Hollywood Actors

Collection of Classic Hollywood Actors

Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton

“‘La-dee-dah’ said Diane Keaton as ‘Annie Hall’.   ‘Wow’ and ‘Oooh’ and ‘Oh’ and ‘Right’ and ‘Yeah’, putting them into various permutations.   Her director and co-star Woody Allen had lived with her at one time and we all suspected that the film  was more autobiographical than they cared to admit in interviews.   We did’nt care either for it told us more than we needed to know: but since she won an Oscar for it we may say that this is the most valuable self-portrait of an Oscar winner that we have.   The films success was surely due to her: seemingly spontaneous, healthy looking, a free spirit bubbling with merriment  – and occasional doubts- ‘Wow’, /Right’. ‘Yeah’,’Oh’, ‘Wo'”. – David Shipman in “The Great Movie Stars – The Independent Years

 

 Diane Keaton was born in 1946 in California.   She made her film debut in 1971 in the excellent “Lovers and Other Strangers”.   She also starred in several movies with Woody Allen such as “Play It Again Sam”, “Manhatten” and “Annie Hall”.   She also starred in “Reds” with Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson.

TCM overview:

As a multi-faceted actress, director and producer, Diane Keaton received her start as a favorite actress – as well as off-screen girlfriend – of filmmaker Woody Allen, earning a Best Actress Academy Award for her breakout performance in “Annie Hall” (1977). Prior to that, she was the troubled wife of Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Godfather, Part II” (1974), and further displayed her dramatic chops as a promiscuous schoolteacher in “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” (1977). Following a role in Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” (1979), she earned another Oscar nod for Warren Beatty’s “Reds” (1981) and had another critical success with “Crimes of the Heart” (1986). Keaton made her directing debut with the documentary “Heaven” (1987) and segued into television with “The Girl with the Crazy Brother” (CBS, 1990). Along the way, she starred opposite Steve Martin in “Father of the Bride” (1989), reprised Kay Corleone for “The Godfather, Part III” (1990) and had her last role with Allen in “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (1993). Meanwhile, she scored a big hit with “The First Wives Club” (1996), directed the box-office dud “Hanging Up” (2000) and revived that failure with an acclaimed turn opposite Jack Nicholson in the comedy “Something’s Gotta Give” (2003). By the time she starred in the romantic comedy “Morning Glory” (2010), the ever stylish Keaton was well known for showcasing powerful emotional journeys of typically non-conformist characters, while having made significant contributions to movies, television, photography, interior design and fashion.

Keaton was born Diane Hall on Jan. 5, 1946, and raised in Santa Ana, CA. The eldest of four kids born to an engineer and amateur photographer, Keaton displayed an enormous range of creative talent growing up, enjoying photography and designing her own clothes while appearing in school plays and harboring dreams of becoming a singer. She spent several years at local colleges after graduating from Santa Ana High School in 1964, but soon moved to New York City, where she studied at Sanford Meisner’s renowned Neighborhood Playhouse. She sang on small nightclub stages, but her acting career was first to take off, and in 1968 Keaton landed a long Broadway run in the original cast of “Hair” (1968), where she became known as the one girl who declined to remove her clothes during the finale. The following year, she was cast in Woody Allen’s Broadway production “Play It Again, Sam” (1970), earning a Tony Award nomination for the comedy and beginning a long working relationship (as well as romantic relationship) with writer and co-star Allen.

After making her feature debut in “Lovers and Other Strangers” (1970), Keaton had already earned an industry reputation for her eccentric leanings, and it was just that undertone that Francis Ford Coppola was looking for in the character of Kay Adams, Michael Corleone’s innocent girlfriend in “The Godfather” (1972). Keaton teamed up with Allen on the big screen in the screwball futuristic comedy “Sleeper” (1973), reprised her role as the now-Mrs. Michael Corleone in “The Godfather Part II” (1974), and retreated to Allen’s skewed world with “Love and Death” (1975). As Allen’s film style evolved into studies of creative, intellectual New Yorkers, he brought Keaton with him and she became an Oscar-winning movie star with her co-starring role opposite him in the landmark “Annie Hall” (1977), a film loosely based on the pair’s now defunct relationship. Keaton made a huge impact in the film, establishing her persona as a multi-dimensional modern woman, smart and culturally sophisticated, but grappling with emotional insecurities. The actress also unwittingly became a style icon whose penchant for men’s vintage clothing and odd vest and hat pairings was widely adopted by the fashion world.

Later that year, Keaton gave another excellent performance in “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” (1977), where her free-spirited persona and ability to embody “mainstream” values added to the impact of her portrayal of a newly “liberated” teacher who forays into the gritty pre-AIDS singles bar scene. After accompanying Allen in the anguished “Interiors” (1978) of his first drama and co-starring as the off-putting know-it-all who eventually woos his character away from his teenaged girlfriend in “Manhattan” (1979), Keaton landed the meaty role of leftist writer-artist Louise Bryant in then-beau Warren Beatty’s ambitious “Reds” (1981). Her complex portrait of lover, heroine and feminist earned her another Best Actress Oscar nomination and solidified her position at the top of Hollywood’s A-list. Keaton left her flair for comic characters in the background, going on to give fine performances as strong-willed women in dramas “Shoot the Moon” (1982), “The Little Drummer Girl” (1984), and “Mrs. Soffel” (1984), where she starred opposite Mel Gibson as a prison warden’s wife who falls in love with an inmate.

The casting of Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek and Keaton as quirky Southern sisters in “Crimes of the Heart” (1986) did not transform Beth Henley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play into a hit film, but the actress did finally enjoy some mainstream success with Charles Shyer’s “Baby Boom” (1987), a fluffy comedy she headlined about a devoted career woman suddenly saddled with a baby. Keaton’s lifelong passion for photography eventually led her to directing, so in the late 1980s she began to get her feet wet with music videos and a documentary glimpse at the hereafter called “Heaven” (1987). Keaton rejoined Coppola and the “Godfather” team for the franchise’s ill-received third installment, “The Godfather Part III” (1990) and retreated behind the camera to direct the made-for-TV movies, The CBS Schoolbreak Special, “The Girl with the Crazy Brother” (1990) and “Wildflower” (1991), and episodes of the drama series “China Beach” (ABC, 1988-1991) and “Twin Peaks” (ABC, 1990-91). Back on the silver screen, the mild comedy remake “Father of the Bride” (1991) marked the beginning of a new onscreen era for Keaton; one that often found her as matriarchs of upper middle class families.

Keaton played an eccentric writer involved with Presidential candidate Ed Harris in “Running Mates” (HBO, 1992) before a hilarious and long overdue re-teaming with Allen in “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (1993), a lighthearted caper whose real star was the pair’s undiminished comic chemistry. Back on the small screen, she gave an Emmy Award-nominated starring performance in “Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight” (TNT, 1994), where she was appropriately coiffed for the period and bore a striking resemblance to the famous aviatrix who disappeared over the Pacific in 1937. Back in the director’s chair, Keaton helmed her first fictional feature, “Unstrung Heroes” (1995), receiving mostly good notices for her examination of a boy’s adventures growing up in an off-center Jewish family of the 1960s. In her first big hit since “Annie Hall” nearly a decade earlier, Keaton co-starred with Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler in Hugh Wilson’s “The First Wives Club” (1996) and scored big for her wickedly witty characterization of one of a group of gleefully vengeful exes who have been replaced by younger counterparts.

That uptick in Keaton’s profile led to an Oscar-nominated turn in Marvin’s Room” (1996), an intimate exploration of family love and sacrifice which paired her and Meryl Streep as estranged sisters forced by circumstance to resume their relationship. With neither “The Only Thrill” (1997) nor “The Other Sister” (1999) finding an audience, the Disney Channel’s “Northern Lights” (1997), for which she also served as executive producer, offered arguably her best role for the balance of the decade. As a smart, unsentimental and childless widow who unwillingly takes on the responsibility for her late brother’s nine-year-old, Keaton allowed softer edges to emerge in her delightfully comic performance. Her second feature as director, “Hanging Up” (2000), revisited the sister dynamic, and this time she starred with Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow as siblings coping with the impending death of their father (Walter Matthau). After appearing in the all-star ensemble of the comic misfire “Town & Country” (2001) opposite ex-boyfriend Warren Beatty, Keaton scored on television in the amusing “Sister Mary Explains It All” (2001), playing a tough-as-nails nun facing a foursome of former students whose lives her teachings ruined.

Behind the scenes, Keaton served as the executive producer of the critically championed but little-watched series “Pasadena” (Fox, 2001), for which she also directed episodes. She went on to star in the CBS telepic “Crossed Over” (2002), the real-life story of a mother whose son was killed by a hit-and-run driver and overcame her grief and depression by befriending a woman on death row in Texas. A third quality telepic, the Lifetime movie “On Thin Ice” (2003) – based on the true story of a single, widowed mother who dealt drugs during a financial emergency only to late become an FBI drug informant – also earned kudos for Keaton as the lead. Keaton made a triumphant return to the big screen opposite Jack Nicholson in the over-50 romantic comedy “Something’s Gotta Give” (2003). In one of Keaton’s most endearing roles, she gave a bravura performance as a tightly wound novelist who finds herself falling in love with her daughter’s much older, womanizing boyfriend (Jack Nicholson) after he suffers a heart attack at her house. Her palpable chemistry with her co-star, both on the screen and off, fueled the film’s crowd-pleasing appeal and earned Keaton her fourth Oscar nomination as Best Actress (giving her a nod in four different decades), as well as a Golden Globe victory. It even led to rumors of life imitating art, with tabloids whispering of the seemingly ageless Keaton dating her younger co-star from the film, Keanu Reeves. They claimed to be simply friends.

In 2003, Keaton served as executive producer of “Elephant” (2003), director Gus Van Sant’s much-praised exploration of a high school shooting, but returned to comic outings with the 2005 holiday film “The Family Stone” (2005), where she played the matriarch of a bohemian family who welcomes home her son (Dermot Mulroney) and his new girlfriend (Sarah Jessica Parker), a high-powered and controlling New Yorker who is greeted with awkwardness, confusion and hostility. As one of the few middle-aged actresses in much demand, the ever-fashionable 60-year-old, who was outspoken about her anti-plastic surgery stance, was even selected to become a spokesmodel for L’Oreal beauty products. The following year, she appeared opposite former teen singing sensation, Mandy Moore, in “Because I Said So” (2007), a romantic comedy about a well-intentioned but overzealous mother who goes on a mission to find the right man for her daughter. Unfortunately, the film was one of the worst reviewed of the year, with critics slamming Keaton for her choice in vehicle and accusing her of mining the onscreen neurotic act a bit longer than necessary. “Mad Money” fared slightly better with critics, though the implausible female-powered caper starring Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes, disappeared from theaters within a few short weeks. Undaunted, the comedy of errors “Smother” (2008) gave Keaton slightly more to work with in her role as a flighty mom who moves in with her grown son (Dax Shepard) and his wife (Liv Tyler). She went on to play a morning show anchor opposite Harrison Ford in the underwhelming comedy “Morning Glory” (2010) and the following year released her memoirs, Then Again, which relied on her mother’s private journals.

