about me
Anyone who knows me is aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been building an autograph collection of my favourite actors’ signed photographs. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I enjoy. I have collected the photographs from the actors themselves, through contacts in the studios and through auctions. I now have over 2,000 photographs in the collection.
My Autograph Collection
I have separated my autograph collection into different categories, which you can see below. Feel free to browse whichever section interests you. Inside, I share not only the autographed photo in my possession, but also information about the actor, including their biography, photos and posters of their movies, and sometimes videos dedicated to them.
Whether you’re drawn to classic Hollywood icons, contemporary superstars, or character actors with a cult following, there’s something in my autograph collection for every movie enthusiast. If you enjoy my blog, don’t hesitate to leave a comment on one of my entries.
Actors Autograph Collections
Blog Categories
BRITISH ACTORS
Collection of Classic Brittish Actors
IRISH ACTORS
Collection of Classic Irish Actors
HOLLYWOOD ACTORS
Collection of Classic Hollywood Actors
EUROPEAN ACTORS
Collection of Classic European Actors
CONTEMPORARY ACTORS
Collection of Classic Contemporary Actors
RECENT POSTS
Doug McClure is fondly remembered for his role as ‘Trampas’ in TV”s “The Virginian”. He was born in 1935 in Glendale, California. He had some very minor roles in major movies of the late 1950’s such as “Enemy Below” with starred Robert Mitchum and Curd Jurgens and “South Pacific”. “The Virginian” ran from 1962 until 1971. In the late 1960’s he starred in such movies as “Beau Geste” and “The King’s Pirate”. Hos best film was probably “Shenandoah” with James Stewart in 1965. Doug McClure sadly died in 1995.
David Shipman’s “Independent” obituary:
In 1971 McClure starred in The Law and Jake Wyler, one of several television projects produced and written by the prolific team of Richard Levinson and William Link. He was one of two parolees – James McEachin was the other – helping the judge do some detective work. The judge was Bette Davis, whose agent had indicated that she was ready to do a television series. But that wasn’t to be: nobody liked the pilot, which went out on NBC as a telemovie in 1972, with added footage.
In 1975 McClure came to Britain to star in The Land That Time Forgot, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1918 science fiction novel. It was strictly double-bill fare, if not exactly a cheapie, and he appeared in three follow-ups: At the Earth’s Core (1976), The People That Time Forgot (1977) and Warlords of Atlantis (1978). Amicus produced, with co-operation on the last two from American International Pictures, temporarily deserting teenagers on motor-bikes. Fighting dinosaurs and such, McClure was energetic, especially as he looked as if he had had a heavy night.
Later movie appearances included Cannonball Run II (1983) and Omega Syndrome (1986). McClure has been regularly parodied as Troy McClure, an ageing star of the 1950s, in the television series The Simpsons, usually introducing promotional videos. Maverick(1994) had Mel Gibson in James Garner’s old television role, with Garner in support, reminding us how entertaining he always was; and McClure, in his last movie role, with a “walk-on” as one of the poker-players.
David Shipman Doug McClure, actor: born Glendale, California 11 May 1934; married three times; died Los Angeles 5 February 1995.
The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.
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Vin Diesel was born in 1967and is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He came to prominence in the late 1990s and became best known for appearing in several successful Hollywood films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), Pitch Black (2000), The Fast and the Furious (2001), xXx (2002), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), Fast & Furious(2009), Fast Five (2011), and Fast & Furious 6 (2013). He is also the founder of the production companies One Race Films, Tigon Studios, and Racetrack Records
TCM overview:
An overnight action-film sensation who intrigued audiences when he seemingly emerged from nowhere in the summer of 2001, Vin Diesel actually made his first mark on the movie business as a filmmaker. His first two independent films screened at the Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals after which the hulking, clean-shaven actor had a breakthrough role as imposing antihero Riddick in the cult-favorite sci-fi film “Pitch Black” (2000). He was quickly snapped up by Hollywood and transformed into a movie star with high-octane hits “The Fast and the Furious” (2001) and “xXx” (2002). Diesel found further box-office success with the Disney comedy “The Pacifier” (2005) and went on to receive decent reviews for his dramatic performance in “Find Me Guilty” (2006), but audiences were generally reluctant to accept him in anything but sequels to his signature action films. The hype that surrounded the actor’s rush to stardom eventually gave way to a period of career stagnation, but he bounced back in a big way with his prominent return for the 2009 sequel “Fast & Furious” and its reliably popular later installments, including the super-sized “Fast & Furious 6.”
Born Mark Sinclair Vincent in New York City, NY on July 18, 1967, Diesel began acting with the Theatre for the New City at the age of seven. After studying English at Hunter College, he began penning screenplays and making films. His short “Multi-Facial” debuted at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival and his first full-length feature, “Strays” (1997) premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Written, co-produced, directed, and starring Diesel, “Strays” was an ensemble drama about male friendships that many compared – sometimes unfavorably – with “Saturday Night Fever” (1977) and “Diner” (1982).
While his efforts did not immediately lead to opportunities to make more films, Diesel’s powerful onscreen presence earned buzz and the deep-voiced, muscular actor landed a high-profile supporting role as tough New Yorker Private Carparzo in Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed WWII drama, “Saving Private Ryan” (1998). After voicing the title character in the delightful if underperforming animated adventure “The Iron Giant” (1999), Diesel got his first taste of leading-man success in director David Twohy’s cult sci-fi film “Pitch Black” (2000), in which the actor played a convict who, after his starship crash lands on a hostile planet, proves to be the salvation for the survivors.
Diesel gave another strong performance in the ensemble of the Wall Street-centered thriller “Boiler Room” (2000), but his true breakout came with his starring role as hard-driving car thief and street gang racer Dominic Toretto in the surprise summer blockbuster, “The Fast and the Furious” (2001), in which The New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell characterized Diesel as a “slacker Robert Mitchum, if that’s not redundant.” Diesel became an overnight sensation that year, with the relative unknown fueling curiosity about himself by evading questions about his sexuality and his ethnic background, revealing only that he was part Italian and considered himself “a person of color.”
Fans lapped up the mystery of the bald newcomer and turned out in droves when Diesel re-teamed with “The Fast and the Furious” helmer Rob Cohen to lead the cast (and serve as executive producer) of the actioner “xXx” (2002). Another box-office bonanza, the film was routinely panned by the critics but nevertheless solidified the actor’s status as an heir apparent to A-list action stars like Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Taking a cue from these same actors, he also branched out of his tough-guy mode into the comedy realm to show his versatility. To wit, Diesel co-starred alongside Barry Pepper, Seth Green, John Malkovich, and Dennis Hopper in “Knockaround Guys” (2002) playing a young mobster-in-training desperate to retrieve a bag of stolen cash.
