’ 1960s coming-of-age tale. His struggle continued throughout the mid-1970s until Lucas reluctantly cast him as the cocky space pirate Han Solo in “Star Wars” (1977). From that moment on, Ford struggled no more, taking on some of the biggest movies of the 1980s, including genre classics “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) and “Blade Runner” (1982), as well as the finely crafted “Witness” (1985). By the time he starred in the heart-pounding thriller “The Fugitive” (1993), Ford was widely recognized as being one of the biggest stars in the world and the sole throwback to Golden Age swashbucklers like Clark Gable and Errol Flynn. Despite a few duds like “The Devil’s Own” (1997), “Hollywood Homicide” (2003) and “Firewall” (2006) on his résumé, Ford continued to remain a top box office draw while remaining relevant with a new generation of fans.
Born on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, IL, Ford grew up the son of an advertising executive and homemaker in nearby Park Ridge. He was a quiet, isolated child, picked on by classmates who liked to routinely push him down a steep embankment at school. After surviving Main East High School, where he was president of the Social Science Club and a sportscaster for WMTH, Ford studied philosophy and English at Ripon College in Wisconsin. While looking to boost his sagging grade point average, Ford stumbled upon a drama class, but was surprised to learn that he was required to perform in a play. He went on to appear in several productions, including “The Skin of Our Teeth” and “The Fantasticks.” Unable to maintain passable grades, however, Ford flunked out of Ripon with only a month left to graduate. But he finally had his sights set on the path to becoming an actor. He did local summer stock, performing in productions of “Night of the Iguana” and “Damn Yankees,” then moved to the West Coast in the early-1960s, where he took part in his last play, “John Brown’s Body,” at the Laguna Playhouse.
In 1965, Ford took his first stab at a film career after signing a seven-year contract with Columbia Pictures for $150 per week – a considerably small sum even for the times. He made his feature debut as a hotel bellboy paging James Coburn in “Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round” (1966). But after an executive saw his performance, Ford was told to give up the business. Instead, he moved over to Universal Studios where he earned $250 per week and began guest starring in episodic television while still making the occasional feature appearance in films like the Civil War drama “Journey to Shiloh” (1968). At the time, however, Ford was married to his first wife, Mary, while adjusting to being a father for the first time. Because of a litany of mediocre films and his new responsibilities, Ford left acting to become a carpenter. He first learned the craft out of necessity when trying to fix up a rundown house he bought in the Hollywood Hills, reading several books while getting hold of some tools. Later, a friend recommended Ford’s services to recording engineer, Sergio Mendes, who wanted a $100,000 recording studio in his home. Satisfied with the work, Mendes recommended Ford to several friends.
It was through his carpentry work that Ford was able to resuscitate his acting career, even though he never gave up that ambition. In fact, the stability of his carpentry work allowed Ford to be selective in choosing roles rather than taking anything that came his way. In 1970, he signed with respected manger of up-and-coming actors, Patricia McQueeney, who was forced to contend with Ford’s ever-increasing pickiness. He had already begun to develop a reputation for being surly and grumpy, mainly because he went to auditions and acted as if he did not want to be there. He did, however, receive several offers – some well-paying – but he usually turned them down, much to McQueeney’s dismay. But Ford’s determination not to carve a career out of mediocre roles paid off when he was cast by George Lucas in “American Graffiti” (1973), a seminal coming-of-age film set during the last summer night of 1962, when a group of teens face difficult decisions about the directions of their lives. Ford played an older street racer donned in a white cowboy hat (his suggestion) who manages to lure the girlfriend (Cindy Williams) of a college-bound teen (Ron Howard) struggling with his feelings about leaving home.
With the success of his first major film, both critically and financially, Ford found his career had finally taken a turn for the better. After Francis Ford Coppola, who had produced “American Graffiti,” cast him for a small role in the paranoid thriller, “The Conversation” (1974), Ford made a brief return to television movies, playing an Ohio frontiersman in “James A. Michener’s ‘Dynasty'” (NBC, 1976). But it was his next project that catapulted the still-struggling actor into an international superstar. By the time Ford was cast as Han Solo in “Star Wars,” director George Lucas had auditioned just about every young actor available for the three lead roles. Originally, Lucas was uninterested in Ford playing Han Solo, as he did not want to recycle actors from his previous films; instead asking him to read lines with actors during the audition process – which included helping Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher land their roles. Eventually, Ford won Lucas over with his cheeky read, earning himself the role. But then there was the shoot, the stories of which became Hollywood legend. From Ford’s perspective, Lucas was distant with his actors, barely talking to them except to give terse direction like “faster” or “more intense,” while the dialogue was painful to say out loud. Though at the time everyone working on the film thought it was doomed to fail, “Star Wars” became an instant cultural phenomenon, with Ford’s turn as the irascible smuggler who gets embroiled in an intergalactic struggle being one of the film’s many indelible elements.
Thanks to the international sensation “Star Wars” became during the summer of 1977, Ford had finally reached stardom after a decade and a half of labor. But it would take several more films before he could open a film on his name alone. Meanwhile, he starred in “Force 10 from Navarone” (1978), the unheralded sequel to the blockbuster hit, “The Guns of Navarone” (1961). After a one-scene role as a colonel (whom he named Col. Lucas in honor of his director-friend) who helps brief Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) in “Apocalypse Now” (1979), Ford starred as an American bomber pilot who has an affair with a married British nurse (Lesley-Anne Down) during World War II in “Hanover Street” (1979), perhaps his most forgettable film as a leading actor. After a brief appearance in “More American Graffiti” (1979) and a starring role in the comedy-Western “The Frisco Kid” (1979), Ford returned to play Han Solo in “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), widely considered to be the best of the original trilogy. Though the focus was primarily on Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) becoming a Jedi knight, Han Solo struggles with Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) to escape from the Empire, which hunts them down to the ethereal Cloud City where Solo is tracked and captured by the bounty hunter Boba Fett.
During the production, Ford was dissatisfied with Han telling Leia he “loved her, too” before he was put into carbonite hibernation, feeling that the response was out of character. Director Irvin Kershner agreed and allowed Ford to improvise a take, in which he responded to Leia’s “I love you” with “I know.” Though initially infuriated with the change, Lucas used the take in the finished product, allowing for one of the series’ few truly emotionally connective moments – and one of Ford’s first invaluable off-the-cuff contributions to his projects which would resound with viewers. Unlike the first “Star Wars,” the sequel was expected to dominate the box office, which it did to the tune of over $200 million. Meanwhile, Ford was firmly in command of his international stardom, though it came as part of an ensemble cast, along with Hamill and Fisher. But that problem was alleviated with his next film, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” one of the most successful and beloved films of all time; as well as a nod and wink to 1930s action serials beloved by producer Lucas and director Steven Spielberg as young boys. Ford played Indiana Jones, a hard-scrabble, but all-too-human archeologist who hunts for the fabled Arc of the Covenant with the help of his old flame, Marion (Karen Allen), and old friend, Sallah (John Rhys Davies). Once again, Ford was not the first pick to play Indiana Jones. Lucas wanted Tom Selleck, but could not get the television star because of his contractual agreement with “Magnum P.I.” (CBS, 1980-88). Eventually, Lucas caved, despite not wanting to have a Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro-type relationship with Ford. But Lucas knew he was the right actor for the role.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” was a grueling shoot – Ford suffered a torn knee ligament when an airplane wheel ran over him during the famous airstrip fistfight. But instead of submitting himself to local doctors, Ford wrapped his knee in ice and soldiered on. Meanwhile, Ford and everyone else on the crew got sick from the local Tunisian cuisine. Though ravaged with dysentery, Ford continued shooting, which actually served to the film’s advantage. In an elaborate fight scene in an outdoor market, Ford was scheduled to battle a swordsman, but was unable to continue. So instead, he suggested to director Spielberg that he simply draw his gun and shoot him. Another of Ford’s brilliant ideas, the scene was kept and turned into one of the most memorable (and hilarious) onscreen moments in the film. Upon its release, “Raiders” was an enormous financial and critical success, becoming the highest-grossing film of the year, while it earned eight Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. Single-handedly bringing back fedora hat sales for men, Ford was propelled to superstar status and had easily created his most indelible character since Han Solo.