By Susan Clarke

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
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Debra Paget

Debra Paget was a very popular movie star in Hollywood movies of the 1950’s.   She also has the distinction of being the first of Elvis Presley’s leading ladies in 1956’s “Love Me Tender”.   Her other films include “House of Strangers”, “The River’s Edge” and “The Ten Commandments”.

TCM overview:

A sexy yet invariably sympathetic and demure leading lady of the 1950s, Debra Paget was often cast in exotic roles, such as Native American or South Seas maiden princesses, in a series of fairly routine melodramas and Westerns of the period. A lovely brunette, she had a warm, pleasant and romantic screen image, though for much of her 15 years in the movies she was used for largely decorative purposes, as the obligatory ingenue, romantic partner or second lead.

Paget acquired brief acting experience on the stage while still in her early teens before being signed by 20th Century-Fox. She made a creditable film debut in director Robert Siodmak’s stunning film noir “Cry of the City” (1948) and Fox began building her up. “Broken Arrow” (1950) proved a big popular success: it made Jeff Chandler a star, moved Jimmy Stewart successfully into Westerns, and gave Paget her first prominent and typical role as Sonseeahray, all shot in the Technicolor which became standard for her. “Anne of the Indies” (1951), unfortunately, gave her another typical role: Louis Jourdan’s helpless wife, almost sold into slavery by lusty pirate Jean Peters. Paget did, however, do her level best as the princess who must save her people by jumping into an ever-demanding volcano in a lavish, enjoyably hokey remake of the standard Pacific island fable, “Bird of Paradise” (1951). She continued with Fox until the mid-50s, frequently teamed with either Robert Wagner (“Stars and Stripes Forever” 1952; “Prince Valiant” 1954) or Jeffrey Hunter (“Fourteen Hours” 1951; “Princess of the Nile” 1954). Paget sometimes played second fiddle to more established female stars such as Myrna Loy and Jeanne Crain (“Belles on Their Toes” 1952) or Susan Hayward (“Demetrius and the Gladiators” 1954), or did her best to look good in period garb as the sweep of historical spectacle took over, as with her lovely Cosette in the decent “Les Miserables” (1952).

After parting company from Fox, Paget continued playing such established types as Native Americans (“White Feather” 1955; “The Last Hunt” 1956) or suffering, devoted girlfriends in historical epics, perhaps most notably in Cecil B. DeMille’s remake of “The Ten Commandments” (1956). She formed an attractively sincere couple with Elvis Presley in “Love Me Tender” (1956), but the emphasis was clearly on the rock’n’roll newcomer. Paget eventually made a few films abroad, most notably Fritz Lang’s strange adventure saga “The Indian Tomb” (1960), and finished her Hollywood career with appearances in two stylish period horror offerings from American International Pictures, “Tales of Terror” (1962) and “The Haunted Palace” (1963).

Paget was married for four months to actor and singer David Street in 1958 and was later married to director Budd Boetticher for 22 days. Paget left the entertainment field in 1964 after marrying Louis C Kung, a Chinese-American nephew of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek who was successful in the oil industry.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

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Kurt Russell
Kurt Russell
Kurt Russell

Kurt Russell starred in one of my favourite movies “Escape from New York” in 1981.   He began his career as a child actor and was featured in “It Happened At the World’s Fair” in 1962 with Elvis Presley.   His other movies include “Swing Shift” with his partner Goldie Hawn and “Guns in the Heather” which was made in the West of Ireland for Walt Disney.

TCM overview:

After getting his start as a child star in several movies for Walt Disney Studios, actor Kurt Russell managed to shed his wholesome image to play some of cinema’s most notorious and hard-edged tough guys. Russell first broke the Disney mold with an acclaimed portrayal of the King in the made-for-television biopic, “Elvis” (ABC, 1979), which many hailed as one of the finest performances of his career. Having partnered with director John Carpenter, he next essayed one of his most enduring characters, Snake Plissken, the antihero of Carpenter’s cult classic “Escape from New York” (1981). Russell delivered another solid performance as memorable hard-case R.J. MacReady in Carpenter’s gory remake of “The Thing” (1982). While making the troubled romantic comedy, “Swing Shift” (1984), Russell became romantically involved with co-star Goldie Hawn, with whom he forged a lasting partnership that resembled a marriage, but without the actual legal certificate. He was even considered by Hawn’s two children from a previous marriage, actress Kate Kudston, and her brother, Oliver, to be – at least in spirit – their father. Meanwhile, Russell thrived throughout the 1980s with “Big Trouble in Little China” (1986) and “Tequila Sunrise” (1988), which carried over into the next decade with “Backdraft” (1991), “Captain Ron” (1992) and a dead-on portrayal of Wyatt Earp in “Tombstone” (1993). Following box office success with “Stargate” (1994) and “Executive Decision” (1996), Russell offered up his most engaging performance in the tense thriller “Breakdown” (1997). Though he later faltered with “3000 Miles to Graceland” (2001) and “Poseidon” (2006), Russell nonetheless remained one of the most engaging actors in Hollywood.

Born on March 17, 1951 in Springfield, MA, Russell was later raised in Thousand Oaks, CA by his mother, Louise, a dancer, and his father, Bing, a character actor best known for playing Deputy Clem Foster on “Bonanza” (NBC, 1959-1973). Growing up around the entertainment industry gave the young Russell an opportunity to appear onscreen himself. Russell made his first television appearance with a guest starring role on the short-lived sitcom “Our Man Higgins” (ABC, 1962-63) before turning to hour-long drama with an episode of “The Eleventh Hour” (NBC, 1962-64). In short order, Russell found himself starring in his own series, “The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters” (ABC, 1963-64), in which he played the titular role of a 12-year-old boy who depicts his experiences with his family and the hardships faced after settling California in 1849. Following the cancellation of that series, the young actor appeared as a guest star on shows like “The Virginian” (NBC, 1962-1971) and “Gilligan’s Island” (CBS, 1964-67), before making his feature debut in “Follow Me, Boys!” (1966), one of several pictures for Walt Disney made by Russell early in his career. He played a Boy Scout who befriends a traveling saxophonist (Fred McMurphy) settling down in his small Midwestern town.

Russell continued making films for Disney with a supporting role in “The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit” (1968), followed by a starring role in “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes” (1970), in which he played Dexter Riley, a student whose brain becomes a virtual hard drive after a computer he was trying to fix is struck by lightning. He revived the same character, now turned college student, who invents an invisibility spray coveted by a gang of thieves in the pseudo-sequel, “Now You See Him, Now You Don’t” (1972). As he entered his twenties, Russell made his last pictures with Disney – “Charley and the Angel” (1973) and “Superdad” (1974), co-starring Bob Crane – before making his final Disney movie under contract with “The Strongest Man in the World” (1975), playing for the last time troublesome college student Dexter Riley. He began making the segue to more adult roles with two failed series, “The New Land” (ABC, 1974) and “The Quest” (NBC, 1976), and completely shedding his nice kid image with a chilling portrayal of mass-murderer Charles Whitman in the television movie, “The Deadly Tower” (NBC, 1975).

A few years later, Russell delivered a career-defining performance as the King of Rock and Roll in director John Carpenter’s television biopic, “Elvis” (ABC, 1979). Though low-budget and missing certain key details, Carpenter’s movie opened to huge ratings and earned Russell an Emmy Award nomination, whole touching off a fruitful collaboration between actor and director over the next decade. Russell also married co-star, Season Hubley, who played Priscilla Presley, after the couple displayed undeniable chemistry onscreen. On the big screen, he became a bankable adult Hollywood star, thanks to a fine performance as a fast-talking charmer in Robert Zemeckis’ raucous, under-appreciated comedy, “Used Cars” (1980). He experienced greater popular success by reuniting with Carpenter for the cult classic sci-fi actioner, “Escape From New York” (1981), playing eye-patched antihero, Snake Plissken, a former solider-turned-criminal in a dystopian future where Manhattan has been turned into a maximum security prison, who is backed into saving the President of the United States (Donald Pleasence) after Air Force One crash lands on the island. Made on a shoestring budget of $6 million, “Escape” earned over $50 million at the box office. It also ushered in a new career trajectory for Russell, who managed to shed his family-friendly image from the previous decade for good.

After voicing the adult hound dog Copper in “The Fox and the Hound” (1981) for his former employer, Walt Disney Studios, Russell reunited with Carpenter for “The Thing” (1982), a gory remake of Howard Hawks’ 1951 film about a 12-man rescue team that discovers a parasitic alien life form that had been buried beneath the Earth for 100,000 years. Though admired by some critics despite the film’s excesses of violence and gore, “The Thing” wound up being a box office failure. It did, however, live on as another cult classic, while adding on to Russell’s impressive array of big screen tough guys. He next co-starred in Mike Nichols’ somber biopic, “Silkwood” (1983), playing the lover of nuclear plant work, Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep), whose mysterious car accident death after her groundbreaking investigation into plant safety led to a reexamination of nuclear energy. Meanwhile, Russell took a turn toward romantic comedy with a co-starring role opposite Goldie Hawn in “Swing Shift” (1984), in which he played a factory worker denied enlistment during World War II, who falls for a woman (Hawn) working the production line while her husband is off fighting in Europe. Though conventional onscreen, “Swing Shift” was noted for the behind-the-scenes battles between Hawn, who also served as producer, and director Jonathan Demme over the film’s tone. It also marked the beginning of a long-running companionship between Russell and Hawn; though they never married, the couple remained a steadfast couple for several decades while Russell was considered by Hawn’s children, Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson, to be their father, even though they were never legally adopted by him.

Following a starring turn opposite Mariel Hemingway in the psychological thriller, “The Mean Season” (1985), Russell teamed up again with John Carpenter for “Big Trouble in Little China” (1986), doing a hilarious John Wayne-like turn as a tough-guy truck driver who tries to save his friend’s fiancée (Suzee Pai) from an ancient sorcerer (James Hong) hiding beneath San Francisco’s Chinatown. He next played a former star high school quarterback-turned-garage owner coaxed back into reigniting an old gridiron rivalry by a teammate (Robin Williams) in “The Best of Times” (1986). In their first film as a famous Hollywood couple, Russell and Hawn starred in “Overboard” (1987), a screwball comedy about a snobby heiress (Hawn) with amnesia who is tricked by a disgruntled carpenter (Russell) into believe she is his wife and the mother of four rambunctious boys, leading her to a hectic life of cleaning and cooking. Though not a major success, the film enjoyed a hefty video rental life and became something of a guilty pleasure for fans of silly but charming romantic comedies. Russell followed up by playing a celebrity cop who falls for the same woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) as his life-long friend – a retired drug dealer (Mel Gibson) – in Robert Towne’s hit crime drama, “Tequila Sunrise” (1988).