Instead of opting for a big payday on the sequel “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003), which he declined to appear in, Diesel instead produced and starred in the crime drama “A Man Apart” (2003), a film that offered the actor prime opportunity to emote instead of aim and shoot. Critics took minor swings at Diesel’s sensitive side, but few could deny his strong screen presence and charisma, even in a middle-of-the-road movie. The actor returned to the explosive, big-budget world of sci-fi action when he reprised the role of “Pitch Black” hero Richard Riddick for Twohy’s inflated sequel “The Chronicles of Riddick” (2004), which he also executive produced. The box-office results were less than stellar.
With his star on the wane after only four years, Diesel took a stab at family entertainment with Disney’s “The Pacifier” (2005), playing a disgraced Navy SEAL charged with protecting the bratty brood of a deceased government scientist whose enemies are searching for his top-secret experiment. Diesel’s star power was enough to draw in over $100 million in ticket sales, though his critically acclaimed follow-up in the character-based drama “Find Me Guilty” (2006) about real-life mobster Jack DiNorscio, proved a box-office failure.
Appearing in only a brief cameo in the 2005 sequel “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” Diesel tried to explore new territory with the sci-fi thriller “Babylon A.D.” (2008), adapted from the novel Babylon Babies by Maurice Georges Dantec. Diesel received a critical drubbing for the second-rate offering and retreated to a surefire hit territory by finally reprising his role in the fourth sequel “Fast & Furious” (2009), which reunited the cast of the original film. Unsurprisingly, the movie broke box-office records and reinvigorated Diesel’s reputation as an action star. Meanwhile his distinctive deep voice continued to be one of his most valuable assets, and he lent it to video games “Wheelman” and installments of the “Chronicles of Riddick” series. In 2013, Diesel had a notably busy year, with both “Fast & Furious 6” and “Riddick” hitting the screens.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
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Samuel L. Jackson was born in 1948 in Washington D.C. Among his movies are “Pulp Fiction”, “Snakes on a Plane” and “Django Unchained”.
TCM overview:
One of the busiest performers in Hollywood, Samuel L. Jackson’s prolific list of credits reflected a career born out of turbulent life experiences and shaped by theater and cinema, ultimately making him one of America’s leading actors. An active participant in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Jackson redirected much of his energies into his stagecraft as a co-founder of the Just-Us Theatre, and later, as a member of New York’s famed Negro Ensemble Company for more than a decade. Television guest spots and bit parts in low-budget movies eventually gave way to standout performances as an ensemble player in such seminal films as “Do the Right Thing” (1989), “Jurassic Park” (1993) and “Pulp Fiction” (1994). Suddenly one of the hottest leads in Hollywood, Jackson was appearing in an average of five films a year, including Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown” (1997) and M. Night Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable” (2000). Equally at home in high art projects as well as unapologetic schlock, Jackson often enjoyed himself in campy efforts like the outlandish thriller “Snakes on a Plane” (2006). After setting things up with the first of several cameos in the Marvel Studios adventure, “Iron Man” (2008), Jackson led a team of volatile superheroes in the summer blockbuster “The Avengers” (2012). While Jackson’s intense demeanor and pitch perfect ear for street dialogue could effortlessly convey a terrifying menace, his impressive skills with comedy and traditional drama allowed him to shine in a virtually unlimited range of material.
Born in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 21, 1948, Samuel Leroy Jackson grew up in segregated Chattanooga, TN. The only child of a former factory worker-turned-state institutional supply buyer Elizabeth Jackson, young Sam grew up estranged from his father. Raised collectively by his mother, her sister and his maternal grandparents, Jackson flourished under the love of his extended family. Musically talented, Jackson played a number of instruments growing up, including the French horn and trumpet for in the school orchestra. In the mid-1960s, Jackson attended the historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA, where he became active in theater. A co-founder of the sardonically named all-black acting company called Just Us Theatre, Jackson would later go on to become a reliable utility player for the famed Negro Ensemble Company alongside such African-American talents as Robert Hooks, Adolph Caesar and Al Freeman, Jr.
In the late 1980s, Jackson’s impressive turn in playwright Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece “A Soldier’s Play” so impressed Spike Lee, that the film auteur eventually cast Jackson in a bit part as a local yokel in “School Daze” (1988). The collaboration proved so successful, that Lee enlisted Jackson into service once again for his next project – the explosive urban drama “Do the Right Thing” (1989), in which he played the omniscient street deejay, Mister Senor Love Daddy. Jackson enjoyed his greatest career boost, however, with his brilliant, harrowing portrait of Gator Purify in Lee’s controversial interracial romance drama, “Jungle Fever” (1989). Playing an alternately charming, yet viciously dangerous crack addict, Jackson drew upon his first-hand knowledge of the drug culture to create a character that simply lived and breathed verisimilitude. The role won Jackson a special jury prize as Best Supporting Actor at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival and led to a supporting role in the big-budget, techno-thriller “Patriot Games” (1992).
Jackson nearly got a chance to work with his wife, actress LaTanya Richardson, for the first time onscreen in Lee’s epic biopic, “Malcolm X” (1992), but reportedly balked at the director’s request that he work for scale. Instead, Jackson rode his triumph as Gator to a torrent of small roles in a rapid succession of titles including Ernest Dickerson’s “Juice” (1992), the Willem Dafoe-Susan Sarandon thriller “White Sands” (1992) and Brad Pitt’s offbeat “Johnny Suede” (1991). The following year, Jackson graduated to leads in two 1993 comedies – the blank-filled “National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon I” and the well intentioned, but ultimately disappointing comedy, “Amos and Andrew,” co-starring Nicolas Cage. Jackson would finish out the year with supporting roles in three wildly different projects: the Hughes Brothers’ “Menace II Society,” the Steven Spielberg CGI extravaganza “Jurassic Park,” and Tony Scott’s iconic “True Romance,” scripted by rising star Quentin Tarantino. The following year, Tarentino cast Jackson in his ultimate breakthrough role as the philosophical, Jheri-curled assassin, Jules Winfield, in the critically acclaimed “Pulp Fiction” (1994). Outstanding even amid a stellar ensemble including Bruce Willis, John Travolta and Uma Thurman, Jackson got to utter several immortal monologues that since became a part of pop culture history. For his efforts, Jackson received a richly deserved Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor.