For his next film, “Blade Runner,” Ford starred in what became one of the most popular and revered science fiction films ever made. It was also one of the worst production experiences of his career. Ford played Rick Deckard, a down-and-out ex-detective brought out of retirement to hunt down and kill a group of human androids – or replicants – who have escaped a mining company and taken refuge in the dystopian world of Los Angeles, circa 2019. As he discovers disturbing secrets about Tyrell Corporation, the company that manufactures the replicants, Deckard finds himself falling in love with an android, Rachael (Sean Young), but is unaware of her true nature. Behind the scenes, director Ridley Scott caused considerable friction from day one, upsetting the production design crew with demands of drastically changing established sets, thanks to his commercial background. Ford and Scott were at odds the entire shoot, especially concerning the film’s ending, which contained a happily-ever-after shot of Deckard and Rachael driving off into the sunset and a studio-mandated voiceover that was apparently phoned-in by the actor. The film was a flop after its initial release, but would eventually become a smashing success on video and DVD. Ford and Scott reconciled their creative differences in later years.
For the third and last time, Ford played Han Solo, this time in “Return of the Jedi” (1983). However, before there was a script, it remained unclear whether or not he would return to the role. Unlike his fellow co-stars, Ford was not signed to participate in more than two films. So when time came for a third installment, he suggested to Lucas and new director Richard Marquand that Solo die in order to heighten tension with the remaining characters. But Lucas vehemently refused and eventually Ford signed on. It was clear from the outset, however, that Ford was uninterested in playing the character again, as evidenced by his hammy overacting. In another sequel, Ford revived his favorite character for “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984), a much darker and more violent adventure that brought Jones, an annoying gold-digger (Kate Capshaw) and a cloying kid (Ke Huy Quan) to the jungles of India on a quest to rescue a magic stone from an evil cult. Though successful at the box office, “Temple of Doom” nonetheless stirred controversy for the repulsive images of tribal witch doctors ripping still-beating hearts from human sacrificial lambs – the film, itself, helping to create the PG-13 rating.
In perhaps his most critically lauded performance, Ford starred in Peter Weir’s excellent romantic thriller, “Witness” (1985), playing John Book, a rough-and-tumble police detective who protects an Amish boy (Lukas Haas) and his widowed mother (Kelly McGillis) after the boy witnesses a murder. But the tables are turned when Book learns that the murder was part of a larger conspiracy that involve several high-ranking members of the department, forcing him to flee to Amish country where he assimilates himself into their culture, while at the same time, falling in love with the boy’s mother. Widely considered to be one of the most well-made films of the decade, “Witness” allowed Ford to demonstrate his exceptional acting chops to a skeptical populace that once thought him to be a mere action star. Ford rightly earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He reunited with Weir for his next film, “The Mosquito Coast” (1986), playing an inventor who moves his family to Central America to escape civilization, only to turn into an egomaniacal tyrant. Ford once again displayed considerable depth playing the obsessive husband and father, though no Academy Award nominations were forthcoming for his second outing with Weir.
Taking a rare turn to romantic comedy territory, Ford starred as a New York financial executive who is taken in by a secretary (Melanie Griffith) posing as her boss (Sigourney Weaver) in “Working Girl” (1988). After a turn as an American doctor in Paris dealing with the kidnapping of his wife (Betty Buckley) in Roman Polanski’s “Frantic” (1988), Ford once again revived Indiana Jones for “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989), a competent, though somewhat underwhelming addition to the series. This time, Ford starred alongside Sean Connery, who played his combative archeologist father, Dr. Henry Jones. Both father and son go off on an adventure to find the famed Holy Grail – the supposed challis used by Christ at the Last Supper – before the Nazis can get their hands on it. Though still not as revered as the first film, “The Last Crusade” nonetheless helped wash out the bad taste left behind by “The Temple of Doom.” Ford rang in the 1990s with another compelling performance, playing a prosecutor accused of murdering a beautiful colleague (Greta Scacchi) with whom he was having an affair in “Presumed Innocent” (1990).
By the time Ford had made “Presumed Innocent,” he was widely considered to be one of the most bankable stars working in Hollywood. Even box office duds like Michael Mann’s “Regarding Henry” (1991) failed to put a chink in his armor. In 1992, he took on the role of CIA agent Jack Ryan in “Patriot Games” (1992), a tense action thriller that depicted Ryan trying to protect his family from an IRA fringe group after saving English royals from assassination. Ford followed with “The Fugitive” (1993), arguably one of the most intense and finely-crafted action films of all time. In the film, he played Dr. Richard Kimble, a vascular surgeon wrongly accused of murdering his wife (Sela Ward) after a society dinner. Though his wife was killed by an unknown one-armed man (Andreas Katsulas), all the evidence points to Kimble, who is arrested, tried and convicted of first degree murder, to be punished by lethal injection. But Kimble manages to escape after fellow inmates overturn the bus en route to prison, triggering a manhunt lead by a relentless U.S. marshal (Tommy Lee Jones). “The Fugitive” was yet another huge success for Ford, who only confirmed his status as the biggest box office draw of his generation.
While “The Fugitive” represented a high water mark for his career, by no means did Ford put his career on autopilot. He next starred in the third adaptation of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series, “Clear and Present Danger” (1994), once again delivering a dependable performance in this entertaining thriller that saw Ryan journey to Columbia to rescue a captured paramilitary force from a drug cartel with the aid of a renegade intelligence operative (Willem Dafoe). In what many considered to be a pointless exercise, Ford starred in a remake of Billy Wilder’s “Sabrina” (1995), playing the successful heir to a family fortune who tries to woo the daughter (Julia Ormond) of the chauffeur to spurn his brother (Greg Kinnear), only to find himself failing in love for real. After “Sabrina,” Ford retreated into a series of mediocre films that occasionally did well at the box office, but nonetheless gave fans and critics alike the impression his prowess had begun to diminish. In his next film, “The Devil’s Own” (1997), Ford starred as a New York City police officer who takes in an Irish émigré (Brad Pitt) possessing a dark past and bloody-minded purpose in America. Behind the scenes, Ford and Pitt were dissatisfied with the script, which led to constant rewrites, resulting in a muddled story that never reached fruition onscreen.