Russell received some of his worst reviews of his career with his next feature, “Tango & Cash” (1989), a buddy action comedy which paired him opposite Sylvester Stallone, as both are set-up for a crime they did not commit by a notorious drug dealer (Jack Palance). Panned by critics, the movie also earned Russell the first Razzie award nomination of his career, thanks to a scene in which he dressed in drag. Russell rebounded quite well with his next film, director Ron Howard’s “Backdraft” (1991), playing a stalwart firefighter who is suspected of being an inside man during a series of arsons investigated by a dogged fire inspector (Robert De Niro). He next played the crusty, seafaring “Captain Ron” (1992), who takes the family of a beleaguered Chicago businessman (Martin Short) on a cruise from the Caribbean. Noted for its finely-tuned comic performance from Russell and numerous quotable lines, “Captain Ron” earned status as a yet another Russell cult hit. After a good turn as a husband terrorized by a crazed cop (Ray Liotta) in “Unlawful Entry” (1992), Russell delivered his most convincing performance then to date in “Tombstone” (1993), playing famed U.S. Marshal Wyatt Earp, whose involvement in the shootout at the O.K. Corral became the stuff of Old West legend.

Though the movie itself was successful with both critics and audiences, “Tombstone” was plagued with problems during production, especially when original director, Kevin Jarre, was fired for refusing to cut down an over-long script. Though the rest of the film was helmed by George P. Cosmatos, Russell had claimed – especially in later years – to have directed some scenes himself. He delivered another memorable tough-guy turn in “Stargate” (1994), an action sci-fi combo in which he played a suicidal colonel teamed up with a nerdy Egyptologist (James Spader) to explore another world reached by an ancient cosmic traveling device. Following a reprisal of sorts in voicing Elvis for a brief scene in “Forrest Gump” (1994), Russell starred in the political thriller “Executive Decision” (1996), in which he portrayed a military intelligence analyst who tries to save 400 passengers aboard a hijacked 747. After a good 15 years, Russell once again played futuristic antihero Snake Plissken in John Carpenter’s follow-up, “Escape from L.A.” (1996). Despite the hype surrounding the reprisal, the film failed to live up to expectations, while also having a poor run at the box office. Aside from his starring role, Russell also served as a producer and co-screenwriter.

Russell delivered a good performance in the surprisingly tense Hitchcockian thriller, “Breakdown” (1997), playing a desperate husband trying to find his wife (Kathleen Quinlan), who was mysteriously kidnapped after their jeep breaks down in the middle of the New Mexico desert. Following this compelling addition to his oeuvre, Russell began appearing in a string of disappointing films that pushed him further and further from the public’s consciousness after spending a better part of his career at the forefront of Hollywood’s most bankable stars. He starred in the critically panned box office flop, “Soldier” (1998), playing a genetically enhanced officer tasked with protecting an innocent civilian village in a distant galaxy from being destroyed. Following a small role as a court psychologist in the Cameron Crow misfire “Vanilla Sky” (2001), Russell made another questionable choice by starring opposite Kevin Costner in “3000 Miles to Graceland” (2001), a much-maligned caper movie in which Russell revisited his Elvis roots by dressing up as the King alongside his partner in crime (Costner) to pull off a heist at a Las Vegas casino.

In 2003, Russell co-starred in the emotionally charged, James Ellroy’s adaptation, “Dark Blue,” playing a streetwise, but corrupt police veteran in Los Angeles during the 1992 riots. Russell delivered a commanding performance in the controversial, gray-shaded role and carried the movie on his shoulders until the plot gave way to conventional thriller territory. He again had a strong turn in “Miracle” (2004) playing Herb Brooks, the real-life coach of the United States Olympic hockey team; the same Cinderella team that pulled off the unimaginable defeat of the dominating teams from the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Russell, an avid hockey enthusiast himself, practically channeled the complicated Brooks and delivered another knockout performance. Russell’s next effort was not as winning, however, though he did deliver his trademark charm in the superhero spoof “Sky High” (2005), in which he played Captain Stronghold, a super-powered father who sends his non-powered son (Michael Angarano) to a secret academy for superhero offspring. He next had a turn in the family film “Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story” (2005), playing a once gifted horseman who is given a lame horse and takes the mare on a quest to win the Breeders Cup Classic, thanks to the unwavering determination of his young daughter (Dakota Fanning).

After turning in several fine, low-key performances, Russell tried to step back into the limelight with the larger-than-life remake, “Poseidon” (2006), playing a middle-aged father struggling to escape a capsized ocean liner with a ragtag group of passengers. But “Poseidon” sank at the box office, leaving Russell still attempting to recapture past box office glory. In a hat-tip to Snake Plissken and other onscreen bad-asses of films past, Russell was a sadistic stunt driver named Stuntman Mike in the Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez double bill “Grindhouse” (2007). A compilation of two 90-minute horror flicks from both directors, “Grindhouse” was a throwback to the days of bloody, sex-fueled, low-rent double features that played in seedy 42nd Street theaters in New York City. In Tarantino’s offering, a slasher-cum-road rage flick called “Death Proof,” Russell was a crazed killer who tries to mow down young women – including Rosario Dawson and Zoë Bell – in a black Chevy Nova. Though unsuccessful at the box office, “Grindhouse” – which included the Rodriguez portion, “Planet Terror,” and fake movie trailers – was embraced by a majority of critics.

 The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Sam Elliott, Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer & Bill Paxton
Sam Elliott, Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer & Bill Paxton
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John Travolta
John Travolta
John Travolta
John Travolta
John Travolta
John Travolta

 

John Travolta has built up a considerable dossier of quality films since his movie debut in the mid 1970’s.   He achieved fame early at the age of 23 with “Saturday Night Fever” in 1978 followed the following year with “Grease”.   Although he has had lulls he has time after time come back with terrific performances in such movies as “Blow Out”, “Face/Off” and of course “Pulp Fiction”.

TCM overview:

The rollercoaster career of Hollywood star John Travolta decisively discredited the old adage that there are no second acts. The New Jersey native first gained fame as a suave, dim-witted Brooklyn high school student on the sitcom “Welcome Back, Kotter” (ABC, 1975-79). Being in the right place in the right era, he became inextricably linked to pop culture trends, thanks to sensational starring roles in the disco drama “Saturday Night Fever” (1977) and the 1950s retro musical, “Grease” (1978). Travolta also had a hand in the country music revival of the early 1980s with his popular portrayal of a mechanical bull-riding oil rigger in “Urban Cowboy” (1980). Then for some reason, the biggest male movie star of the late-1970s languished throughout the next decade and beyond, his engaging talent virtually forgotten until a bold decision by Quentin Tarantino cast him in the cult mainstay “Pulp Fiction” (2004). Following the rousing response to Travolta’s darkly funny performance as a junkie hit man, he was overnight commanding millions of dollars for macho hits like “Get Shorty” (1995) and “Ladder 49” (2004) and becoming one-half of a celebrated Hollywood couple after marrying Kelly Preston. Critics raved when Travolta made a belated return to his musical roots in as a tubby Baltimore stage mom in the box-office smash “Hairspray” (2007). In fact, Travolta defined more than any other celebrity – save perhaps Cher and Frank Sinatra – the very idea that a so-called “has-been” could revive a career deemed long dead, coming back stronger than ever.

The youngest of six kids, John Joseph Travolta was born on Feb. 18, 1954, and raised in Englewood, NJ. In contrast to the round robin dinner table slapping of the “Saturday Night Fever” Manero family, Travolta’s home was a liberal, artistic haven, with his older siblings involved in local theater and his mother Helen’s solid background as a singer, actress, and drama teacher. Travolta wanted to be onstage from the start, and was fortunate to gain early exposure to theater, dance, and art films at home. His father Salvatore – co-owner of the family business Travolta Tire Exchange – had built a stage in the basement, but Travolta, nicknamed “Bone” because he was so skinny, hardly needed it, as he would perform for anyone, anywhere at the drop of a hat. His parents enrolled him in drama school in New York, where he learned the holy trinity of old-school entertainment: singing, acting and dancing. By the age of 12, he was appearing in local productions.

At 16, Travolta landed his first professional role in a summer stock production of “Bye Bye Birdie.” Following his junior year of high school, he dropped out to pursue entertainment, moving in with his sister Ann in Manhattan. He began building a resume with off-Broadway dramas and musicals, TV commercials, and even recorded a few pop singles for local record labels. In Hollywood, Travolta spent a couple of years trying to break into the business, but after a few guest spots on medical and cop dramas, returned to New York where he debuted on Broadway in “Grease.” He wasn’t Danny Zuko material yet, but while touring for nearly a year as a supporting player, he was determined that he would one day take the lead. Travolta landed on Broadway’s boards again in 1974 in the Tony-nominated musical “Over Here.” The same year, the budding pilot who had been squirreling away his acting money for flying lessons, finally earned his wings. Having grown up in the flight path of LaGuardia Airport, he was about the join the ranks of jet setters that used to pass overhead.

Travolta flew to New Mexico to play a small part in the film “Devil’s Rain” (1975), and upon his return was met with a casting call for an ABC sitcom called “Welcome Back Kotter.” He proved to be a perfect choice to play Vinnie Barbarino, an inner-city remedial high school student, resident stud, and head of a clique of wiseass underachievers called The Sweathogs. His feathered-haired sex appeal – combined with his faux naiveté and occasionally outrageous physical comedy – made him the breakout star of the ensemble cast, with his likeness appearing on an avalanche of merchandising tie-ins. The music industry smelled a pop star in the making, handing the actor a series of bland ballads including “Let Her In,” which reached No. 20 on the Billboard charts. The well-rounded entertainer continued to explore his range, first as a taunting bully to wide-eyed Sissy Spacek in Brian DePalma’s teen telekinesis classic “Carrie” (1976). The same year he was memorable as an immune-deficient teen in ABC’s legendary telefilm, “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble” (1976). While filming the melodrama, Travolta began a romantic relationship with his onscreen mother, Diana Hyland, who was 18 years his senior and an unexpected choice for a young heartthrob who likely had his pick of young romantic partners.

With “Saturday Night Fever” (1977), John Travolta transitioned from TV and pop music personality to full-fledged movie star. The choice Bee Gees soundtrack and flashy dance sequences were enough to bring in audiences seeking a peek into the high-energy, indulgent world of a New York City disco. But it was Travolta’s flawless, Oscar-nominated portrayal of a 20-year-old paint store clerk beginning to outgrow his roots that resonated so universally and provided the film’s depth. Tony Manero was the king of his local Brooklyn disco, but an emerging understanding of his dead-end life began to crumble his foundation, his desire for something better embodied by a love interest who knew firsthand of the promised land just across the river in Manhattan. The film worked on every level and quickly became a favorite of audiences and critics alike – not to mention how it fueled the dying embers of the fading disco trend with a best-selling but over-played soundtrack.

During shooting of “Fever,” Travolta was dealt a heavy card when the love of his life, Diana Hyland, now a cast member of “Eight is Enough” (ABC, 1977-1981) as mother of the large clan, died of cancer, reportedly in Travolta’s arms. Despite knowing she was fatally ill, she had been the one person who had insisted he take on the role of Manero. He suffered an equal blow in 1978 with the loss of his influential and supportive mother. Coming off such an intense double-dose of grief, the 22-year-old soldiered ahead with another career-defining role in the 1950s high school musical “Grease” (1978). The production was a bold undertaking for all involved, as American cinema was just coming off a run of character-based dramas and had not seen a big-screen musical in a decade. Travolta took the risk, finally realizing his early dream of playing greaser bad boy Danny Zuko, and wooing the proper Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John). The film was admittedly less substantive than “Saturday Night Fever,” but Travolta’s singing, dancing and dimpled charm cemented him as a bona fide movie star. “Grease” received five Golden Globe nominations and became Hollywood’s highest-grossing film musical of all time, with Travolta scoring his first major hit single with the film’s best-selling soundtrack, his duet with Newton-John, “You’re the One that I Want.”