Hedging his bets, the workaholic actor appeared in at least three other films in 1994 including “The New Age” and “Fresh” and also appeared in the high-minded made-for-cable movies “Assault at West Point” (Showtime, 1994) and “Against the Wall” (HBO, 1994). Jackson’s choice of roles post-“Pulp Fiction” yielded mixed critical and box office results. His turn as a child-custody lawyer arguing for a poor mother’s rights in the modest “Losing Isaiah” (1995) allowed him the chance to finally work with his wife, Richardson, but the result was largely unmemorable. Jackson later played a cop running an undercover operation in the David Caruso flop “Kiss of Death” (1995), but he fared only somewhat better in his next project, playing Bruce Willis’ unwilling cohort in the third “Die Hard” installment, “Die Hard With a Vengeance” (1995). A deft comic performer, Jackson played a Don King-like boxing promoter in “The Great White Hype” (1996), but the effort was again largely wasted in the mediocre vehicle. On the other hand, Jackson fared well riding the roller coaster of Renny Harlin’s “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” as well as starring as a low-rent private eye and earning substantial critical kudos for his heart-wrenching turn as a father out for revenge following the rape of his little girl in director Joel Schumacher’s adaptation of “A Time to Kill” (1996), based on the bestseller by novelist John Grisham.
The Jackson juggernaut pressed on at full throttle with starring roles in three 1997 movies. As Trevor Garfield, the dedicated teacher driven over the edge into violence in “187” – cop speak for a homicide – he found himself in a vehicle that for all its good intentions, was little more than “Death Wish” visits the public schools. Jackson got to show off more of his deep talents with “Eve’s Bayou,” an intensely emotional, well-made family drama by first-time writer-director Kasi Lemmons. Revealing a suave romantic side to his versatile talent, Jackson also served as executive producer and paterfamilias for the predominantly female cast surrounding him. Finally, Jackson returned to Tarantino country as arms merchant Ordell Robbie in “Jackie Brown,” adapted from Elmore Leonard’s novel, “Rum Punch,” moving deftly between comedy and malice; by now, a trademark Jackson style. As a seductively personable villain with positively no moral center – unlike his “Pulp Fiction” character – Jackson ended up killing Robert De Niro in the film’s denouement – a sure sign that he had arrived as an actor.
In 1998, Jackson shared the spotlight with Dustin Hoffman and Sharon Stone, playing a brainy mathematician in Barry Levinson’s lackluster sci-fi thriller “Sphere.” He next appeared as a violin expert in “The Red Violin,” an absorbing tale involving the centuries-long travels of a violin made by a 17th century violin maker; a part that gave Jackson “a great opportunity to play a role you don’t normally see an African-American portraying. He then starred opposite Kevin Spacey in the much bigger-budgeted “The Negotiator,” playing a hostage negotiator who takes his own hostages when he is falsely accused of murder and embezzlement. The following year saw him as Jedi Knight Mace Windu in George Lucas’ long awaited “Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace,” – due in no small part for his campaigning for the part based on his well-known “Star Wars” franchise obsession – as well as rejoining Harlan for “Deep Blue Sea.” On a roll, Jackson, showing no inclination for slowing up his workload, also signed to play a Marine Colonel embroiled in controversy in “Rules of Engagement” (2000) and followed Richard Roundtree as the cool private eye in “Shaft” (also 2000), John Singleton’s riff on the 1971 blaxploitation classic. For him, work (plus golf) remained the addiction that had replaced the narcotic substances kicked at the beginning of the decade.
In 2002, Jackson was at a high-water mark, willing to tackle a variety of challenging roles, both large and small. As a leading man, he co-starred with Ben Affleck in the effective sociological thriller “Changing Lanes,” in which he turned in a nuanced, commanding performance as recovering alcoholic Doyle Gipson, fighting to stay in his children’s lives even as his own life is almost undone due to the aftereffects of a simple fender-bender. He then delivered an action-packed supporting turn, reprising his role as Jedi Master Mace Windu for George Lucas’ blockbuster “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones” (2002); this time, more in the thick of the plot with a mean purple light saber – with the actor/fan choosing the color so he would stand out in the crowded action scenes. He then helped launch a hit action franchise, appearing as the mysteriously scarred NSA Agent Augustus Gibbon in “xXx” (2002) – perhaps the only actor who could out-intimidate about-to-be A-list action star, Vin Diesel.
In the lackluster military potboiler “Basic” (2003), Jackson employed his hard-as-nails persona to play a feared, often hated Special Forces sergeant, who mysteriously disappears along with the team of Army Rangers he commands during a training exercise during a hurricane in the jungles of Panama. Spinning that persona to a more heroic bent, the actor then tackled the role of Lt. Dan ‘Hondo’ Harrelson for the big-budget, straight-faced screen adaptation of the 1970s cop drama, “S.W.A.T.” (2003), starring opposite Colin Farrell. The film was an action extravaganza in which the special tactics team led by Jackson’s character must transport an incarcerated drug kingpin who is offered $100 million to anyone who can free him. Jackson’s career choices continued to run the gamut in terms of quality: he played second fiddle to Ashley Judd in one of the actress’ characteristic, unchallenging thrillers, “Twisted” (2004), but rebounded strongly as the voice of the frustrated, ice-powered superhero Frozone in Disney/Pixar’s delightful CGI-animated superhero spoof, “The Incredibles” (2004). He also cameoed in Tarantino’s “Kill Bill, Vol. 2” (2004) as an organist at the wedding of The Bride.
Jackson kicked of 2005 with “Coach Carter,” playing a familiar onscreen archetype – the inspirational coach who helps his students achieve – playing the controversial high school basketball coach Ken Carter who benched his undefeated team due to their collective poor academic record in 1999. Despite its seemingly clichéd set-up, the film resonated, thanks in large part to Jackson’s strong, anchoring performance. Jackson played an angry Washington Post reporter in the John Boorman drama, “In My Country” (2005). Sent to cover South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission – a public hearing conducted to reconcile the atrocities of apartheid – Jackson butts heads with a white South African poet (Juliette Binoche) over his bitterness and racial agenda, but instead ends up falling in love despite being married to another. He then went on to reprise two of his popular roles – first, Agent Gibbons for the action sequel “xXx: State of the Union” (2005), this time putting Ice Cube in the secret agent hot seat; followed with a final unsheathing that purple light saber for an appearance as Jedi Master Mace Windu in the prequel trilogy-ender, “Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” (2005). Jackson had long insisted that George Lucas write him an impressive death scene, and both Lucas and Jackson delivered the goods in Windu’s long-anticipated demise, which proved to be one of the most dramatic scenes in the poorly received film.