For his next project, Ford took heroism to new, absurd heights by playing the President of the United States as a bad-ass who fights a group of Kazakhstan terrorists after they take over his plane in Wolfgang Petersen’s ridiculous action thriller, “Air Force Once” (1997). Despite the $172 million take at the box office, there was no escaping the over-the-top action, silly one-liners and completely implausible stunts, including one with Ford hanging on to the plane’s open bay door only by his fingertips at 30,000 feet. Moving on, Ford returned to romantic comedy territory with “Six Days, Seven Nights” (1998), playing a brash airplane pilot who flies a New York business woman (Anne Heche) to Tahiti, only to crash on a deserted island where the combative couple fights to survive and ultimately falls in love. In a rare turn as the antihero, Ford starred in “Random Hearts” (1999), playing an obsessive Internal Affairs detective whose wife dies in an airline crash, but learns that she was having an affair with the husband of a prominent Congresswoman (Kristin Scott Thomas). Despite a pedigreed cast – which also included Charles S. Dutton – and with Sydney Pollack directing, “Random Hearts” fell flat with audiences and critics.
Once content with playing the action hero, Ford occasionally made the switch to villain, as he did in “What Lies Beneath” (2000), a haunting thriller from director Roger Zemeckis, in which Ford played a successful genetic scientist struggling to repair his marriage to wife (Michelle Pfeiffer), who starts seeing images of a mysterious wraith-like girl. In another adventurous turn, Ford played a Russian submarine captain who prevents World War III in “K-19: The Widowmaker” (2002), a box office dud that displayed Ford’s woeful attempt at a Russian accent. After he made forgettable turns in the disastrous buddy comedy “Hollywood Homicide” (2003) and the techno-thriller “Firewall” (2006), Ford revived Indiana Jones after years of speculation and secretive script meetings for “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008). Set in the 1950s, Jones goes on a quest to find the lost city of Atlantis, aided by a rebellious young man (Shia LaBoeuf), and – back by popular demand – his “Raiders of the Lost Ark” flame (Karen Allen). While certainly a box office hit, the highly-anticipated movie managed to disappoint some fans and even elicited ridicule following a sequence where Jones survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a 1950s-era refrigerator; a scene that coined the phrase “nuke the fridge,” which alluded to a film reaching unparalleled heights of absurdity.
Following the financial success of “Crystal Skull,” Ford slipped into relative obscurity with his next film, “Crossing Over” (2009), a politically themed drama in which he played an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Los Angeles battling the growing problem of illegal immigration. Despite the film’s timely subject matter, “Crossing Over” barely made a blip at the box office. He went on to co-star in the romantic comedy “Morning Glory” (2010), in which he played a serious news journalist who is brought onto a failing morning show by a plucky TV producer (Rachel McAdams) in an effort to save the program, only to run afoul with his new co-host (Diane Keaton). Following the critical and box office disappointment of the underwhelming medical drama “Extraordinary Measures” (2010), also starring Brendan Fraser, Ford played the iron-fisted head of an Old West town that is suddenly beset by an alien attack in the hybrid “Cowboys & Aliens” (2011), co-starring Daniel Craig. It was during the filming of the latter movie that Ford made an honest woman of Calista Flockhart, whom he married in New Mexico on June 15, 2010, near where “Cowboys” was being made. Following a relatively quiet 2012, Ford thrilled fanboys everywhere when it was rumored he would reprise Han Solo for the seventh installment of the “Star Wars” saga, which was put into production after George Lucas sold his empire to Walt Disney Studios. With J.J. Abrams set to direct “Episode VII,” Ford was unofficially confirmed by Lucas to be returning to his most famous roles, joining Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher in their rumored reprisals of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia respectively.
Meanwhile, Ford played Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey in “42” (2013), Brian Helgeland’s baseball biopic about Jackie Robinson (Chadwick A. Boseman) becoming the first African-American to play Major League baseball and signed on to join the cast of the comedy sequel “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” (2013). Also in during the year, he appeared with Gary Oldman in the little-seen thriller “Paranoia” and returned to the sci-fi genre with a key role in the military-themed epic “Ender’s Game,” based on the popular Orson Scott Card novel. Continuing to make longtime fans freak out, Ford also filmed his part in “The Expendables 3,” placing him in the company of almost every major action-movie star of the preceding three decades.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Angela Lansbury was born in 1925 and is a British-American-Irish actress who has appeared in theatre, television, and film. Her career has spanned eight decades, much of it in the United States, and her work has attracted international acclaim.
Lansbury was born to Irish actress Moyna Macgill and English politician Edgar Lansbury, an upper-middle-class family in Regent’s Park, central London. To escape the Blitz, in 1940 she moved to the United States with her mother and two brothers, and studied acting in New York City. Proceeding to Hollywood in 1942, she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and obtained her first film roles, in Gaslight (1944) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), earning her two Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe Award. She appeared in eleven further films for MGM, mostly in supporting roles, and after her contract ended in 1952 she began supplementing her cinematic work with theatrical appearances. Although largely seen as a B-list star during this period, her appearance in the film The Manchurian Candidate (1962) received widespread acclaim and is cited as being one of her finest performances. Moving into musical theatre, Lansbury finally gained stardom for playing the leading role in the Broadway musical Mame (1966), which earned her a range of awards.
Amid difficulties in her personal life, Lansbury moved from California to County Cork, Ireland in 1970, and continued with a variety of theatrical and cinematic appearances throughout that decade. These included leading roles in the stage musicals Gypsy, originating the role of Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, and The King and I, as well as in the hit Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). Moving into television, she achieved worldwide fame as fictional writer and sleuth Jessica Fletcher in the American whodunitseries Murder, She Wrote, which ran for twelve seasons from 1984 until 1996, becoming one of the longest-running and most popular detective drama series in television history. Through Corymore Productions, a company that she co-owned with her husband Peter Shaw, Lansbury assumed ownership of the series and was its executive producer for the final four seasons. She also moved into voice work, thereby contributing to animated films such as Disney‘s Beauty and the Beast (1991). Since then, she has toured in a variety of international theatrical productions and continued to make occasional film appearances.
Lansbury was born to an upper middle class family on October 16, 1925. Although her birthplace has often been given as Poplar, East London, she has rejected this, asserting that while she had ancestral connections to Poplar, she was born in Regent’s Park, Central London. Her mother was Belfast-born actress Moyna Macgill (born Charlotte Lillian McIldowie), who regularly appeared on stage in the West End and who had also starred in several films. Her father was the wealthy English timber merchant and politician Edgar Lansbury, a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and former mayor of the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar. Her paternal grandfather was the Labour Party leader and anti-war activist George Lansbury, a man whom she felt “awed” by and considered “a giant in my youth.” Angela had an older half sister, Isolde, who was the daughter of Moyna’s previous marriage to writer and director Reginald Denham. In January 1930, when Angela was four, her mother gave birth to twin boys, Bruce and Edgar, leading the Lansburys to move from their Poplar flat to a house in Mill Hill, North London; on weekends they would vacate to a rural farm in Berrick Salome, near Wallingford, Oxfordshire.[9]“I’m eternally grateful for the Irish side of me. That’s where I got my sense of comedy and whimsy. As for the English half–that’s my reserved side … But put me onstage, and the Irish comes out. The combination makes a good mix for acting.”
When Lansbury was nine, her father died from stomach cancer; she retreated into playing characters as a coping mechanism. In 2014, Lansbury described this event as “the defining moment of my life. Nothing before or since has affected me so deeply.” Facing financial difficulty, her mother became engaged to a Scottish colonel, Leckie Forbes, and moved into his house in Hampstead, with Lansbury receiving an education at South Hampstead High School from 1934 until 1939. She nevertheless considered herself largely self-educated, learning from books, theatre and cinema. She became a self-professed “complete movie maniac”, visiting the cinema regularly and imagining herself as certain characters. Keen on playing the piano, she briefly studied music at the Ritman School of Dancing, and in 1940 began studying acting at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art in Kensington, West London, first appearing onstage as a lady-in-waiting in the school’s production of Maxwell Anderson‘s Mary of Scotland.