Travolta continued to prove his talent as an icon of specific cultural movements in the well-received “Urban Cowboy” (1980), which chronicled a macho Texas refinery worker with a tumultuous young marriage and a mean competitive streak on his local honkytonk’s mechanical bull. The film spawned another hit soundtrack and jump-started a revival of country music and its accompanying cowboy hats and boots. Brian De Palma’s “Blow Out” (1981) offered Travolta one of his most complex roles yet – a dedicated film sound recordist who accidentally records a political assassination. Though the result was a richly shaded portrait of the hack artist as fallen idealist, “Blow Out” stalled at the box office, as did a pumped-up Travolta in “Staying Alive” (1983), the laughable Sylvester Stallone-directed sequel to “Saturday Night Fever.” In this version, Manero had moved to conquer Broadway, starring in an over-the-top, Hell-inspired production called “Satan’s Alley,” while at the same time, trying to woo two lady dancers at the same time, good girl (Cynthia Rhodes) and the diva star (Finola Hughes). In fact, the only memorable aspect of the movie, was the lead song, “Far From Over,” sung by Stallone’s brother, Frank.

After being the most popular film star of the 1970s, the versatile actor subsequently languished for nearly a decade in mostly forgettable, unpopular films. He could not, as the cliché goes, even get arrested in Hollywood. His most notable work during this phase was the horrible work-out film “Perfect” (1985) co-starring an equally scantily clad Jamie Lee Curtis. Better was the 1987 ABC-TV special, Harold Pinter’s “The Dumb Waiter,” a one-act, two-character play directed by Robert Altman, in which Travolta played a Cockney hit man. It was not until the 1989 sleeper hit “Look Who’s Talking,” that Travolta would become associated with a major box-office success, along with his Scientology buddy, Kirstie Alley. This romantic comedy featured the then popular gimmick of presenting a baby’s thoughts in voiceover (Bruce Willis) and generated two more gigs for the former superstar: “Look Who’s Talking Too” (1990) and “Look Who’s Talking Now” (1993).

During this period, Travolta met actress Kelly Preston and the pair married in 1991 in a Scientology ceremony that was later determined to be not legally binding, necessitating an additional ceremony. Travolta had been active with the church since a chance reading of its tome Dianetics in 1975, crediting his instant rise to success afterwards to its teachings. The couple had a son, Jett, in 1992, the same year that Travolta wrote and illustrated an airplane-themed children’s book called Propeller One-Way Night Coach. At that time in his career, Preston was the bigger name in film. He literally was a has-been at the age 40.

But then 1994 arrived. And with that year, Travolta’s career and street cred sprang back to life with Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” (1994). In the filmmaker’s jarringly funny and violent non-linear crime spree, Travolta was relatively heavy-set, long-haired and wearing earrings; his Vincent Vega being a strangely sympathetic hit man with a heroin habit and a disconcertingly innocent view of the world. Tarantino’s inventive style was highly-praised and the film’s influence on the independent film genre assured that Travolta would again be forever associated with a memorable moment in pop culture history. Overnight, the resuscitated star found himself deluged with scripts and deals, offering him the biggest paydays to date of his estimable career, as well as a second Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Travolta would in fact give props to Tarantino for giving rebirth to his career.

Older and wiser than his first time atop the A-list, Travolta was able to parlay his “Pulp Fiction” success into even greater stardom than he had known in his prime. He worked non-stop, taking advantage of film opportunities like Barry Sonnenfeld’s popular adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s “Get Shorty” (1995), in which he garnered acclaim for his portrayal of Chili Palmer, the ultra-cool hit man who becomes entranced by Hollywood. In “White Man’s Burden” (1995), Travolta starred with Harry Belafonte in an ambitious film about discrimination that won mixed critical notices and little audience support. He followed with John Woo’s action-adventure thriller “Broken Arrow” (1996), in which he played a pilot who masterminds an extortion plot against the U.S. government.

Off-screen, Travolta was by now a licensed pilot for a variety of classes of aircraft and kept a personal fleet of planes at his home in Florida. In 1996, he reportedly received an $8 million fee for “Phenomenon,” in which he played a man who develops superior abilities after being struck by a white light. The press virtually overlooked this indiscretion, and studios continued to line up for his services. In his spare time, Travolta continued to fly the friendly skies, eventually earning his shot at flying jumbo jets. The $8 million fee was a bargain compared to what Travolta was soon earning. He finished 1996 as a fallen angel in Nora Ephron’s “Michael,” before unleashing a juggernaut line-up in 1997-98. He was again paired with John Woo for “Face/Off,” a lyrical thriller about identity exchange that wove together sadistic cruelty and grotesque sentimentality with breathtaking assurance. Although most critics despaired over Costa-Gavras’ “Mad City” (1997) and panned Travolta’s singularly stupid character, he found himself on surer ground in Nick Cassavetes’ romantic drama, “She’s So Lovely” (1997), which matched him with far better results opposite Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn and afforded him a role of some nuance. He received $20 million to portray Governor Jack Stanton, a thinly veiled adaptation of then-President Bill Clinton, in Mike Nichols’ “Primary Colors” (1998). He also squeezed in performances as an attorney battling powerful corporations on behalf of toxic poisoning victims in “A Civil Action” and was part of a star-studded cast including Sean Penn, John Cusack, Gary Oldman and George Clooney in Terrence Malick’s war picture, “The Thin Red Line” (1998).

After appearing in the unsuccessful and highly ridiculed apocalyptic alien movie written by Ron L. Hubbard, “Battlefield Earth” (2000) which he also produced – and which many perceived as a vanity project and payback to Scientology – Travolta and Preston gave birth to a daughter Ella and redeemed his film career as another top-notch bad guy in the otherwise routine action thriller, “Swordfish” (2001). Unfortunately, the forgettable film was more notable for Halle Berry’s nude scene than for anything else. With the routine thriller “Basic” (2003), Travolta played a DEA agent investigating a mysterious disappearance. His subsequent role as the villainous money-launder Howard Saint in the comic book superhero adaptation “The Punisher” (2004) was a step in the right direction performance-wise, walking a fine line between a realistic performance and moments of high camp, but the film itself was not overwhelming.

Travolta delivered a strong performance in his follow-up, “Ladder 49” (2004), playing a veteran firefighter who tries to impart practical wisdom to a promising up-and-comer (Joaquin Phoenix). Although the part was not entirely suited to Travolta’s strengths, the actor made the most of the supporting role. He easily slipped back into character as Chili Palmer for the entertaining sequel “Be Cool” (2005), in which Chili segues from the movie biz into the music industry. After an unusual two-year hiatus from the big screen – he had been working incessantly since “Pulp Fiction” – Travolta emerged in “Wild Hogs” (2007), a wildly successful road comedy about four middle-aged men (Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy) who set out to prove their manhood with a freewheeling, cross-country motorcycle trip. Despite a bevy of bad reviews, “Wild Hogs” reaped a box office whirlwind, but with the musical “Hairspray” (2007), critics and audiences alike were in agreement that Travolta was still the real deal.

Playing a role originated by famed drag queen Divine in the original John Waters film, Travolta was outrageously entertaining as Edna Turnblad, the 1960s working-class Baltimore mom of wannabe TV dance star Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Bosky). The role necessitated an agonizing amount of prosthetics and makeup to transform Travolta into a Hefty Hideaway spokes model, but the veteran stage star still danced his way into a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The summer blockbuster went on to become the third top grossing musical of all time, with “Grease” still holding strong in first position. Meanwhile, Travolta made a rare foray into animated features, voicing the lead character in the popular and acclaimed “Bolt” (2008), a family adventure about a famous television dog who discovers that his fictional powers are of no use when he goes on a real-life cross-country journey to reunite with his co-star (voiced by Miley Cyrus). Travolta earned a Golden Globe nomination for performing the song “I Thought I Lost You,” however his latest professional achievement was overshadowed by personal tragedy when Jett died after suffering a seizure while on vacation with the family in the Bahamas. Travolta and Preston had in the past stated that the 16-year-old suffered from Kawasaki syndrome, an inflammation of the blood vessels possibly brought on by environmental toxins. A huge public outpouring of sympathy followed, with Travolta and Preston finally confirming in public that their son had autism and suffered from regular seizures. Meanwhile, Travolta sued two Bahamians he claimed had tried to extort him and his wife for $25 million in connection to their son’s death, though in the end the judge ruled the case a mistrial and Travolta declined to pursue it further.

Travolta returned to theaters in the summer of 2009 in a rare villainous turn as the mastermind of a subway hijacking in “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3” (2009), Tony Scott’s remake of the classic 1974 thriller adapted from Morton Freedgood’s novel. Despite the star power of Travolta and Denzel Washington as the transit dispatcher trying to stop his destructive plan, the big budget film brought in disappointing box office returns. The versatile star opted for a family comedy for his next outing, starring opposite Robin Williams as a pair of business partners entrusted with the care of infant twins in “Old Dogs” (2009). Following that critically maligned comedy, Travolta returned to playing harder-edged characters in “From Paris with Love” (2010), where he portrayed a crazed special agent who partners with a low-level CIA operative (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) to stop a terrorist bombing plot.

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Doris Day

Guardian obituary:

Doris Day, who has died aged 97, was a singer who came out of the big-band boom of the 1940s to become one of Hollywood’s top box-office stars throughout the 50s and 60s. She had a honey voice, short, buttercup-coloured hair, a sunny smile – and as many scruples as freckles. If Marilyn Monroe was the “girl downtown” at 20th Century Fox, Day was the archetypal “girl next door” at Warners.

Day was first seen as a spunky but naive showgirl in more than a dozen candyfloss Warner Bros musicals between 1948 and 1955. Then, from 1959 until her retirement from the big screen in 1968, she became a sophisticated urban woman defending her honour and independence in a series of glossy, sex-battle romantic comedies for Universal Studios.

During this crowning period of her film career, she showed a real flair for comedy. Wearing dotty hats and stylish Jean Louis gowns, she played a series of women determined not to sacrifice their independence for the sake of a man or, at least, without a fight. This was best displayed in the three entertaining romantic comedies she made opposite Rock Hudson: Pillow Talk (1959), which earned her an Oscar nomination as best actress), Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964), in which the pair were rivals-cum-lovers, she a decent working girl, he an amorous rogue. At one stage in Lover Come Back, someone compares Hudson to a bad cold. Day replies: “There are two ways to handle a cold. You can fight it or you can give in and go to bed with it.”

Day played variations of the same character in That Touch of Mink (1962), with Cary Grant; Move Over, Darling and The Thrill of It All (both 1963), with James Garner; and Do Not Disturb (1965) and The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), with Rod Taylor, but none of these later leading men provided the chemistry she had had with Hudson.