Jackson’s next vehicle was the hackneyed, derivative action/buddy flick, “The Man” (2005), which attempted to drive laughs by pairing Jackson’s hard-edged cop with an awkward dentist (Eugene Levy) drawn into a crime scheme. He next starred opposite Julianne Moore in Joe Roth’s “Freedomland” (2006), a crime drama that depicted a police detective (Jackson) called upon by a distraught woman (Moore) to investigate her claims that a black man kidnapped her child; an accusation that stirs racial animosity in a New Jersey suburb. Jackson’s next movie, “Snakes on a Plane” (2006), became a phenomenon long before it was released – much of it due to fanboy buildup on the Internet. After reading in the trades that friend Ronny Yu was attached to direct, Jackson emailed him, asking to be in it, based on the title alone. Despite the anticipatory fervor for the film, by the time it was released, it proved disappointing at the box office. Yu eventually left the project, making way for David Richard Ellis to take over. Meanwhile, New Line Cinema had changed the name to “Pacific Flight 121” out of fear other actors would not take the project seriously. Furious, Jackson campaigned in public and in private to return the movie to its original title. The studio relented, paving way for serious Internet buzz to gather steam and propelling “Snakes” into the public consciousness before it was done shooting. So influential were the Internet’s denizens that they managed to get filmmakers to reshoot a scene to include a profanity-laden line generated by fans, the now iconic “I’ve had it with these motherf*cking snakes on this motherf*cking plane!” Jackson, meanwhile, maintained a high level of enthusiasm for the film as he made the usual promotional rounds, even though he had not seen the movie – and neither did critics.
Jackson continued to work on film after film, as had been his wont over the years. Also in 2006, he starred in “Home of the Brave,” a drama about three soldiers trying to readjust to civilian life after a lengthy tour in the second Iraq war; “Farce of the Penguins,” a mockumentary inspired by the award-winning documentary, “March of the Penguins” (2005); and “Resurrecting the Champ,” about a homeless man who claims to be a former boxing great, but in reality, is only a lesser-known fighter from the same era. Jackson also filmed “Black Snake Moan” in 2006, a low-budget drama about a blues guitarist abandoned by his wife who tries to redeem the soul of a girl addicted to sex in a rural town. Jackson next worked on “Jumper” (2008), a light-hearted adventure about a teenaged boy from a tough family who learns he has the ability to teleport, as well as appeared in “1408” (2007), a psychological thriller about a horror writer who gets a taste of his own fiction while staying overnight in a haunted hotel. Based on a short story by premier horror meister Stephen King, “1408” received mixed reviews but performed impressively at the box office in its opening weekend. After a turn as an authoritative police officer gone over the edge in “Lakeview Terrace” (2008), Jackson starred alongside Bernie Mac in “Soul Men” (2008), a buddy road comedy about two surviving members of a 1970s soul band who get into one misadventure after another while traveling across the country to attend the funeral of a former band mate. After playing main villain The Octopus in Frank Miller’s critically and commercially savaged comic book adaptation of “The Spirit” (2008), he was cast as S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury – a role he originated with a brief cameo during the end credits of the first film – in “Iron Man 2” (2010), starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Mickey Rourke.
It was a busy year for Jackson, who also appeared as one-half of the toughest police duo in Manhattan – his partner being Dwayne Johnson – in the action comedy “The Other Guys” (2010), starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as the eponymous second-stringers. That same year, Jackson turned in yet another performance that reminded people how gifted he truly was – that of a prospective employer of ambitious, but emotionally isolated attorney Naomi Watts in the adoption-themed drama “Mother and Child” (2010). For his work in the small-budgeted project, Jackson was rewarded with a Best Supporting Male nomination from the Independent Spirit Awards. Busier than ever, Jackson turned in more brief cameos as Nick Fury in another pair of comic book action-adventures, “Thor” (2011) and “Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011), in addition to lending his voice as the narrator of the Disney wildlife documentary, “African Cats” (2011). As proof that his tireless work ethic had truly paid off, it was announced in 2011 that Jackson had been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest-grossing film actor of all time, having appeared in movies grossing more than $7.4 billion.
Continuing to balance blockbusters with micro-budget projects, Jackson next played an ex-con reluctantly forced into the role of hero in the indie feature “The Samaritan” (2012). And after recruiting an unlikely team of superheroes over the course of numerous cameo appearances, Nick Fury was at last ready to assume leadership of “The Avengers” (2012) in the massive onscreen assemblage of Iron Man (Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Following the massive global box office success of “The Avengers,” Jackson reunited once more with director Quentin Tarantino for “Django Unchained” (2012), a spaghetti Western set in pre-Antebellum Deep South that focused on a revenge-minded slave (Jamie Foxx) who helps a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) track down two ruthless killers in exchange for his freedom and a reunion with his wife (Kerry Washington). Prior to that film’s release, the actor entered the political fray as a surprisingly humorous (and excitable) Twitter user and as the star of a pro-Obama campaign video, “Wake the F*ck Up,” which featured Jackson as the narrator of a story to urge complacent voters to not take the election for granted. The film was loosely inspired by the best-selling children’s book for adults, Go the F*ck to Sleep (2011).
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“”Duffy’ was a particularly tiresome film about two English boys who plan to rob their millionaire father of his fortune. It was all cross and double-cross , set in one of the new Mediterranean fun-spots, Tangier, with every modish device available to it’s creators – pop-art, pop-music,pop-art photography, Susannah York and a new superstar James Coburn. Coburn played a con-man who helps the boys, a carefree, grinning, stubbornly heterosexual, lone Belmondoesque American and the film because it had no higher inspiration, kept him as firmly at the centre as anything that Theda Bara ever made. He was decidedly not tiresome” in David Shipman’s “The Great Movie Stars” (1972).
James Coburn was a terrific character actor in the early 1960’s who suddenly became a star with “Our Man Flint ” in 1966. Before that he had supported Yul Brynner in “The Magnificent Seven” in 1960, James Garner in “The Americanisation of Emily” and Steve McQueen and Garner again in “The Great Escape”. He won an Oscar for his performance in “Afflication”. He died in 2002 at the age of 74.