That year, Angela’s grandfather died, and with the onset of the Blitz, Macgill decided to take Angela, Bruce and Edgar to the United States; Isolde remained in Britain with her new husband, the actor Peter Ustinov. Macgill secured a job supervising sixty British children who were being evacuated to North America aboard the Duchess of Athol, arriving with them in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in mid-August. From there, she proceeded by train to New York City, where she was financially sponsored by a Wall Street businessman, Charles T. Smith, moving in with his family at their home at Mahopac, New York. Lansbury gained a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing allowing her to study at the Feagin School of Drama and Radio, where she appeared in performances of William Congreve‘s The Way of the World and Oscar Wilde‘s Lady Windermere’s Fan. She graduated in March 1942, by which time the family had moved to a flat in Morton Street, Greenwich Village.
Macgill secured work in a Canadian touring production of Tonight at 8.30, and was joined in Canada by her daughter, who gained her first theatrical job as a nightclub act at the Samovar Club, Montreal. Having gained the job by claiming to be 19 when she was 16, her act consisted of her singing songs by Noël Coward, and earned her $60 a week. She returned to New York City in August 1942, but her mother had moved to Hollywood, Los Angeles, in order to resurrect her cinematic career; Lansbury and her brothers followed. Moving into a bungalow in Laurel Canyon, both Lansbury and her mother obtained Christmas jobs at the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles; Moyna was sacked for incompetence, leaving the family to subsist on Lansbury’s wages of $28 a week. Befriending a group of gay men, Lansbury became privy to the city’s underground gay scene, and with her mother, attended lectures by the spiritual guru Jiddu Krishnamurti; at one of these, she met Aldous Huxley.
At a party hosted by her mother, Lansbury met John van Druten, who had recently co-authored a script for Gaslight (1944), a mystery-thriller based on Patrick Hamilton‘s 1938 play, Gaslight. Set in VictorianLondon, the film was being directed by George Cukor, and starred Ingrid Bergman in the lead role of Paula Alquist, a woman being psychologically tormented by her husband. Van Druten suggested that Lansbury would be perfect for the role of Nancy Oliver, a conniving cockney maid; she was accepted for the part, although, since she was only 17, a social worker had to accompany her on the set. Obtaining an agent, Earl Kramer, she was signed to a seven-year contract with MGM, earning $500 a week and using her real name as her professional name. Upon release, Gaslight received mixed critical reviews, although Lansbury’s role was widely praised; the film earned six Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Supporting Actress for Lansbury.
Her next film appearance was as Edwina Brown, the older sister of Velvet Brown in National Velvet (1944); the film proved to be a major commercial hit, with Lansbury developing a lifelong friendship with co-star Elizabeth Taylor. Lansbury next starred in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), a cinematic adaptation of Oscar Wilde‘s 1890 novel of the same name, which was again set in Victorian London. Directed by Albert Lewin, Lansbury was cast as Sibyl Vane, a working class music hall singer who falls in love with the protagonist, Dorian Gray (Hurd Hatfield). Although the film was not a financial success, Lansbury’s performance once more drew praise, earning her a Golden Globe Award, and she was again nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards, losing to Anne Revere, her co-star in National Velvet.
On September 27, 1945, Lansbury married Richard Cromwell, an artist and decorator whose acting career had come to a standstill. The marriage ended in less than a year when she filed for divorce on September 11, 1946, but they remained friends until his death. In December 1946, she was introduced to fellow English expatriate Peter Pullen Shaw at a party held by former co-star Hurd Hatfield in Ojai Valley. Shaw was an aspiring actor, also signed to MGM.
Following the success of Gaslight and The Picture of Dorian Gray, MGM cast Lansbury in eleven further films until her contract with the company ended in 1952. Keeping her among their B-list stars, MGM used her less than their similar-aged actresses; biographers Edelman and Kupferberg believed that the majority of these films were “mediocre”, doing little to further her career. This view was echoed by Cukor, who believed Lansbury had been “consistently miscast” by MGM. She was repeatedly made to portray older women, often villainous, and as a result became increasingly dissatisfied with working for MGM, commenting that “I kept wanting to play the Jean Arthur roles, and Mr Mayer kept casting me as a series of venal bitches.” The company themselves were suffering from the post-1948 slump in cinema sales, as a result slashing film budgets and cutting their number of staff.
In April 1953, her daughter Deirdre Angela Shaw was born. Shaw had a son by a previous marriage, David, and after gaining legal custody of the boy in 1953 he brought him to California to live with the family; with three children to raise, the Shaws moved to a larger house on San Vincente Boulevard in Santa Monica. However, Lansbury did not feel entirely comfortable in the Hollywood social scene, later asserting that as a result of her British roots, “in Hollywood, I always felt like a stranger in a strange land.” In 1959 the family moved to Malibu, settling into a house on the Pacific Coast Highway that had been designed by Aaron Green; there, she and Peter escaped the Hollywood scene, and were able to send their children to a local public school.
Unhappy with the roles she was being given by MGM, Lansbury instructed her manager, Harry Friedman of MCA Inc., to terminate her contract in 1952, in the same year that her son Anthony was born. Soon after the birth she joined the East Coast touring productions of two former-Broadway plays: Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse‘s Remains to be Seen and Louis Verneuil‘s Affairs of State. Biographer Margaret Bonanno later stated that at this point, Lansbury’s career had “hit an all-time low,”
Returning to cinema as a freelance actress, Lansbury found herself typecast as women older (sometimes far older) than herself in many films in which she appeared during this period. As she later stated, “Hollywood made me old before my time,” noting that in her twenties she was receiving fan mail from people who believed her to be in her forties. She obtained roles in the films A Life at Stake (1954), A Lawless Street (1955) and The Purple Mask (1955), later describing the last as “the worst movie I ever made.” She played Princess Gwendolyn in the comedy film The Court Jester (1956), before taking on the role of a wife who kills her husband in Please Murder Me (1956). From there she appeared as Minnie Littlejohn in The Long Hot Summer (1958), and as Mabel Claremont in The Reluctant Debutante (1958), which she filmed in Paris. Biographer Martin Gottfried said that it was these latter two cinematic appearances which restored Lansbury’s status as an “A-picture actress”. Throughout this period, she continued making appearances on television, starring in episodes of Revlon Mirror Theatre, Ford Theatre and The George Gobel Show, and became a regular on game show Pantomime Quiz.
In April 1957 she debuted on Broadway at the Henry Miller Theatre in Hotel Paradiso, a French burlesque set in Paris, directed by Peter Glenville. The play only ran for 15 weeks, although she earned good reviews for her role as “Marcel Cat”. She later stated that had she not appeared in the play, her “whole career would have fizzled out.” She followed this with an appearance in 1960s Broadway performance of A Taste of Honey at the Lyceum Theatre, directed by Tony Richardson and George Devine. Lansbury played Helen, the boorish, verbally abusive, otherwise absentee mother of Josephine (played by Joan Plowright, only four years Lansbury’s junior), remarking that she gained “a great deal of satisfaction” from the role. During the show’s run, Lansbury developed a friendship with Plowright, as well as with Plowright’s future husband, Laurence Olivier.