Of her film persona in the 60s, the critics Jane Clarke and Diana Simmonds wrote that Day “confronts the male and forces him to modify his attitudes and behaviour. Moreover, saying no to manipulative sexual situations is not the same as clinging to one’s virginity.”

Day might have lived a charmed existence in many of her movies, but her life was not all sunshine and roses. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, of German ancestry and when she was eight years old, her parents – William Kappelhoff, a music teacher, and Alma (nee Welz) – split up. When Doris was 15, her promising career as a dancer was halted by a car accident. She had a lengthy recovery, during which her mother encouraged her to start singing after hearing her daughter joining in with singers including Ella Fitzgerald on the radio. “There was a quality to Ella’s voice that fascinated me, and I’d sing along with her, trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words,” Day recalled.

She began a career as a vocalist with Barney Rapp’s band in 1939. It was Rapp who got her to change her name to Doris Day after hearing her sing Day After Day. Initially, she thought the name sounded “phoney”, but she gradually accepted that Kappelhoff was a little too long for the marquee outside the theatre.

While on the road with the band in 1941, aged 19, she married the trombonist Al Jorden, with whom she had a son, Terry. Jorden turned out to be a jealous wife-beater. They divorced in 1943. At the same time, Day was making an impression with Les Brown and His Band of Renown. In 1945, she had a hit with their recording of Sentimental Journey, which coincided with the end of the second world war in Europe and became an unofficial homecoming theme for many veterans.

After a second unhappy marriage, to the saxophonist George Weidler, ended in divorce in 1949, luck was on her side when Betty Hutton got pregnant just before the shooting of Romance on the High Seas (1948) at Warners. Day was given top billing in her first feature by the film’s producer-director, Michael Curtiz, after she delivered an emotional version of George and Ira Gershwin’s Embraceable You at the audition. Impressed by her voice and wholesome good looks, Curtiz signed her to a film contract, although she had never acted before.

Day’s debut movie, which had her singing five songs, including the Oscar-nominated It’s Magic (the film’s title in the UK), was the first of a series of lightweight Warners musicals tailored for her, for which her singing was the raison d’être. Most of her numbers were performed in nightclubs or in stage shows; they seldom advanced the plot, although they sometimes reflected the state of mind of the innocent character she was playing.

The freshness and vitality of her singing and personality blew the cobwebs off the plots of My Dream Is Yours (1949), Tea for Two (1950), Lullaby of Broadway (1951), I’ll See You in My Dreams (1951) and April in Paris (1952), all named after the hit songs featured in the films. Far better were two charming, small-town period idylls, co-starring the clean-cut, handsome baritone Gordon MacRae: On Moonlight Bay (1951) and By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953). Her pairing with Frank Sinatra in Young at Heart (1954) was more interesting as he was all scowls, she all smiles. It was a period during which she was voted by servicemen in Korea as “the girl we would most like to take a slow boat back to the States with.

Day also handled a few dramatic roles with ease. She was the long-suffering girlfriend of a trumpeter (Kirk Douglas) in Young Man With a Horn (1950); Ginger Rogers’s sister in Storm Warning (1951), about a Ku Klux Klan murder; and wife of a baseball player (Ronald Reagan) in The Winning Team (1952), in which she laid on her charm thickly to compensate for his lack of it. (She and Reagan became friends and political allies.)

In 1951, Day married Marty Melcher, former talent scout and road manager of the Andrews Sisters. The couple formed a joint company, Arwin Productions, in 1952, which produced most of her films. The following year, Day gave one of her gutsiest performances as the wild west heroine Calamity Jane, touchingly warbling the Oscar-winning hit song Secret Love while leaning against a tree, then on horseback and at the top of the hill at the top of her voice. Wearing buckskins and toting a gun, she only emerged at the end from the chrysalis of tomboyhood into a butterfly of femininity in order to charm her “secret love”, Wild Bill Hickok (Howard Keel).

In contrast, looking more glamorous than ever, Day sang more than a dozen ballads (scored by Percy Faith) as the 20s torch singer Ruth Etting in Love Me Or Leave Me (1955), her first film for MGM. It was a musical worthy of her acting talents in which she matched James Cagney – as the abusive bootlegger gangster Moe “the Gimp” Snyder – blow-for-blow, line-for-line, drawing on her life experiences with men. The part was intended for Ava Gardner, but Gardner refused to have her singing dubbed. Etting, while obviously pleased with Day’s performance, denied she had ever been a dance-hall hostess as portrayed in the film, but acknowledged that it was a way of supplying context to the poignant song Ten Cents a Dance. After the film was released, Day was deluged with mail from fans attacking her, a Christian Scientist, for playing a woman who smoked, drank and wore scanty costumes.

Back at Warners, Day appeared in one of her liveliest musicals, The Pajama Game (1957), adapted from the Broadway show by George Abbott and Stanley Donen. Once again revealing more spice than sugar, she played “Babe” Williams, the dynamic head of the Union Grievance Committee of the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory who falls for the foreman, despite belting out I’m Not at All in Love.

Day then had the “nerve-racking” experience of working for Alfred Hitchcock opposite James Stewart in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956). “For each of my scenes there were dozens of takes, without Hitchcock saying one word,” Day remembered. “I said, ‘Mr Hitchcock what am I doing wrong?’ ‘If you weren’t doing it right, I’d tell you,’ he said.” Actually, all she had to do was look anxious for most of the time, and sing the Oscar-winning Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) at a crucial moment in the film.

Day remained one of the top box-office stars, male or female, in the US throughout the 60s. She was also one of the highest-paid. However, in her late films The Ballad of Josie (1967), Caprice (1967) and, finally, With Six You Get Eggroll (1968), she failed to find roles that suited her age. It seems a pity that she refused Mike Nichols’s offer to play the seductive Mrs Robinson in The Graduate (1967), a plum role that went to Anne Bancroft. Day wrote: “I could not see myself rolling around in the sheets with a young man half my age whom I’d seduced. I realised it was an effective part, but it offended my sense of values.”

When Melcher died in 1968, it was revealed that he had squandered and embezzled most of Day’s money. After recovering from a nervous breakdown, she reluctantly hosted the Doris Day Show on TV for four years, a series that Melcher had contracted her to do without her knowledge. In 1974, she was awarded $22m in damages from the lawyer who had helped Melcher in the mismanagement of her business.

“Animals have never disappointed me,” Day once proclaimed. For decades after her retirement she devoted herself to animal welfare, founding various organisations including the Doris Day Animal Foundation. At her home in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, she kept many dogs and cats, some of them former strays. Her fourth husband, Barry Comden, whom she married in 1976, complained that the main reason the marriage broke up in 1981 was because she cared for her animals more than him.

In 2011, Day released My Heart, a compilation of previously unreleased recordings. It was her first new album to be released in nearly two decades, and became a bestseller, proving her enduring popularity.

Day’s son Terry died in 2004.

 

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James Darren
James Darren, Deborah Walley, James Callan
James Darren, Deborah Walley, James Callan
James Darren
James Darren

James Darren was born in 1936 in Philadelphia.   He had a career as a pop singer in the late 1950’s and made his movie debut in “Rumble on the Docks” in 1956.   His other movies include “The Brothers Ricco”, “Gidget”, “Let No Man Write My Epitaph,””The Lively Set”, “Diamond Head and “The Guns of Navarone”

TCM overview:

Born Jimmy Ercolini and raised on 10th Street between Ritner and Porter in the same South Philadelphia neighborhood that produced Fabian, Bobby Rydell and Frankie Avalon, James Darren grew into a tall, dark and handsome Italian heartthrob who would also enjoy a run as a teenage singing sensation. While studying acting with Stella Adler in NYC, a chance meeting with Columbia Pictures eastern talent scout Joyce Selznick opened the door to a screen career, and he joined the studio’s stable of fine young actors, delivering a standout performance in his feature debut as the juvenile gang leader and star of “Rumble on the Docks” (1956). Darren continued to impress in subsequent outings but really came into his own as Jeff ‘Moondoggie’ Matthews opposite Sandra Dee’s “Gidget” (1959). Especially effective as the young man torn between the carefree surfing life and the responsibilities of growing up, he also displayed a pleasant singing voice on the film’s title song and the even better “The Next Best Thing to Love”, launching a recording career that boasted five Top 10 singles during the early 60s, including the Grammy-nominated “Goodbye Cruel World” (1961), which peaked at Number Three.

Darren reprised his “Gidget” persona twice, contributing his ingratiating talent to “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” (1961) and “Gidget Goes to Rome” (1963), both a little lackluster compared to the original. Still, in some filmgoers’ minds, he was forever established as Moondoggie, despite his acclaimed work as best friend Eddie Sirota in “The Gene Krupa Story” (1959), as the slum kid who perseveres to become a concert pianist in “Let No Man Write My Epitaph” (1960), and as an underutilized member of the all-star gang of saboteurs in J Lee Thompson’s “The Guns of Navarone” (1961). Still, compared with his Philadelphian brethren Fabian, Rydell and Avalon, who all took their cracks in teen movies, Darren exhibited more staying power, segueing to a successful career as a TV actor after his pop-star status waned. His first role as a series regular came as time-traveling scientist Tony Newman in the ABC series “Time Tunnel” (1966-67), and he later spent three seasons as veteran patrolman Jim Corrigan, partnered with Heather Locklear’s Stacy Sheridan, on “T.J. Hooker” (ABC, 1983-85; CBS, 1985-86). When Darren made his directing debut with an episode near the end of that show’s final season, people liked what they saw, and he started to receive offers to direct for other series.

Darren began working exclusively behind the scenes, helming episodes of “Hunter” and “Stingray” (both NBC) and “Werewolf” (Fox), among others. “I figured this [directing] was a good way to stay in the business, and I didn’t have to worry about how I looked. I didn’t have to shave every morning. I would get up, shower, comb my hair back, put on a baseball cap and go to work.” (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, September 27, 1999) He reteamed with Locklear, directing episodes of Fox’s “Melrose Place” from 1995-97, and eventually acted opposite her as the sleazy Tony Marlin during that show’s final season (1998-99), but only after creating the part of Vic Fontaine in the syndicated “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”. Calling his holographic Las Vegas lounge singer a “combination of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and myself,” Darren appeared in ten episodes (including the series finale) and revitalized his singing career. Never considered much of a pop-rock vocalist in his heyday, he released his 13th album, “This One’s From the Heart” (1999), which featured songs he had performed on the series, and garnered his first real critical acclaim as a crooner, having finally found himself in the idiom of Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Sammy Cahn and the like.

The above TCM overview can now be accessed online here.

 

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Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster

 

 

Burt Lancaster was an intriguing actor who gave many tremendous performances although he sometimes, to my mind, marred some movies with his overuse of his grin.   He was born in New York in 1913.   He began his show business career as a circus acrobat and used his athletic prowess in many of his movies.   He had a starring role opposite Ava Gardner in his first movie “The Killers” in 1947.   He has had many cinema highlights including “The Flame and the Arrow”, “The Professionals”, “The Leopard”, “Airport” and “Atlantic City”.   He died in 1994 at the age of 80.