Veronica Horwell’s “Guardian” obituary:
One scene in John Sturges’s film The Magnificent Seven (1960) plugs directly into the power of its source, The Seven Samurai: the entrance of James Coburn, who has died aged 74, as Britt, “the best with gun and knife”.
He does little, unfolding himself like his own jackknife from post-cattle-drive repose to answer an unsought challenge to a duel, and shouldering his saddle to move on after winning effortlessly. He says less, just “You lost” and “Call it” – Coburn made the word laconic sound gabby. And yet he is the complete American samurai: “Acting,” he said decades later, “comes between the words – ego stops you telling the truth.”
Unsurprisingly, Coburn had seen the original Kurosawa film 15 times while studying acting with Stella Adler in New York. Surprisingly, he got the part he coveted, as the master swordsman, after meeting the already-cast Robert Vaughn in the street not long before shooting began. Coburn was persistent and available, unlike veteran character options.
He had been around the prairie a few times by then. He came from a farm in Laurel, Nebraska, although the family moved to California during the depression. After studying drama at Los Angeles City College, he alternated between advancing on television as far as the leads in such unconventional and shortlived series as Klondike, and Acapulco (both 1960), and supporting in films, debuting in the 1958 Budd Boetticher western, Ride Lonesome.
His faint resemblance to Lee Marvin, in naso-labial fold and stage quality bass-baritone voice, brought work as a lean heavy or young character man, notably in Hell Is For Heroes (1962), The Great Escape and Charade (both 1963), and A High Wind In Jamaica (1965).
In the back-up role as an army scout, in Major Dundee (1965) – the start of his buddy relationship with director Sam Peckinpah – Coburn was the strongest presence in the picture. Film lexicographer David Thomson thought that his humour and easy sexiness dated him, made him seem simian, especially with that toothed smile. But around 1965 he was very hot, starring in the Bond-like films Our Man Flint and In Like Flint.
Coburn was a bridge between cool, in the Sinatra swinger sense, and counter-culture cool in Theodore J Flicker’s prescient satire, The President’s Analyst (1968), which was produced by Coburn’s company and became a critical success, prefiguring the Saturday Night Live comedic sensibility.
He missed out on the neurosis that powered post-Jack Nicholson actors, and on the impassivity of Clint Eastwood-style faces – in fact, he did a western for Sergio Leone, A Fistful Of Dyamite (1972), playing an Irish explosives expert, and laughing zestfully all the way through. He was the right man for Peckinpah, for whom he did the most impressive work of his life as the sheriff in Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid (1973).
Then, on the eastern front, he exhibited that ferocious grin, as the Wehrmacht corporal drawling “I hate all officers” in Cross Of Iron (1977), which he also co-scripted. The following year, Peckinpah trusted him sufficiently to let him direct the second unit on the roadie movie, Convoy.
Coburn made the newer fellers look stiff and naff, but the post-1975 market was massive for naff. He was too late the hero. Most stars did not have to maintain the cash flow that he did, by playing the private detective in a television version of The Dain Curse – a ringer for its author Dashiell Hammett – or striding into the saloon bar in Schlitz Lite commercials.
The critic Pauline Kael once suggested that Coburn looked like the child of the liaison between Lieutenant Pinkerton and Madame Butterfly, and he took Zen Buddhism seriously, moving deep into meditation and oriental art. Japan acknowledged his honorary samurai qualities; he was so approved a masculine presence that he became an icon for its leading cigarette brand, and funded his old age by exporting rare cars there.
At 50, at the beginning of years of rheumatoid arthritic pain – which he overcame, although it crippled him – Coburn settled for occasional cameo roles in the John Huston mode – all big cigar, chuckle and thumbs, always giving the screen a lift, if a mite hammy indoors in a suit (he lopes off with bits of Robert Altman’s The Player, 1992, and the 1994 Mel Gibson vehicle, Maverick). Who he might have been, unfolded in all his angry power, was finally seen in Paul Schrader’s Affliction (1997), where the director wanted him as Nick Nolte’s abusive father because he was “large physically” – 6ft 3in – “and represented another generation of Hollywood manhood. You’re frightened for Nolte!”
“I finally got one right,” said Coburn, collecting his Oscar for best supporting actor in 1999, for the Affliction performance. But the expected offers didn’t come, except to play more nasty bastards. He wasn’t bitter; he was fit and still hoping, right up until he died of a heart attack listening to music at home with his second wife, Paula.
His first marriage, to Beverly Kelly, ended in a spectacularly expensive divorce; they had a son and a daughter.
· James Coburn, actor, born August 31 1928; died November 19 2002
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed also online here.
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Patrick Swayze starred in many excellent adventure thrillers such as “Point Break” and “Road House”. He also starred in two of the most popular romantic movies of all time, “Dirty Dancing” in 1987 and “Ghost” in 1990. Sadly he died in 2009 at the age of 57.
Peter Bradshaw’s “Guardian” obituary:
Patrick Swayze, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 57, was a leading man with rugged, unpretty looks and a lean dancer’s physique, who enjoyed staggering success in Reagan-Bush-era America thanks to two classic movie roles. In Dirty Dancing (1987), he was Johnny Castle, a summer-camp dance teacher from the wrong side of the tracks who falls in love with one of his pupils, Frances “Baby” Houseman, a teenage girl from a posh, uptight family, whose world is rocked by Johnny’s steamy dance moves. At the end of the movie, Johnny strides into the dance hall to find that she has been forced to sit demurely with her parents at a table well away from the action. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner!” he declares, and whisks her centre-stage for some spectacular choreography. The image of the blonde princess emotionally liberated by the bad boy with the heart of gold was adored by movie audiences: it was irresistibly similar to that of Diana, Princess of Wales, dancing with John Travolta at the White House two years before.
Three years later, in Ghost (1990), Swayze was Sam Wheat, a yuppie banker deeply in love with his ceramic-artist fiancee Molly, played by Demi Moore. Sam is killed by a mugger in the movie’s sensational opening scene, but returns as a ghost to watch over the love of his life. It became America’s favourite date movie, with a much-loved, much-parodied scene in which a half-naked Sam embraces Molly from behind as she caresses an oozing brown pot upwards into shape, to the accompaniment of the Righteous Brothers singing Unchained Melody. This film, too, partook a little of the changing zeitgeist: Swayze’s gentle phantom yuppie showed an America interested in a more vulnerable, caring leading man as an antidote to the triumphalist 1980s.