Lansbury first appeared in musical theatre in 1964 at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway.
Her rare sympathetic role as Mavis in The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) drew critical acclaim, as did her performances as sinister characters in All Fall Down (1962), as a manipulative, destructive mother, and the Cold War thriller The Manchurian Candidate (1962) as the scheming ideologue Mrs. Iselin. In the latter, she was cast for the role by John Frankenheimer based on her performance in All Fall Down. Lansbury was only three years older than actor Laurence Harvey who played her son in the film. She had agreed to appear in the film after reading the original novel, describing it as “one of the most exciting political books I ever read.” Biographers Edelman and Kupferberg considered this role “her enduring cinematic triumph,” while Gottfried stated that it was “the strongest, the most memorable and the best picture she ever made … she gives her finest film performance in it.” Lansbury received her third Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for the film, and was bothered by the fact that she lost.
She followed this with a performance as Sybil Logan in In the Cool of the Day (1963) before appearing as wealthy Isabel Boyd in The World of Henry Orient (1964) and the widow Phyllis in Dear Heart (1964). Her first appearance in a theatrical musical was the short-lived Anyone Can Whistle, written by Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim. An experimental work, it opened at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway in April 1964, but was critically panned and closed after nine performances. Lansbury had played the role of crooked mayoress Cora Hoover Hooper, and although she loved Sondheim’s score she faced personal differences with Laurents and was glad when the show closed. She appeared in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), a cinematic biopic of Jesus, but was cut almost entirely from the final edit. She followed this with an appearance as Mama Jean Bello in Harlow (1965), as Lady Blystone in The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965), and as Gloria in Mister Buddwing (1966). Despite her well-received performances in a number of films, “celluloid superstardom” evaded her, and she became increasingly dissatisfied with these minor roles, feeling that none allowed her to explore her potential as an actress.
In 1966, Lansbury took on the title role of Mame Dennis in the musical Mame, Jerry Herman‘s musical adaptation of the novel Auntie Mame. The director’s first choice for the role had been Rosalind Russell, who played Mame in the non-musical film adaptation Auntie Mame, but she had declined. Lansbury actively sought the role in the hope that it would mark a change in her career. When she was chosen, it came as a surprise to theatre critics, who believed that it would go to a better-known actress; Lansbury was forty-one years old, and it was her first starring role. Mame Dennis was a glamorous character, with over twenty costume changes throughout the play, and Lansbury’s role involved ten songs and dance routines which she trained extensively for. First appearing in Philadelphia and then Boston, Mame opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in May 1966. Auntie Mame was already popular among the gay community, and Mame gained Lansbury a cult gay following, something that she later attributed to the fact that Mame Dennis was “every gay person’s idea of glamour … Everything about Mame coincided with every young man’s idea of beauty and glory and it was lovely.”I was a wife and a mother, and I was completely fulfilled. But my husband recognised the signals in me which said ‘I’ve been doing enough gardening, I’ve cooked enough good dinners, I’ve sat around the house and mooned about what more interior decoration I can get my fingers into.’ It’s a curious thing with actors and actresses, but suddenly the alarm goes off. My husband is a very sensitive person to my moods and he recognised the fact that I had to get on with something. Mame came along out of the blue just at this time. Now isn’t that a miracle?”
Reviews of Lansbury’s performance were overwhelmingly positive. In The New York Times, Stanley Kauffmann wrote: “Miss Lansbury is a singing-dancing actress, not a singer or dancer who also acts … In this marathon role she has wit, poise, warmth and a very taking coolth.” The role resulted in Lansbury receiving her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Lansbury’s later biographer Margaret Bonanno claimed that Mame made Lansbury a “superstar”, with the actress herself commenting on her success by stating that “Everyone loves you, everyone loves the success, and enjoys it as much as you do. And it lasts as long as you are on that stage and as long as you keep coming out of that stage door.”
The stardom achieved through Mame allowed Lansbury to make further appearances on television, such as on Perry Como‘s Thanksgiving Special in November 1966. Her fame also allowed her to engage in a variety of high-profile charitable endeavors, for instance appearing as the guest of honor at the 1967 March of Dimes annual benefit luncheon. She was invited to star in a musical performance for the 1968 Academy Awards ceremony, and co-hosted that year’s Tony Awards with former brother-in-law Peter Ustinov.[82] That year, Harvard University‘s Hasty Pudding Club elected her “Woman of the Year”. When the film adaptation of Mame was put into production, Lansbury hoped to be offered the part, but it instead went to Lucille Ball, an established box-office success. Lansbury considered this to be “one of my bitterest disappointments”.
Lansbury followed the success of Mame with a performance as Countess Aurelia, the 75-year-old Parisian eccentric in Dear World, a musical adaptation of Jean Giraudoux‘s The Madwoman of Chaillot. The show opened at Broadway’s Mark Hellinger Theatre in February 1969, but Lansbury found it a “pretty depressing” experience. Reviews of her performance were positive, and she was awarded her second Tony Award on the basis of it. Reviews of the show more generally were critical, however, and it ended after 132 performances. She followed this with an appearance in the title role of the musical Prettybelle, which was based upon Jean Arnold’s The Rape of Prettybelle. Set in the Deep South, it dealt with issues of racism, with Lansbury as a town mayor. A controversial play, it opened in Boston but received poor reviews, being cancelled before it reached Broadway.
In the 1970s, Lansbury declined several cinematic roles, including the lead in The Killing of Sister George and the role of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Instead, she accepted the role of the Countess von Ornstein, an aging German aristocrat who falls in love with a younger man, in Something for Everyone (1970), for which she filmed on location in Hohenschwangen, Bavaria. That same year she appeared as the middle-aged English witch Eglantine Price in the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks; this was her first lead in a screen musical, and led to her publicising the film on television programmes like the David Frost Show. She later noted that as a big commercial hit, this film “secured an enormous audience for me”. 1970 was a traumatic year for the Lansbury family, as Peter underwent a hip and in September the family’s Malibu home was destroyed in a brush fire. They then purchased Knockmourne Glebe, a farmhouse constructed in the 1820s which was located near the village of Conna in rural County Cork, and Anthony subsequently enrolled in the Webber-Douglas School, his mother’s alma mater, and became a professional actor, before moving into television directing. Lansbury and her husband did not return to California, instead dividing their time between County Cork and New York City. “[In Ireland, our gardener] had no idea who I was. Nobody there did. I was just Mrs. Shaw, which suited me down to the ground. I had absolute anonymity in those days, which was wonderful.”
In 1972, Lansbury returned to London’s West End to perform in the Royal Shakespeare Company‘s theatrical production of Edward Albee‘s All Over at the Aldwych Theatre. She portrayed the mistress of a dying New England millionaire, and although the play’s reviews were mixed, Lansbury’s acting was widely praised. This was followed by her reluctant involvement in a revival of Mame, which was then touring the United States, after which she returned to the West End to play the character of Rose in the musical Gypsy. She had initially turned down the role, not wishing to be in the shadow of Ethel Merman, who had portrayed the character in the original Broadway production, but eventually accepted it; when the show started in May 1973, she earned a standing ovation and rave reviews.[101] Settling into a Belgravia flat, she was soon in demand among London society, having dinners held in her honour. Following the culmination of the London run, in 1974 Gypsy went on a tour of the U.S., and in Chicago Lansbury was awarded the Sarah Siddons Award for her performance. The show eventually reached Broadway, where it ran until January 1975; a critical success, it earned Lansbury her third Tony Award. After several months’ break, Gypsy then toured throughout the country again in the summer of 1975.