 

TCM overview:

Fame came to Burt Lancaster with his first film role, as the doomed Swede in Universal’s “The Killers” (1946), but the former circus acrobat knew better than to leave his career in other hands. After less than two years in Hollywood, Lancaster formed his own production company and took the lead in such popular successes as the Technicolor swashbucklers “The Flame and the Arrow” (1950) and “The Crimson Pirate” (1952) and the noble failure “Sweet Smell of Success” (1959), later called one the greatest films of all time. The athletic, savvy but passionate Lancaster remained a box office draw for 20 years, winning a 1961 Academy Award for playing the corrupt evangelist “Elmer Gantry” (1960), but his power to pull in moviegoers waned with the death of the studio system and his own disinterest in acting the Hollywood hero. Lancaster took chances in such challenging films as “The Swimmer” (1968), “Castle Keep” (1969) and “Ulzana’s Raid” (1972) while his best work through the next decade was often in European features like “1900” (1976) and “Atlantic City” (1980), which netted him an Oscar nomination. In his later years, the actor was better known to younger Americans from TV spots for MCI, the ACLU, and AIDS research, and for his final film role in the hit “Field of Dreams” (1989). Five years after his death in 1994, the American Film Institute pointed a new generation of film fans Burt Lancaster’s way when they conferred upon him the posthumous designation of living legend. Burton Stephen Lancaster was born on November 2, 1913, in the largely immigrant community of East Harlem in New York City. Lancaster’s father, a second generation Irish-American and postal clerk at Manhattan’s General Post Office, had won song and dance competitions in his youth based on the strength of his rich tenor voice and his mastery of several musical instruments. His mother, the former Elizabeth “Lizzie” Roberts, had had three children before him and one after his birth, who died in infancy. Lancaster’s given name was in tribute to the surgeon who delivered him. Growing up in an Irish-Protestant household, he learned the ideals of honesty and charity but developed a yearning for adventure while exploring the streets of Manhattan. Early work came with a paper route and a job shining shoes outside of Macy’s Department Store. A preteen Lancaster was knocked down by automobiles no less than eight times and once broke his nose falling from a fire escape. During the Depression, he performed in plays at the Union Settlement House in East Harlem and worked as a basketball coach. An incident in which Lancaster was stabbed accidentally by a friend led to a near fatal staph infection and a year’s confinement in bed. A star basketball player at DeWitt Clinton High School, Lancaster continued to New York University on an athletic scholarship. He quit NYU in 1932 to join the one-ring Kay Brothers Circus. After a single season, Lancaster moved to the Russell Brothers Circus and, later, with his marriage to acrobat June Ernst, to the three-ring Barnett Brothers Circus. Lancaster finished out the 1935 summer season working at Luna Park in Coney Island before going on government relief. Applying for a job with the Works Progress Administration, he performed in WPA-sponsored circuses. After an injury to his hand and the dissolution of his first marriage, Lancaster worked as a lingerie salesman in Chicago and singing waiter in New Jersey before joining the U.S. Army’s Twenty-First Special Service Division during World War II. As part of the Army Service Forces, Lancaster put on shows for shell-shocked soldiers fresh from the frontlines, relying on his talents as a gymnast and vaudevillian to entertain the troops and his facility as a scrounger to retrieve props and costumes from bombed out buildings in Rome. Back in the United States post-war, Lancaster pursued an acting career with some diffidence. He made his Broadway debut as Burton Lancaster in Harry Brown’s wartime drama “A Sound of Hunting,” the source for Edward Dmytryk’s 1952 film “Eight Iron Men.” Though the production closed after 12 performances, Lancaster caught the eye of Hollywood agent Harold Hecht. Hecht provided Lancaster with an introduction to producer Hal Wallis, who paved the way for the actor’s debut as the doomed Swede in Robert Siodmak’s noir classic “The Killers” (1946) at Universal. Siodmak and cinematographer Elwood Bredell employed stark chiaroscuro lighting to offset Lancaster’s angular face and chiseled physique, creating an instant Hollywood star, along with his co-star Ava Gardner. Reviews of the day referred to Lancaster as a “brawny Apollo” and a “brute with the eyes of an angel.” He celebrated his success by inhabiting plush new digs in Malibu’s Pacific Palisades, into which he would move his family and his second wife, Norma Anderson, with whom he had already conceived one child. Lancaster’s film roles through the next few years traded on his tough guy image in such films as Jules Dassin’s “Brute Force” (1947), Byron Haskin’s “I Walk Alone” (1948) and Robert Siodmak’s “Criss Cross” (1949). He varied the image slightly, playing Barbara Stanwyck’s weakling husband in Anatole Litvak’s “Sorry, Wrong Number” (1948) and Edward G. Robinson’s conscience-bound son in Irving Reis’ “All My Sons” (1948), a personal project for which he took a $50,000 salary cut. With agent Hecht, Lancaster formed his own production company. Hecht-Lancaster enjoyed its first popular success with the swashbuckler “The Flame and the Arrow” (1950), directed by Jacques Tourneur. This and subsequent films, such as Michael Curtiz’ “Jim Thorpe: All American” (1951) and Robert Siodmak’s “The Crimson Pirate” (1952), allowed the actor to showcase his natural athleticism, while straight dramas such as Daniel Mann’s “Come Back, Little Sheba” (1952) and Fred Zinnemann’s “From Here to Eternity” (1953), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, encouraged him to stretch and mature as a performer. Pushing into middle age, Lancaster enjoyed a string of star turns in such high-profile productions as Robert Aldrich’s “Vera Cruz” (1954) opposite Gary Cooper, Daniel Mann’s “The Rose Tattoo” (1955) with Italian actress Anna Magnani, and as the title character in Joseph Anthony’s “The Rainmaker” (1956), co-starring Katharine Hepburn. Lancaster tried his hand at directing a feature with “The Kentuckian” (1955) and financed with Hecht and producer James Hill the Academy Award-winning “Marty” (1955), starring Ernest Borgnine. A pet project was the Hecht-Hill-Lancaster production “Sweet Smell of Success” (1957), a scalding expose of the New York publicity industry with Lancaster playing a thinly-veiled caricature of gossip columnist Walter Winchell. Shot on location in Manhattan by James Wong Howe and briskly directed by Alexander Mackendrick, the film was a box office disappointment whose failure wounded Lancaster deeply. More successful that year was John Sturges’ “The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” (1959), in which Lancaster played frontier lawman Wyatt Earp to Kirk Douglas’ hair-trigger Doc Holliday. Lancaster won an Academy Award for his portrayal of corrupt evangelist “Elmer Gantry” (1960) but the milestone also marked the downward arc of his tenure as a Hollywood leading man. Nonetheless, the actor received another Oscar nod for playing Robert Franklin Stroud, a criminal recidivist known as the “Birdman of Alcatraz” (1962), and traveled to Italy to work for Luchino Visconti in “The Leopard” (1963), opposite Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale. A crowd pleaser for Lancaster was “The Professionals” (1966), a rousing Western co-starring Lee Marvin, Woody Strode and Robert Ryan. More pet projects included John Frankenheimer’s “The Train” (1964), Frank Perry’s “The Swimmer” (1968), and Sydney Pollack’s “Castle Keep” (1969). Uninterested in playing heroes or characters with whom he was in agreement politically, Lancaster seemed to relish thwarting audience expectations. Going through the motions in Arthur Hiller’s cash cow “Airport” (1970), Lancaster was more in his element in a string of revisionist Westerns, among them Robert Aldrich’s grim Vietnam parable “Ulzana’s Raid” (1972). He directed a second film, the murder mystery “The Midnight Man” (1974), and traveled to the Middle East to appear as “Moses, the Lawgiver” (1976), with his own son Bill contributing a cameo as the young Moses. Better late-life roles for Lancaster were as Robert De Niro’s autocratic grandfather in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “1900” (1976) and as a military advisor in the Vietnam War drama “Go Tell the Spartans” (1979), directed by Ted Post. Now firmly in elder statesman mode, the actor scored sterling notices for his roles as an aging gangland flunky in Louis Malle’s “Atlantic City” (1980) – which earned him his fourth and final Academy Award nomination – as an elderly outlaw in Lamont Johnson’s distaff Western “Cattle Annie and Little Britches” (1981), and as an astronomy-obsessed Texas oilman in Bill Forsythe’s wry comedy “Local Hero” (1983). Near the end of his life, Lancaster capped his career by reteaming with frequent co-star Kirk Douglas for Brian De Palma’s “Tough Guys” (1986), playing the dying patriarch of a sprawling but dysfunctional Long Island family in Daniel Petrie’s “Rocket Gibraltar” (1988) and appearing in the small but memorable role of an aging baseball rookie who remembers his glory days with the Chicago White Sox in the Kevin Costner classic “Field of Dreams” (1989). The production marked Lancaster’s last feature film appearance and one of his most successful. In his final years, Lancaster was a tireless spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the People for the American Way, liberal political organizations either targeted for derision by then-President George H. W. Bush as un-American or founded to counter the demographic swing in the United States toward conservatism. Lancaster also appeared in print ads supporting aid for AIDS and TV spots that urged consumers to be wary of the bold claims of the large pharmaceutical companies. Though he projected the image of ageless vitality well into his seventies, Lancaster was plagued by heart troubles, requiring quadruple bypass. In 1990, he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. Burt Lancaster died of a heart attack on Oct. 21, 1994, at his home in Century City, CA, just weeks before his 81st birthday. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked the actor at 19th on its list of “50 Male Movie Legends.” By Richard Harland Smith

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.


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James Caan
James Caan
James Caan

James Caan is regarded as one of the leading actors of film in the 1970’s.   He was born in the Bronx, New York in 1970,  His first major film role was in 1964 when he played a punk in the Olivia De Havilland movie “Lady In A Cage”.   Stardom came with his role as the brain damaged football player in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Rain People” in 1968.   Coppola cast him as one of the Corlone brothers in the iconic “The Godfather” in 1971 with Marlon Brando and Al Pacino.   Caan and Pacino’s career really took off and throughout the 1970’s both enjoyed major stardom.   Caan’s films at this time included “Rollerball”, “A Bridge Too Far” and “Come A Horseman”.   Caan though turned down some major box office hits such as “Blade Runner”, “Kramer V’s Kramer” and “Apocalypse Now”.   He stopped acting on fim between 1982 and 1987 and then resumed his career in a more low key fashion in such films as “The Way of the Gun”, “The Yards” and “This Is My Father”.

TCM overview:

Despite an up-and-down career that was mired by excess and irrational behavior, actor James Caan was a gifted performer who was as capable of pulling heart strings as he was of breaking someone’s kneecaps. Caan emerged from the cauldron of New York City’s thriving acting scene in the 1950s to become a noted player on the stage and on television. Though he graduated to films soon after his salad days in New York after swearing off television for the next several years, he had his first big breakthrough on the small screen, playing dying football player Brian Piccolo in “Brian’s Song” (ABC, 1971). His performance in what was considered to be one of the best television movies ever made earned Caan considerable acclaim, as well as an Emmy Award nomination. But the following year put Caan on the map permanently, with his energetic portrayal of the hot-headed Sonny Corleone in “The Godfather” (1972), a role with which he was forever identified – most notably in the numerous mobster roles he played in the ensuing decades. While he had several bright spots as a leading man throughout the years, including as a television regular on “Las Vegas” (NBC, 2003-08) and as the victim of an obsessive fan in the disturbing film, “Misery” (1990), Caan settled into a niche as character actor more often than not, performing some variation of the mobster role that made him famous.