After these movies, Swayze never quite progressed to the A-list, though he did well as the charismatic surfer-dude in Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 action-thriller Point Break, opposite Keanu Reeves. A workmanlike career unfolded, without letting Swayze’s personality cohere into a clear star-identity. Nevertheless, he reportedly turned down an offer of $7m to appear in a Dirty Dancing sequel and, when criticised for his choice of film roles, said that he was “fed up with that Hollywood blockbuster mentality”.
Typecasting, and a battle with alcoholism, hampered any rise to the top. He was the decent American expatriate in Calcutta in Roland Joffé’s City of Joy (1992), and the wacky drag artist in Beeban Kidron’s To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995). As an ex-con, Jack Crews, in Black Dog (1998), he had to drive a truck full of illicit weapons across country.
It wasn’t until his scene-stealing turn in Richard Kelly’s cult-classic psychological nightmare Donnie Darko (2001), in which he played the sinister motivational speaker Jim Cunningham, that Swayze’s career found a new act. His looks were now those of a character actor, and a new generation of moviegoers responded to his muscular presence and direct address to the camera.
Swayze was born in Houston, Texas. His mother, Patsy, was a choreographer with the Houston Jazz and Ballet Company, and she drove Patrick hard as a boy towards a career in dance – and specifically in ballet, not an easy choice for a young Texan male. Swayze became a sports star in high school and got an athletics scholarship to Houston’s San Jacinto College.
After graduating, he moved to New York City, where he became the principal dancer at the Eliot Feld ballet company, but recurrent injuries compelled a strategic move into the theatre. On Broadway, he tore up the stage as Danny Zuko in Grease, which attracted the notice of Hollywood, so he moved to Los Angeles.
His big break came courtesy of Francis Ford Coppola, who allowed Swayze to develop his greaser persona in the teen drama The Outsiders (1983), the movie that also launched Tom Cruise and Rob Lowe. His breakthrough in Dirty Dancing played perfectly to Swayze’s strengths: dancing, masculinity, sweaty sensuality. It became one of the first films to find a vast audience in the booming new home-video market. After Ghost, People magazine voted him one of the “sexiest people alive”.
After that, things took a turn for the worse. His personal life was troubled: deeply affected by his father’s death from a heart attack and his sister’s suicide in 1994, Swayze repeatedly relapsed into alcoholism. He broke both legs in a horse-riding stunt in 1996 filming the HBO movie Letters from a Killer, which caused career stagnation and depression. There was further controversy when Swayze made an emergency landing in Arizona in 2000 in his twin-engine Cessna, and appeared to attempt to remove a stash of beer and wine from the plane.
After his comeback in Donnie Darko, Swayze presented a calmer, more relaxed face to the world. His likeable, easygoing personality struck a chord with London stage audiences when he played Nathan Detroit in the West End revival of Guys and Dolls in 2006. He also played opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Rowan Atkinson in the British comedy Keeping Mum (2005).
In 2008, soon after he had filmed a pilot for a television show, The Beast, in which he was to star as an FBI agent, Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He underwent chemotherapy and drug treatment while shooting the subsequent series, which was shown on US television earlier this year. His last film was Powder Blue (2009).
He is survived by his wife, the actor and dancer Lisa Niemi, his childhood sweetheart from Houston, whom he married in 1975. He described her as “the smartest chick I’d ever met” and cited her as the inspiration for the song She’s Like the Wind, which he co-wrote and which featured on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.
• Patrick Wayne Swayze, dancer, actor and singer, born 18 August 1952; died 14 September 2009
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.
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Candice Bergen was born in 1946 in Beverly Hills, California. She is the daughter of Frances Bergen and Edgar Bergen. She first came to fame as ‘Libby’ in “The Group” in 1966. Her movies include “The Sand Pebbles” opposite Steve McQueen, “Carnal Knowledge” opposite Jack Nicholson and “Starting Over” with Burt Reynolds. She also starred in the long running TV series “Murphy Brown” and “Boston Legal”.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
One cool, eternally classy lady, Candice Bergen was elegantly poised for trendy “ice princess” stardom when she first arrived on the screen, but she gradually reshaped that débutante image both on- and off-camera. A staunch, outspoken feminist with a decisive edge, she went on to take a sizable portion of these contradicting qualities to film and, most particularly, to late 1980s television. The daughter of famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and former actress and “Chesterfield Girl” Frances Bergen, the Beverly Hills born-and-bred Candice was surrounding by Hollywood glitter and glamor from day one. At the age of 6, she made her radio debut on her father’s show. Of extreme privilege, she attended Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles, the Cathedral School in Washington, D.C., and then went abroad to the Montesano (finishing) School in Switzerland.
Although she began taking art history and creative drawing at the University of Pennsylvania, she did not graduate due to less-than-stellar grades. In between studies, she also worked as a Ford model in order to buy cameras for her new passion–photography. Her Grace Kelly-like glacial beauty deemed her an ideal candidate for Ivy League patrician roles, and Candice made an auspicious film debut while still a college student portraying the Vassar-styled lesbian member of Sidney Lumet‘s The Group (1966) in an ensemble that included other lovely up-and-comers including Joan Hackett, Jessica Walter and Joanna Pettet. Although that film was a box-office flop, Candice’s second film in 1966, The Sand Pebbles (1966), was a critical and commercial hit and was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Film offers started coming her way, both here and especially abroad (spurred on by her love for travel).
Other than her top-notch roles as the co-ed who comes between Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel in Carnal Knowledge (1971) and her prim American lady kidnapped by Moroccan sheik Sean Connery in The Wind and the Lion (1975), her performances were deemed a bit too aloof to really stand out among the crowd. During this time, she found a passionate second career as a photographer and photojournalist. A number of her works went on to appear in an assortment of magazines including Life, Playboy and Esquire. Most of Candice’s other late 1960s and 1970s films were either unmemorable or dismissed altogether, including the bizarre futuristic comedy The Day the Fish Came Out(1967); the forgotten mystery The Magus (1968); the epic-sized bomb The Adventurers(1970); the campus comedy Getting Straight (1970); the disturbingly violent Soldier Blue(1970); Lina Wertmüller‘s long-winded and notoriously long-titled Italian drama A Night Full of Rain (1978); and the soapy, inferior sequel to Love Story (1970), Oliver’s Story(1978).