Desiring to move on from musicals, Lansbury decided that she wanted to appear in a production of one of William Shakespeare‘s plays. She obtained the role of Gertrude in the National Theatre Company‘s production of Hamlet, staged at the Old Vic. Angela received the news that in November 1975 her mother had died in California; Lansbury had her mother’s body cremated and the ashes scattered near her own County Cork home. Her next theatrical appearance was in two one-act plays by Edward Albee, Counting the Ways and Listening, performed side by side at the Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut. Reviews of the production were mixed, although Lansbury was again singled out for praise. This was followed by another revival tour of Gypsy.
In April 1978, Lansbury appeared in 24 performances of a revival of The King and I musical staged at Broadway’s Uris Theatre; Lansbury played the role of Mrs Anna, replacing Constance Towers, who was on a short break. Her first cinematic role in seven years was as novelist and murder victim Salome Otterbourne in Death on the Nile (1978), an adaptation of Agatha Christie‘s 1937 novel of the same name that was filmed in both London and Egypt. In the film Lansbury starred alongside Ustinov and Bette Davis, who became a close friend. The role earned Lansbury the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress of 1978.
In 1982, she took on the role of an upper middle class housewife who champions workers’ rights in A Little Family Business, a farce set in Baltimore in which her son Anthony also starred. It debuted at Los Angeles’ Ahmanson Theatre before heading on to Broadway’s Martin Beck Theatre. That year, Lansbury was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame, and the following year appeared in a Mame revival at Broadway’s Gershwin Theatre. Although Lansbury was praised, the show was a commercial flop, with Lansbury noting that “I realised that it’s not a show of today. It’s a period piece.”A small number of people have seen me on the stage. [Television] is a chance for me to play to a vast U.S. public, and I think that’s a chance you don’t pass up … I’m interested in reaching everybody. I don’t want to reach just the people who can pay forty-five or fifty dollars for a [theatre] seat.”
In March 1979, Lansbury first appeared as Nellie Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a Stephen Sondheimmusical directed by Harold Prince. Opening at the Uris Theatre, she starred alongside Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd, the murderous barber in 19th century London. After being offered the role, she jumped on the opportunity due to the involvement of Sondheim in the project; she commented that she loved “the extraordinary wit and intelligence of his lyrics.” She remained in the role for fourteen months before being replaced by Dorothy Loudon; the musical received mixed critical reviews, although it earned Lansbury her fourth Tony Award and After Dark magazine’s Ruby Award for Broadway Performer of the Year. She returned to the role in October 1980 for a ten-month tour of six U.S. cities, with George Hearn playing the title character; the production was also filmed and broadcast on the Entertainment Channel.
Working prolifically in cinema, in 1979 Lansbury appeared as Miss Froy in The Lady Vanishes, a remake of Alfred Hitchcock‘s famous 1938 film. The following year she appeared in The Mirror Crack’d, another film based on an Agatha Christie novel, this time as Miss Marple, a sleuth in 1950s Kent. Lansbury hoped to get away from the depiction of the role made famous by Margaret Rutherford, instead returning to Christie’s description of the character; in this she created a precursor to her later role of Jessica Fletcher. She was signed to appear in two sequels as Miss Marple, but these were never made. Lansbury’s next film was the animated The Last Unicorn(1982), for which she provided the voice of the witch Mommy Fortuna.
Returning to musical cinema, she starred as Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance (1983), a film based on Gilbert and Sullivan‘s comic opera of the same name, and while filming it in London sang on a recording of The Beggar’s Opera. This was followed by an appearance as the grandmother in Gothic fantasy film The Company of Wolves (1984). Lansbury had also begun work for television, appearing in a 1982 television film with Bette Davis titled Little Gloria… Happy at Last. She followed this with an appearance in CBS‘s The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story (1983), later describing it as “the most unsophisticated thing you can imagine”. A BBC television film followed, A Talent for Murder (1984), in which she played a wheelchair-bound mystery writer; although describing it as “a rush job”, she agreed to do it in order to work with co-star Laurence Olivier. Two further miniseries featuring Lansbury appeared in 1984: Lace and The First Olympics: Athens 1896.
In 1983, Lansbury was offered 2 main television roles, one in a sitcom and the other in a detective series. Unable to do both, she chose to do the detective series despite the fact her agents had advised her to accept the sitcom. The series, Murder, She Wrote, centered on the character of Jessica Fletcher, a retired school teacher from the fictional town of Cabot Cove, Maine, who became a successful detective novelist after her husband’s death, also solving murders encountered during her travels. Lansbury described the character as “an American Miss Marple“. The series was created by Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson, and William Link, who had earlier had success with Columbo, and the role of Jessica Fletcher had been first offered to Jean Stapleton, who declined the role, as did Doris Day. The pilot episode, “The Murder of Sherlock Holmes,” premiered on CBS on September 30, 1984, with the rest of the first season airing on Sundays from 8 to 9 p.m. Although critical reviews were mixed, it proved highly popular, with the pilot having a Nielsen rating of 18.9 and the first season being rated top in its time slot. Designed as inoffensive family viewing, despite its topic the show eschewed depicting violence or gore, following the “whodunit” format rather than those of most contemporary U.S. crime shows; Lansbury herself commented that “best of all, there’s no violence. I hate violence.”
Lansbury was defensive about Jessica Fletcher, having creative input over the character’s costumes, makeup and hair, and rejecting pressure from network executives to put her in a relationship, believing that the character should remain a strong single female. When she believed that a scriptwriter had made Jessica do or say things that did not fit with the character’s personality, Lansbury ensured that the script was changed. She saw Jessica as a role model for older female viewers, praising her “enormous, universal appeal – that was an accomplishment I never expected in my entire life.” Lansbury biographers Rob Edelman and Audrey E. Kupferberg described the series as “a television landmark” in the U.S. for having an older female character as the protagonist, thereby paving the way for later series like The Golden Girls. Lansbury herself noted that “I think it’s the first time a show has really been aimed at the middle aged audience,” and although it was most popular among senior citizens, it gradually gained a younger audience. By 1991, one third of viewers were under age 50. It gained continually high ratings throughout most of its run, outdoing rivals in its time slot such as Steven Spielberg‘s Amazing Stories on NBC. In February 1987, a spin-off was produced, The Law & Harry McGraw, although it was short-lived. ‘I know why [Murder, She Wrote was a success]. There was never any blood, never any violence. And there was always a satisfying conclusion to a whodunit. The jigsaw was complete. And I loved Jessica’s everywoman character. I think that’s what made her so acceptable to an across-the-board audience.”