Born on March 26, 1939 in The Bronx, NY, Caan was raised in Sunnyside, Queens one of three children by his father, Arthur, a butcher and his mother, Sophie. Both his parents were Jewish immigrants from Germany who fled the Nazis before the war. He attended P.S. 150 – Christopher Street School in Brooklyn, where he caused untold amounts of trouble and was eventually kicked out, though whether or not dropping a fellow student out of a window on a bet contributed to his departure remained unclear. Caan eventually made his way to the Rhodes Preparatory School, where he continued raising hell while stuffing the ballot box to become president of the student body, as well as playing several sports, including baseball, basketball and football. After graduating a year before his fellow classmates, Caan attended Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. He majored in economics and continued playing football, but soon found himself homesick. Caan soon transferred to Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, which is where he discovered acting.

With the prospect of entering the meat delivery business with his father as his one career option, he began taking acting seriously, studying with such esteemed coaches as Wyn Handman at the American Place Theatre and Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. After spending several years honing his craft in the classroom, he had one of his first parts in “La Ronde,” Arthur Schnitzler’s examination of early 20th century class division and sexual mores. He made the jump to the small screen with episodes of various popular television shows, including “Naked City” (ABC, 1958-1963), “The Untouchables” (ABC, 1959-1963) and the anthology series “Alcoa Premiere” (ABC, 1961-63), which featured a new one-hour drama every week. Following episodes of “Doctor Kildare” (NBC, 1961-66) and “Ben Casey” (ABC, 1961-66), Caan began his film career with an uncredited walk-on as an anonymous soldier in the Billy Wilder comedy “Irma La Douce” (1963). He made his official film debut in the campy thriller “Lady in a Cage” (1964), playing a ruthless thug who terrorizes a wealthy widow (Olivia de Havilland).

Within just a few years after making his screen debut, Caan landed his first leading role, starring in Howard Hawk’s tense race car drama, “Red Line 7000” (1965). He followed with a supporting turn as a young gunslinger opposite John Wayne and Robert Mitchum in Hawks’ gritty, but redemptive Western, “El Dorado” (1967). Now determined to carve a career in film, Caan starred in the psychological thriller, “Games” (1967), which he followed with a turn as an American astronaut who journeys to the moon only to discover the Russians beat the United States to the punch in the early Robert Altman feature, “Countdown” (1968). After starring in forgettable movies like “Journey to Shiloh” (1968) and “Perlas Ng Silangan” (1969), Caan was a brain-damaged hitchhiker who encounters a disillusioned housewife (Shirley Knight) trying to escape the trappings of her domestic life in one of Francis Ford Coppola’s first features, “The Rain People” (1969).

Continuing along in features, he starred as the titular former high school basketball player in the failed adaptation of John Updike’s “Rabbit, Run” (1970). In the long-forgotten romantic comedy “T.R. Baskin” (1971), he was the short-time beau of a naïve young woman from the country (Candice Bergen) trying to make it in Chicago. Though he vowed to stay away from television, Caan eventually returned to the small screen for what became his breakout role; playing cancer-stricken professional football player Brian Piccolo in “Brian’s Song” (ABC, 1971). Based on Piccolo’s life and career, Caan delivered a moving performance as the Chicago Bear running back whose brief life was enhanced by his close friendship with football legend Gayle Sayers (Billy Dee Williams). Their mutual respect and admiration helped both through trying times – Piccolo helped Sayers in his struggles with injuries and racism, while Sayers was by Piccolo’s side throughout his fatal illness. Widely hailed as one of the most affecting television movies of all time, “Brian’s Song” was a significant boost for Caan, who earned an Emmy nomination for leading actor.

Caan’s triumph in “Brian’s Song” was mere prelude for his next performance in Coppola’s opening installment of his legendary crime saga, “The Godfather” (1972). Though he originally auditioned to play the cold and calculating Michael Corleone, a role that eventually went to then-unknown Al Pacino, Caan was deemed more suited to play the hot-headed Sonny, the eldest son of crime family head Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) and next in line to take over. Sonny’s impetuous nature opens the floodgates to violence when he inadvertently paves the way for a hit on his father, which in turn leads to bloody retaliation while the Don recovers. In one memorable scene among many, he delivers a savage beating on his brother-in-law, Carlo (Gianni Russo), who is caught abusing Sonny’s sister, Connie (Talia Shire). But Sonny’s vengeance ultimately leads to his downfall when Carlo sells him out to a rival family, who take him down in a hail of bullets at a toll both by a gang of Mafia hit men. More than the sum of its parts, “The Godfather” was a huge hit while being hailed as a cinematic masterpiece at the same time. Numerous awards and nominations were bestowed upon the landmark film, including a Best Supporting Actor nod for Caan at the Academy Awards.

Building off his newfound fame derived from playing Sonny Corleone – a role with which he would be forever identified – Caan starred in the loose adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novella, “The Gambler” (1974). Caan played a well-respected literature professor hopelessly addicted to gambling, which gets him into serious trouble with a local bookie (Paul Sorvino). That same year, he co-starred with Alan Arkin in “Freebie and the Bean” (1974) before moving on to play a sailor who falls for Marsha Mason in “Cinderella Liberty” (1975). As Billy Rose, he oozed charm as well as displayed a passable singing voice opposite Barbra Streisand’s reprisal of Fanny Brice in “Funny Lady” (1975), the entertaining, but familiar sequel to “Funny Girl” (1968). But most of his post-“Godfather” turns during the 1970s were either less-than-prestigious or box office duds. His one bright spot was starring in the futuristic sci-fi sports actioner, “Rollerball” (1975), playing a legendary veteran of a brutal sport caught up in a world where violence has been outlawed, resulting in an oppressed population needing an outlet to satisfy their bloodlust. Though not the biggest hit at the time of its release, “Rollerball” became a cult classic for later generations.

From “Rollerball” on throughout the rest of the century, Caan struggled to return to his heyday of the early 1970s. Though he failed for the most part, there were occasional turns where the Caan of old emerged. Meanwhile, he suffered several personal setbacks due in large part to his restless and unruly behavior, problems with substance abuse, and multiple marriages plagued by rumors of abuse. Caan was lost among an all-star ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Michael Caine and Gene Hackman in Richard Attenborough’s epic war film, “A Bridge Too Far” (1977). He gave a solid performance as an easy-going cowboy in the uneven contemporary Western, “Comes a Horseman” (1978), followed by a solid turn opposite Marsha Mason in the film adaptation of Neil Simon’s autobiographical play, “Chapter Two” (1979), which was unable to duplicate its Broadway success. Caan delivered one of his best performances in years with Michael Mann’s feature debut, “Thief” (1981), playing a professional jewel thief who longs for a normal life, but only after he pays off a crime boss (Robert Prosky) with one last job.

That year marked a turning point in Caan’s personal life, when his beloved sister, Barbara, died of cancer. Devastated by her loss, Caan spent the ensuing years trying to recover and even declined to speak of her death decades after. Meanwhile, his career began to spiral, with Caan suffering a box office dud playing the ghost of Sally Field’s lovable, but philandering choreographer husband – modeled on Bob Fosse – in “Kiss Me Goodbye” (1982). Frustrated with the direction his career was taking, Caan unofficially retired from the business and spent the next five years away from filmmaking. Instead, he split the majority of his time between his children and sinking deeper into drug addiction. He also watched his bank account dwindle, thanks to a shady accountant who helped relieve him of some money. But he re-emerged in the latter half of the decade to play a disillusioned Army sergeant who tries to dissuade a young private (D.B. Sweeney) from fighting in Vietnam in Francis Ford Coppola’s mediocre, “Gardens of Stone” (1987). He followed with a turn as a cop who is angry and resentful of an alien race integrated into human society in “Alien Nation” (1988).

As Caan entered the 1990s, the features in which he starred were more hit and miss, with many projects falling on the latter side of the ledger. Though noted for his sympathetic turn as a successful writer held captive by a deranged fan (Kathy Bates) in “Misery” (1990), he failed to win any converts with his song-and-dance routine alongside Bette Midler in “For the Boys” (1991). Caan delivered an inevitable spoof on his gangster image in “Honeymoon in Vegas” (1992), a modest hit that claimed to be nothing more than a slice of madcap entertainment. After starring as a coach of an unruly college football team in “The Program” (1993), Caan won critical plaudits for his turn as the cranky father of a small-time business man (Dennis Quaid) in “Flesh and Bone” (1993). It was around this time that Caan became fodder for the tabloid news. First, he was one of the first stars to be associated with notorious Hollywood madam, Heidi Fleiss. Just a month later, he was questioned for 10 hours by police when he woke up in a friend’s apartment with an aspiring actor, Mark Alan Schwartz, dead on the lawn after falling several stories from the fire escape. Schwartz’s death was later determined to be accidental.

While his marriage to third wife, Ingrid Hajek, was deteriorating, Caan was noted for his longtime friendship to Ronald Lorenzo, a drug trafficker who was sentenced to 11 years hard time in federal prison. In early 1994, he was arrested in North Hollywood on a misdemeanor for allegedly waving a loaded semiautomatic pistol in the face of rapper Derek Lee, a charge that was later dropped due to lack of evidence. Making life even more difficult were accusations of physical abuse, when a woman named Leesa Anne Roland sued Caan for battery, accusing that he beat her in a Century City hotel. The suit was later dismissed. Meanwhile, a year after being linked to Heidi Fleiss, Caan checked into the Exodus Recovery Center in Marina Del Rey, CA to treat his addiction to cocaine. Though tarnished, he continued to work regularly, emerging from the ashes to star alongside his son, Scott, who was making his acting debut in the crime drama, “A Boy Called Hate” (1995). In director Wes Anderson’s own debut, “Bottle Rocket” (1996), Caan played an eccentric con man who enlists three aimless young men (Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson) to perform a daring, but ill-conceived heist.

Though long associated with violent films, Caan was a surprise choice to co-star opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the action thriller “Eraser” (1996), which he followed by appearing opposite Adam Sandler and Damon Wayans in the action comedy “Bulletproof” (1996). After a barely noticed turn in the stark Western, “North Star” (1996), Caan returned to television for his first small screen role since “Brian’s Song,” playing famed gumsh Phillip Marlowe in the less-than-stellar adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s unfinished novel, “Poodle Springs” (HBO, 1998). Having appeared to have put his controversial private life behind him, Caan turned out a series of solid journeyman performances, playing a Mafioso in “Mickey Blue Eyes” (1999), a movie stunt man targeted for murder in “In the Shadows” (2000), a mob-tied lawyer in “The Way of the Gun” (2000), and a corrupt New York Transit Authority employee in “The Yards” (2000). After reviving his 1974 gambler for the contrived “Luckytown” (2001), Caan found himself back on television again, playing a former outlaw-turned-prison warden in “Warden of Red Rock” (Showtime, 2001).