However, things picked up toward the end of the decade when the seemingly humorless Candice took a swipe at comedy. She made history as the first female guest host of Saturday Night Live and then showed an equally amusing side of her in the dramedyStarting Over (1979) as Burt Reynolds tone-deaf ex-wife, enjoying a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination in the process. She and Jacqueline Bisset also worked well as a team in George Cukor‘s Rich and Famous (1981), in which her mother Frances Bergencould be glimpsed in a Malibu party scene. Candice also made her Broadway debut in 1985 replacing Sigourney Weaver in David Rabe‘s black comedy Hurlyburly (1998). In 1980, Candice married Louis Malle, the older (by 14 years) French director. They had one child, a daughter named Chloe, in 1985. In the late 1980s, Candice hit a new career plateau on comedy television as the spiky title role on Murphy Brown (1988), giving great gripe as the cynical and competitive anchor/reporter of a television magazine show.
With a superlative supporting cast around her, the CBS sitcom went the distance (ten seasons) and earned Candice a whopping five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. Television movie roles also came her way as a result with colorful roles ranging from the evil Arthurian temptress “Morgan Le Fey” to an elite, high-classed madam — all many moons away from her initial white-gloved debutantes of the late 1960s. Malle’s illness and subsequent death from cancer in 1995 resulted in Candice maintaining a very low profile for quite some time. Since then, however, she has returned with a renewed vigor (or should I say vinegar) on television, with many of her characters enjoyable extensions of her “Murphy Brown” curmudgeon. After years of working exclusively in television, she returned to the big screen, playing a former beauty queen who attempts to foil Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality (2000), and Reese Witherspoon‘s pretentious would-be mother-in-law in Sweet Home Alabama (2002).
She has continued chomping at the comedy bit, appearing in The In-Laws (2003), The Women (2008), and Bride Wars (2009). In 2005, she joined the cast of Boston Legal(2004) playing a brash, no-nonsense lawyer while trading barbs with a much less seriousWilliam Shatner. She played this role for five seasons, receiving nominations for two Emmys, a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Since 2000, she has been married to her second husband, Marshall Rose, who is a Manhattan real estate developer.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.ne
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Robert Conrad has had a very successful career on television in such series as “The Wild Wild West” and “Baa Baa Black sheep”. His occasional films include “Pal;m Springs Weekend” in 1963.
TCM overview:
A ruggedly handsome leading man for over three decades on American television, Robert Conrad first gained audiences’ attention as detective Tom Lopaka on the light-hearted crime series “Hawaiian Eye” (ABC, 1959-1963). But his true breakout series came as the 19th-century secret agent James T. West in the tongue-in-cheek Western adventure “The Wild, Wild West” (CBS, 1965-69). The series helped to establish Conrad as an actor who enjoyed doing his own stunts – occasionally to his own physical detriment. In the 1970s, Conrad starred as real-life World War II flying ace Gregory “Pappy” Boyington on the action-comedy series “Baa Baa Black Sheep” (NBC, 1976-78), which he helped to rescue from oblivion by directly lobbying TV station managers after the network canceled the series. He broke out of the tough guy mold on several occasions, most notably in the epic miniseries “Centennial” (1979) and in the title role of the TV-movie “Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy” (1981), but audiences preferred him in the masculine vein of his previous screen incarnations. He enjoyed greater small-screen success as the pitchman for Everyready batteries – where he virtually challenged the viewer to knock the battery off his shoulder – than in any series or TV-movie. Still remarkably fit in his fifth and sixth decades, he continued to star as hard-nosed types in TV-movies and short-lived television shows throughout the 1990s before largely retiring at the turn of the millennium, leaving behind a legacy of tough guy roles fans could never forget.
Born Conrad Robert Falk in Chicago, IL on March 1, 1935, Conrad was the son of publicist Jacqueline Hubbard, who noticed that even at an early age, her son showed an interest in performing. A star athlete in high school, he also worked as a singer in Chicago nightclubs, but was forced to turn to drearier work as a milk truck driver and dock worker after eloping with his first wife, Joan Kenlay, at the age of 17 in 1952. After convincing himself that he was just as capable of becoming a star as any of the leading men on television, he got his first entry into the business through another struggling actor, Nick Adams, who, beginning in 1957, helped him earn an agent through small roles. Conrad – who had changed his name by flipping his first and middle names – toiled for the next few years in largely unheralded bit parts before getting a contract with Warner Bros. There, he found more substantial parts in TV series before landing his first lead as half-Hawaiian detective Tom Lopaka on “Hawaiian Eye.” Despite the show’s popularity and his newfound star status, the job paid poorly and Conrad was forced to continue logging hours in unremarkable projects to make ends meet.
When “Eye” ended its network run in 1963, he attempted to strike out on his own as a film star, but only found work in low-budget projects like “Young Dillinger” (1965), with Nick Adams in the lead and Conrad as “Pretty Boy” Floyd. He also tried to re-launch his singing career with a tour of Australia and Mexico, but the launch of “The Wild, Wild West” in 1965 proved to be the shot in the arm that Conrad’s career needed. Created by Michael Garrison, who had originally optioned Ian Fleming’s “Casino Royale” as a feature film, the TV series was initially an action-packed but mostly serious Western adventure about two Secret Service agents who carried out clandestine missions for President Ulysses S. Grant. Conrad was James West, who provided the fists and the romance, while Emmy nominee Ross Martin was Artemus Gordon, a master of disguise. As the show grew in popularity, it took on a more tongue-in-cheek tone – perhaps to match the increasingly outrageous adventures of James Bond on the big screen – with Conrad facing threats from robots, earthquake machines, and arch-villains like the diminutive Dr. Loveless (Michael Dunn). Conrad could also be counted upon to engage in one or more knock-down, drag-out brawls with evildoers per episode, as well as any manner of stunts, all of which he performed himself with a team of stuntmen. This dedication to the show occasionally resulted in injury for Conrad, including a 12-foot fall from a balcony that resulted in a concussion.