As the show went on, Lansbury assumed a larger role behind the scenes. In 1989, her own company, Corymore Productions, began co-producing the show with Universal. Nevertheless, she began to tire of the series, and in particular the long working hours, stating that the 1990–91 season would be the show’s last. She changed her mind after being appointed executive producer for the 1992–93 season, something that she felt “made it far more interesting to me.”For the 8th season, the show’s setting moved to New York City, where Jessica had taken a job teaching criminology at Manhattan University. The move was an attempt to attract younger viewers and was encouraged by Lansbury. Having become a “Sunday-night institution” in the U.S., the show’s ratings improved during the early 1990s, becoming a Top Five programme. However, CBS executives, hoping to gain a larger audience, moved it to Thursdays at 8pm, opposite NBC’s new sitcom, Friends. Lansbury was angry at the move, believing that it ignored the show’s core audience. The final episode of the series aired in May 1996, and ended with Lansbury voicing a “Goodbye from Jessica” message at the end.[148] Tom Shales wrote in The Washington Post, “The title of the show’s last episode, “Death by Demographics,” is in itself something of a protest. ‘Murder, She Wrote’ is partly a victim of commercial television’s mad youth mania.” At the time it tied the original Hawaii Five-O as the longest-running detective drama series in television history, and the role would prove to be the most successful and prominent of Lansbury’s career. Lansbury initially had plans for a Murder She Wrote television film that would be a musical with a score composed by Jerry Herman. While this project didn’t materialise, it was transformed into Mrs Santa Claus – in which Lansbury played Santa Claus‘ wife – which proved to be a ratings hit.
Throughout the run of Murder, She Wrote, Lansbury had continued making appearances in other television films, miniseries and cinema. In 1986, she co-hosted the New York Philharmonic‘s televised tribute to the centenary of the Statue of Liberty with Kirk Douglas. In 1986 she appeared as the protagonist’s mother in Rage of Angels: The Story Continues, and in 1988 portrayed Nan Moore – the mother of a victim of the real-life Korean Air Lines Flight 007 plane crash – in Shootdown; being a mother herself, she had been “enormously touched by the incident.” 1989 saw her featured in The Shell Seekers as an Englishwoman recuperating from a heart attack, and in 1990 she starred in The Love She Sought as an American school teacher who falls in love with a Catholic priest while visiting Ireland; Lansbury thought it “a marvelous woman’s story.”nShe next starred as the Cockney Mrs Harris in a film adaptation of the novel Mrs ‘Arris Goes to Paris, which was directed by her son and executive produced by her stepson. Her highest profile cinematic role since The Manchurian Candidate was as the voice of the singing teapot Mrs. Potts in the 1991 Disney animation Beauty and the Beast, an appearance that she considered to be a gift to her 3 grandchildren. Lansbury performed the title song to the film, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
Lansbury’s Murder, She Wrote fame resulted in her being employed to appear in advertisements and infomercials for Bufferin, MasterCard and the Beatrix Potter Company. In 1988, she released a video titled Angela Lansbury’s Positive Moves: My Personal Plan for Fitness and Well-Being, in which she outlined her personal exercise routine, and in 1990 published a book with the same title co-written with Mimi Avins, which she dedicated to her mother. As a result of her work she was appointed a CBE by the British government, given to her in a ceremony by the Prince of Wales at the British consulate in Los Angeles. While living most of the year in California, Lansbury spent Christmases and summers at Corymore House, her farmhouse overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at Ballywilliam, near Churchtown South, County Cork, which she had had specially built as a family home in 1991.
Actress Angela Lansbury clad in costume for role in the movie “The Court Jester,” eating a hamburger w. actor Basil Rathbone while sitting at lunch in large Paramount Studio commissary during a day of filming.
Following the end of Murder, She Wrote, Lansbury returned to the theatre. Although cast in the lead role in the 2001 Kander and Ebbmusical The Visit, she withdrew before it opened due to her husband’s deteriorating health. Peter died in January 2003 of congestive heart failure at the couple’s Brentwood, California home. Lansbury felt that after this event she would not take on any more major acting roles, and that instead might make a few cameo appearances but nothing more. Wanting to spend more time in New York City, in 2006 she purchased a $2 million condominium in Manhattan, and in a 2014 interview noted that she also had homes in Ireland and Los Angeles.
She made an appearance in a Season 6 episode of the television show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2005. She starred in the 2005 film Nanny McPheeas Aunt Adelaide, commenting that it was “such fun to play a baddie!” and later informing an interviewer that working on Nanny McPhee “pulled me out of the abyss” after the loss of her husband. She then appeared in the 2011 film Mr. Popper’s Penguins, opposite Jim Carrey. Lansbury returned to Broadway after a 23-year absence in Deuce, a play by Terrence McNally that opened at the Music Box Theatre in May 2007 for a limited run of eighteen weeks. Lansbury received a Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Play for her role.
Actress Angela Lansbury sitting on a chair, United States, 1946.
In March 2009 she returned to Broadway for a revival of Blithe Spirit at the Shubert Theatre, where she took on the role of Madame Arcati. Discussing the character, she stated: “I love her. She’s completely off-the-wall but utterly secure in her own convictions.” This appearance earned her the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play; this was her fifth Tony Award, tying her with the previous record holder for the number of Tony Awards, Julie Harris, albeit all of Harris’ Tonys were for Best Leading Actress. From December 2009 to June 2010, Lansbury then starred as Madame Armfeldt alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones in the first Broadway revival of A Little Night Music, held at the Walter Kerr Theatre. The role earned her a seventh Tony Award nomination, while in May 2010, she was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from Manhattan School of Music.
From April to July 2012, Lansbury starred as women’s rights advocate Sue-Ellen Gamadge in the Broadway revival of Gore Vidal‘s The Best Man at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. From February to June 2013, Lansbury starred alongside James Earl Jones in an Australian tour of Driving Miss Daisy. In November 2013, she received an Academy Honorary Award for her lifetime achievement at the Governors Awards. From March to June 2014, Lansbury reprised her performance as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit at the Gielgud Theatre in London’s West End, her first London stage appearance in nearly 40 years. While in London, she made an appearance at the Angela Lansbury Film Festival in Poplar, a screening of some of her most popular films organised by Poplar Film. From December 2014 to March 2015 she joined the tour of Blithe Spirit across North America.
In April 2015, aged 89, she received her first Olivier Award as Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Arcati, and in November 2015 was awarded the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.
On June 2, 2016, it was officially announced that Lansbury would return to Broadway in the 2017–18 season in a revival of Enid Bagnold‘s 1955 play The Chalk Garden. The play was produced by Scott Rudin at a theatre to-be-announced. However, in an interview published on September 20, 2016, Lansbury stated that she will not be performing in The Chalk Garden, stating, in part: “At my time of life, I’ve decided that I want to be with family more and being alone in New York doing a play requires an extraordinary amount of time left alone.”
Lansbury describes herself as “an amalgam of British, Irish and American” although throughout her life she has spoken with an English accent. She holds Irish citizenship. Biographer Martin Gottfried characterized her as “Meticulous. Cautious. Self-editing. Deliberate. It is what the British call reserved,”adding that she was “as concerned, as sensitive, and as sympathetic as anyone might want in a friend.”Also noting that she had “a profound sense of privacy,”he added that she disliked attempts at flattery.
As a young actress, Lansbury was a self-professed homebody, commenting that “I love the world of housekeeping.” She preferred spending quiet evenings inside with friends to the Hollywood night life. Her hobbies at the time included reading, horse riding, playing tennis, cooking and playing the piano, also having a keen interest in gardening. In 2014, it was reported that she continued to enjoy gardening, and also enjoyed doing crosswords. She has cited F. Scott Fitzgerald as her favorite author, and cited Roseanne and Seinfeld as being among her favorite television shows. Lansbury was an avid letter writer, doing so by hand and making copies of all her correspondences. At Howard Gotlieb’s request, Lansbury’s papers are housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.