Caan returned to the small screen as his career advanced, not only finding more available work, but also more challenging material. He starred as a Navy captain trying to cover up the causes of an explosion aboard the U.S.S. Iowa that killed 47 sailors in the fact-based docudrama, “A Glimpse of Hell” (FX, 2001). In “The Lathe of Heaven” (A&E, 2002), he was a demented psychiatrist who uses a young man’s (Lukas Haas) ability to alter reality with his dreams to remake the world to match his vision of perfection. He next turned in a performance as a small town sheriff investigating the death of his son with the police officer (Johnathon Schaech) who may have killed him in “Blood Crime” (USA Network, 2002). After a career that had now spanned several decades, Caan made his debut as the star of a television series, “Las Vegas” (NBC, 2003-08), playing tough-as-nails casino security chief “Big Ed” Deline, who is also a loving family man despite his past as a director of counter intelligence for the CIA. Though not exactly Emmy material, “Las Vegas” debuted to strong ratings and favorable reviews throughout its run. Caan lasted four years and was replaced by Tom Selleck for the show’s final season.

Caan had a few tricks left in his movie career when he turned in a tough comedic performance as the flummoxed birth father of a man raised by North Pole elves (Will Farrell) in the goofy holiday charmer, “Elf” (2003). In “City of Ghosts” (2003), actor Matt Dillon’s directing debut, he was a shady businessman whose front man and partner (Dillon) comes looking for him in Cambodia. After a small turn as the unnamed Big Man in Lars Van Trier’s “Dogville”(2004), Caan joined his co-stars Marlon Brando and Robert Duvall to reprise their famous roles for the video game, “The Godfather: The Game” (2005). Once free from his obligations to “Las Vegas” in 2007, the actor was able to star in more projects, including a return to the Mafia world for “Wisegal” (Lifetime, 2008), a fact-based crime drama about the rise of a female mobster (Alyssa Milano). He then appeared as the President of the United States in “Get Smart” (2008), the big screen adaptation of the beloved 1960s television series, starring Steve Carell as the awkward government agent Maxwell Smart.

 The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
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Kim Novak
Kim Novak

Kim Novak

“For a brief period Kim Novak looked like being one of the cinema’s godesses.   At the beginning of 1955 she was virtually unknown.   By the end of the following year, she was second only to Marilyn Monroe as the biggest female draw in pictures.   You could hardly move without being confronted by pictures of her or articles in the press. (like Grace Kelly a while earlier).    ‘Time’ magazine profiled her.   Director Richard Quine was only one to analyse her appeal ‘ she had, he said, the proverbial quality of the lady in the parlor and the goddess in the bedroom.   Kim has a ladylike quality, but it goes a step further.   She had a combination of that with sex appeal and a childlike quality’.   She was beautiful, not unlike a Botticelli woman with a haunding quality reminiscent of the young Dietrich.   She was the sort of girl that Hollywood dreamed”.   – David Shipman – “The Great Movie Stars – The International Years” (1972)

Kim Novak
Kim Novak

Kim Novak was one of the loveliest actress in Hollywood movies of the 1950’s. She retired early in the last 1960’s for a life of rural domesticity in Northern California. She gave luminous performances in “Picnic”, “The Eddy DuchinStory” and of course Hitchcock’s master pievce “Vertigo” with James Stewart in 1958, which was just voted the best film ever by an international panel of cinema critics beating out for the first time ever, Orson Welles’s masterpiece of 1941, “Citizen Kane”.

TCM Overview:

A rare combination of icy aloofness and earthy sensuality helped to make actress Kim Novak one of the top box office stars in Hollywood during the 1950s and early 1960s. The former model was originally envisioned as a replacement for Marilyn Monroe by Columbia chief Harry Cohn, but Novak floundered in her early roles, which required her to provide eye candy and little else. Later films like “Picnic” (1955) and “The Man with the Golden Arm” (1955) gave her the chance to display her dramatic and even vulnerable sides, but it was Alfred Hitchcock who provided her with an enduring showcase as the object of James Stewart’s affections in “Vertigo” (1958). Sadly, her career began to fade just as it had reached its peak – by the ’60s, she was floundering in lukewarm comedies and melodramas, which precipitated a hiatus from acting at the end of the decade. Novak made occasional returns to film in the 1970s and 1980s; none of which could match the intoxicating spell she cast on moviegoers during her heyday three decades prior. Her absence from the public eye only increased the allure of her legend, and preserved her status as one of postwar Hollywood’s most mysterious and appealing actresses.

Born Marilyn Pauline Novak on Feb. 13, 1933, she was one of two daughters born to her Czech parents in Chicago, IL. She began her career in front of the cameras as a teenaged model for a local department store, eventually touring the country as “Miss Deepfreeze” for a refrigerator company. The job took her to Los Angeles, where she landed an uncredited cameo in the 3-D Jane Russell feature “The French Line” (1954) for RKO. Novak’s shapely figure and cool demeanor caught the eye of Columbia talent director Max Arnow, who brought her to the attention of studio chief Harry Cohn. Novak was signed to a long-term contract and molded as a bombshell in the fashion of Marilyn Monroe, whose popularity was on the wane, thanks to her chronic health and personality issues.

Kim Novak

According to Novak, Cohn informed her in decidedly offensive terms that she was to change her name – Kit Marlowe was the original suggestion, but both parties eventually agreed on Kim Novak – and lose weight. She was also required to take acting lessons, for which she was to pay out of her own pocket.

Novak captured the attention of critics and audiences alike with her first role, a femme fatale in the noirish “Pushover” (1953) with Fred MacMurray. Her appeal spiked even further after her turn as a Monroeesque starlet in “Phfft!” (1954), a gentle sex comedy with Jack Lemmon and Judy Holliday. She broke from the sexbomb mold with her next picture, a screen adaptation of William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Picnic”(1955), which cast her as a small town innocent who runs afoul of William Holden’s broken-down ex-football star. The film earned her a nomination from the BAFTA Film Awards. She continued to prove her dramatic skills as a sympathetic neighbor to Frank Sinatra’s drug addict in “The Man with the Golden Arm” (1956) and opposite Tyrone Power in “The Eddy Duchin Story” (1957). But Columbia viewed Novak as a star rather than an actress, and continued to place her in lightweight material like “The Jeanne Eagles Story” (1957) and the musical “Pal Joey” (1957) in which she tried to out-sex the studio’s aging Love Goddess, Rita Hayworth.

Despite the undermining of her burgeoning talent, the studio helped to place her in the Top 10 box office attractions of the late 1950s. Her popularity was underscored by her regular appearance in the tabloids of the day, which linked her to a variety of leading men, including Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr. – a scandal at the time, given he was an African-American – and Cary Grant. One of her suitors, Ramfis Trujillo, whose father was Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, even made her the subject of debate on the floor of the United States Congress after she received the gift of a sports car from him.

After Vera Miles was forced to bow out of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” (1958) due to her pregnancy, the acclaimed suspense director cast Novak in the dual role of the blonde and mysterious Madeleine Elster and her bookish brunette double, Judy Barton; both of whom become obsessions for private detective James Stewart. Hitchcock made excellent use of Novak’s seductive qualities, as well as her own internal conflict over her image and its manipulation by others. The result was one of the director’s finest and most enduring efforts, as well as the best role of Novak’s film career. Sadly, it would also prove to be the last time she would receive such a standout role on screen.

She reunited with Stewart and Lemmon that same year for a film version of the popular play “Bell, Book and Candle” (1958), but the results were flat and Novak’s comedic skills seemed woefully inadequate. Subsequent efforts followed the same downward path; “Strangers When We Meet” (1960) was a sudsy drama about neighborhood affairs, while “The Notorious Landlady” (1962) and “Boys’ Night Out” (1962) emphasized her physical charms over her acting abilities. Novak’s appearances in these mediocre projects were made all the more baffling by the list of films she rejected – among them were “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961), “The Hustler” (1961) and “Days of Wine and Roses” (1962). A 1964 remake of “Of Human Bondage” resulted in critical brickbats, and Billy Wilder’s “Kiss Me, Stupid” (1964) was overwhelmed by the wave of outrage from religious and moral groups over its casual attitude towards sex. The film later earned a cult following among devotees of the director and Novak.

Novak ended her long reign at the box office with “The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders” (1965), an underwhelming adaptation of the Daniel Defoe novel. Like “Kiss Me, Stupid,” it tanked with ticket buyers, though Novak gained a husband in her co-star, English theater actor, Richard Johnson. The couple was married less than a year. She soon turned her back on moviemaking for three years, only to return for another miserable flop, Richard Aldrich’s morbid camp drama “The Legend of Lylah Clare” (1968). Its failure drove her back into retirement, though there were occasional forays into TV-movies like the effective “Satan’s Triangle” (1975). There were sporadic film appearances during the decade as well, though few would consider the British horror anthology “Tales That Witness Madness” (1973) or “The White Buffalo” (1979), which pitted Charles Bronson against a bison the size of a steam liner, as worthwhile additions to Novak’s credits.

Novak began the 1980s with appearances in David Hemmings’ “Just a Gigolo” (1980), which marked the return of Marlene Dietrich to motion pictures, and the Agatha Christie mystery “The Mirror Crack’d,” which cast her and Elizabeth Taylor as – appropriately enough – fading movie queens. From 1986 to 1987, she enjoyed a recurring role on the primetime soap opera “Falcon Crest” (CBS, 1981-1990) as a shady lady on the run from European criminals who poses as the stepdaughter of wealthy industrialist Peter Stavros (Cesar Romero). The show’s producers paid tribute to Novak’s Hollywood legacy by naming her character after her original nom du screen, Kit Marlowe. She also appeared in the pilot for NBC’s revival of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” (NBC/USA, 1985-89) opposite John Huston in an unsettling remake of “The Man from the South,” a memorable episode from the original series (CBS/NBC, 1955-1965).

Novak’s final screen appearance came in 1991 with “Liebestraum,” a thriller by Mike Figgis about a young man who discovers unpleasant truths about his family after returning home to visit his estranged mother (Novak). The experience was reportedly a difficult one, due to clashes between Novak and Figgis over how to play the role, and she effectively quashed any further comebacks by retiring to her home in Oregon to raise horses and llamas. Sadly, Novak lost the residence and many valuable mementos in a fire in 2000. The actress was the subject of numerous tributes in the late 1990s and early 2000s; the theatrical revival of a restored version of “Vertigo” sparked interest in her career, while the Berlin Film Festival and Eastman Kodak gave her lifetime achievement awards in 1997 and 2000, respectively. In 2010, fans were saddened to hear the 77-year-old actress had been diagnosed with breast cancer, but were heartened to hear it was caught in its early stages and that the actress was expected to make a full recovery.  The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

FALCON CREST, Kim Novak, TV GUIDE cover, October 25-31, 1986. TV Guide/courtesy Everett Collection Ref:TVGC003 H5320 PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xx TVGC003 H5320
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Anyone who knows me are aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been collecting signed photographs of my favourite actors. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I like.

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