Actress Angela Lansbury in the film The Harvey Girls
She is a supporter of the United States Democratic Party, describing herself as “Democrat from the ground up,” and the British Labour Party.Throughout her career, Lansbury supported a variety of charities, particularly those such as Abused Wives in Crisis that combated domestic abuse and those who worked toward rehabilitating drug users. In the 1980s, she began to support a number of charities engaged in the fight against HIV/AIDS. During the 1990s, she began to suffer from arthritis,in May 1994 had hip replacement surgery, and in 2005 had knee replacement surgery.
A 2007 interviewer for The New York Times described her as “one of the few actors it makes sense to call beloved,” noting that a 1994 article in People magazine awarded her a perfect score on its “lovability index.” The New Statesman noted that she “has the kind of pulling power many younger and more ubiquitous actors can only dream of, while an article in The Independent has suggested that she could be considered Britain’s most successful actress. She is a gay icon, and has asserted that she is “very proud of the fact,” attributing her popularity among the LGBT community to her performance in Mame.
Actress Angela Lansbury in the film The Harvey Girls
Three-time Oscar-nominated actress best known for playing Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote
Tuesday October 11 2022, 9.15pm BST, The Times
That Angela Lansbury’s most celebrated role came so late in her long career, playing the neat and elderly Jessica Fletcher, was perhaps no surprise.
“For those women who were known for their beauty, it is darn difficult,” she said of the ageist casting from which many of her fellow female actors suffered. “But I was playing older parts when I was terribly young because I wasn’t a big-screen beauty.”
In her twenties Lansbury was regularly cast to play women in their forties. In her forties she played the 75-year-old Countess Aurelia in the Broadway musical Dear World.
Directors seemed to regard her as an archetypal maternal figure. She was Elvis Presley’s mother in Blue Hawaii, even though she was only nine years older than the singer. In The Manchurian Candidate (1962), rated by many as her finest film role and one that led to her third Oscar nomination, she played Laurence Harvey’s mother, although they were almost the same age. On Broadway she played a blowsy mother to her contemporary Joan Plowright in A Taste of Honey.
Maturity became her and from childhood she had felt a precocity beyond her years. She claimed to have become “an old lady at ten” after the death of her father and was forced “to grow up instantly” as she helped her mother to bring up younger twin brothers during the Depression and then the Blitz.
She played the novelist and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote until she was in her seventies and when the show ended, she carried on working for another two decades.
Over a dozen years she appeared in 264 episodes of Murder, She Wrote and was reportedly paid more than $200,000 an episode, with 28 million people tuning in to watch it each week from 1984 until 1996. She called the character “as close to myself” as any she played. Something of a bluestocking in real life, she attributed her longevity to an unadventurous youth and carefully frugal lifestyle. “I take a lot of vitamins, get enough sleep and don’t drink apart from a glass of wine occasionally,” she said. “I am boringly good.”
She was by all accounts a lovely person. When in Cork she shopped locally, fitted right in and was part of the community where she spent a lot of summers and Christmases.
Dermot Mulroney was a riot in the film “About Schmidt” with Jack Nicholson from which this autograph picture was taken . In his previous roles he seemed no more than a handsome utilty actor. In “About Schmidt” he played the part of Randell Hertzel a pony-tailed, walrus mustached water-bed salesman forever optimistic of reaching his monthly sales target. It will be interesting to see how Mulroney does in his new role of Jim Rockford (the role James Garner created) in the remake of the old television series “The Rockford Files”
Aidan Turner is one of our new generation of Irish actors. He first came to national prominance as Rory in the RTE series of “The Clinic”. He then went on to be among the leading actors in the British television series “Being Human” and “Desperate Romantics”. He recently made the television film “Hattie” about the Carry On comedienne Hattie Jacques and has been announced as the lead in the remake of the classic TV series “Poldark”.
Lisa Richard’s Agency page:
Aiden Turner is this year’s recipient of Best Male Newcomer at the Jameson Empire Awards.
He has been cast as Captain Poldark in the upcoming BBC adaptation of Winston Graham’s Poldark which is currently filming.
Aidan most recently appeared as Kili in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey directed by Peter Jackson with Martin Freeman, Cate Blanchett and Ian McKellen which has had huge success internationally. And later in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug He recently finished filming the finale The Hobbit: There and Back Again.
He appeared in the leading role of Mitchell in the hit series Being Humanon BBC3 (repeated on BBC1) in 2008 and went on to appear in the leading role of Rosetti in the new mini-series Desperate Romantics which was shown on BBC2 in the same year. He went on to appear in Season Two of Being Human on BBC3 (2009) and Season Three in 2010 which was nominated for a BAFTA for a second season running, and which won an RTS and Writers Guild Award in 2009. He also appeared in the role of John Schofield in Hattie a TV movie for BBC4 which received huge critical acclaim and record ratings for that channel. He appeared as Luke Garroway in the feature film The Mortal Instruments: City of Bonesdirected by Harald Zwart.
Aidan appeared on RTE 1 as the new series regular Ruairi in Season 6 ofThe Clinic for Parallel Films/RTE and returned as this character later in 2009 for Season 7.
He appeared in the leading role of Kevin in the independant feature filmPorcelain directed by Gavin Cleland for Bedoli Films. Aidan appeared in the leading role of Mal in Alarm an independent feature film written and directed by Gerard Stembridge for Venus Films.
Aidan graduated from the Gaiety School of Acting Diploma course (2004) and since then has appeared as Corp. Stoddard in the Abbey Theatre’s production of The Plough and the Stars in the Barbican Theatre, London, in the Dublin Fringe Festival show Suddenly Last Summer at the Focus Theatre, as Ardan in Vincent Woods’ new play A Cry from Heavendirected by Olivier Py at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin,as Hercules in The Performance Corporation’s new play Yokohama Delegation directed by Jo Mangan for Kilkenny Arts Ferstival, as Demetrius in Titus Andronicus at the Project directed by Selina Cartmell, as Pan in Storytellers production of The Crock of Gold at the Olympia Theatre and on tour. Aidan appeared in Drive-by directed by Jo Mangan for the Cork Mid-Summer Festival, the Dublin Fringe Festival 2006 and the Cantebury Arts Festival 2007 and inLa Marea directed by Mariano Pennsotti for Bedrock Theatre Co/DTF 2007 and Cyrano, directed by Vernonica Coburn for Barabbas…the Company, at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin. He appeared as Paris in Romeo and Juliet directed by Jason Byrne at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.
Born and raised in the small Irish suburb of Clondalkin, curly-headed Aidan Turner is best known for portraying tortured vampire Mitchell on the smash BBC series “Being Human.” After graduating from the Gaiety School of Acting in 2004–fellow alumni include American starlet Olivia Wilde–Turner performed in many plays throughout England and Ireland, including Tennessee Williams’ one-act drama “Suddenly, Last Summer” and Shakespeare’s tragedy “Titus Andronicus.” He appeared on television for the first time in “In Cold Blood,” a 2007 episode of Showtime’s historical drama series “The Tudors,” starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Henry Cavill. After popping up in a few short films and the panned paranoia thriller “Alarm,” he portrayed receptionist and DJ Ruairà McGowan in the hit medical drama “The Clinic,” a character that lasted two seasons.
The year 2009 saw Turner appear in nearly every living room in Britain with his roles as Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the 19th century drama series “Desperate Romantics” and Mitchell in “Being Human.” A mixture of witty humor and supernatural horror centering around a trio of spooky roommates–a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost–“Being Human” gained a massive audience upon its BBC America debut and inspired an American version of the show in 2011. .