While enjoying the popularity of “West,” Conrad also directed and wrote a Western, “The Bandits” (1967), which marked the film debut of actor Jan-Michael Vincent. Thought not a success, the film launched his career as the occasional director of his own television efforts. After “West” was cancelled in 1969, Conrad struggled to find a worthwhile follow-up on television. Jack Webb’s “The D.A.” (NBC, 1971-72) cast him in a documentary-style procedural about the trials of a deputy district attorney, while “The Adventures of Nick Carter” (1972) was a failed pilot that attempted to exploit his “Wild, Wild West” fan base by casting him as the famed hero of 19th century pulp detective fiction. Conrad later replaced Roy Scheider as the spymaster hero of “Assignment Vienna” (ABC, 1972-73), a drama shot on location in Europe. None of these efforts could attract a substantial audience, however, and Conrad’s attempts to generate a film career met with equal indifference. “Murph the Surf” (1975), based on the real-life exploits of jewel thief Jack Roland Murphy, enjoyed a small cult following, but for the most part, Conrad was finding more employment as pitchman for Everyready batteries. The brawny spots also made him the object of spoofs by Johnny Carson and other TV comics, which Conrad took in stride with considerable good humor.
Conrad finally struck paydirt in 1976 with “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” a World War II series about a group of misfit fliers battling the Japanese in the South Pacific. Buoyed by impressive footage of real aerial dogfights from the Department of Defense, the series found favor with male audiences. For his work, Conrad won a People’s Choice Award for Favorite Male Actor as well as received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance. The accolades were not enough to extend the show’s lifespan beyond its debut season, however and NBC pulled the plug on the show at the end of the 1976-77 season. Conrad was unwilling to let the series die without a fight so he attended a meeting of NBC affiliates and made direct appeals to station managers in an attempt to drum up support for the show. The grass roots effort paid off with a revival in 1977 under a new title, “Black Sheep Squadron,” which ran for another season before once again taking the plunge in 1978. Conrad would direct numerous episodes during the show’s network run, and cast his daughter, aspiring actress Nancy Conrad, in a semi-regular role as a military nurse.
During his run on “Black Sheep,” Conrad was also a regular presence on “Battle of the Network Stars” (ABC, 1976-1986), a regular series of TV specials which pitted the stars of each network’s programs against each other in often silly Olympic-style competitions. Conrad captained the NBC team six times between 1976 and 1980, and was the focus of an embarrassing incident that saw him pitching a public fit over his team’s loss to ABC in the 1976 special. He challenged ABC captain Gabe Kaplan to a face-off that would decide the winner of the event, but was defeated by the star of “Welcome Back, Kotter” (ABC, 1975-79) in a foot race. In 1979, Conrad returned to series work in another spy series, “A Man Called Sloane” (NBC, 1979-1980). It failed to find its niche with viewers, but Conrad rebounded with an impressive turn in the ambitious 26-hour miniseries “Centennial,” based on the novel by James Michener. Robert Blake and Charles Bronson were originally considered for the key role of the French Canadian Pasquinel, but Conrad eventually inherited the role, which was among the meatiest parts of his career. An opportunistic trapper and panhandler with two families – one white; one Native American – he pays for his gold lust with his life, but not before fathering two sons who become leaders of the Indian tribes whose competition for land with white settlers comprises much of the miniseries. The role allowed Conrad to show his depth as an actor – something that few of his previous efforts had done.
Conrad got a second chance at exploring a complicated character when he took on infamous Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy in “Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy” for television in 1982. An avowed admirer of Liddy, who served as technical advisor on the project, Conrad threw himself into the part, winning some hard-fought critical respect for his performance. For a brief period in the early 1980s, Conrad appeared to be pursuing opportunities in comedy – he hosted “Saturday Night Live” (NBC, 1975- ) and appeared in the dark political satire “Wrong is Right” (1982) for director Richard Brooks. But his action hero past was never far behind him, thanks to the success of the reunion TV-movies “The Wild Wild West Revisited” (1979) and “More Wild Wild West” (1980), so he settled once again into regular rotation as tough cops and detectives in unmemorable TV-movies.
Conrad returned to series work on three separate occasions during the 1980s and into the following decade. The first was “High Mountain Rangers” (CBS, 1988), with Conrad and his real-life sons Shane and Christian as members of an elite emergency rescue team. Daughter Joan also served as executive producer on the show, which lasted just three months. Remarkably, the show spawned a spin-off, “Jesse Hawkes” (CBS, 1989), which only aired six times before its cancellation. “High Sierra Search and Rescue” (Hallmark, 1995), with Conrad’s second wife, LaVelda Fann, among its cast, also enjoyed an equally brief run. The following year, Conrad made his first appearance in a major theatrical release in over a decade with a brief appearance in the Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy “Jingle All the Way” (1996). His dry sense of humor was put to excellent use when he attended the 1997 Golden Raspberry Awards – which celebrated the worst in film entertainment – to accept all three of the trophies awarded to the big-screen adaptation of “The Wild, Wild West” (1997). Conrad had been a vocal opponent of the film version, which cast Will Smith in the role of James West.
After the new millennium, Conrad slowly limited his on-screen appearances to narration jobs for various documentary series and contributing to the DVD releases of “Wild, Wild West.” He settled in California’s High Sierras with his family and gave the impression that he had retired from the entertainment business. He re-surfaced in 2003 after being involved in a car accident that left him and the passenger of the other car in serious condition. Conrad was later found to have a high blood alcohol level at the time of the accident, and was given six months of house arrest and a lengthy probation. Despite rumors that he had suffered permanent injuries as a result of the accident, Conrad went public in 2005 with a bid to run for president of the Screen Actors Guild. He had been an active member during the 1980s, when both he and Charlton Heston formed a conservative unit that helped to unseat the more liberal Edward Asner from the presidency. Conrad’s campaign ended in September of 2005 when he was defeated by Alan Rosenberg.
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“When Richard Widmark deserted villainy the screen lost one of its best villains. He was never so entertaining as a hero. As a hero, to be blunt, he is second-rate – oh, likeable, full of integrity, conscientious and all of that, but when he is tough and cocky it is a long way after Cagney. When he is jaded, he is way behind Bogart and he has hardly a hint of the bravura that made Errol Flynn so attractive to women. Nor – though he is probably a better actor – does he fill the screen quite so well as Burt or Kirk or Chuck. He is, in a word, self-effacing. His interviews made it clear that this is a man who loves his craft rather than the aura of being a big film star. He was not content to play psychopathic killers throughout his career” – David Shipman in “The Great Movie Stars – The International Years” (1972)
Richard Widmark was one superb actor. He played heroes but he was equally brilliant as villians such as Tommy Udo the giggling psychopath in “Kiss of Death” in 1948 and then in 1951 as the racist thug giving Sidney Poitier a hard time in “No Way Out”. His major movies include “Down To Sea In Ships”, “Yellow Sky”, “The Last Wagon”, “Judgement At Nuremberg” and “Madigan”. He died at the age of 93 in 2008.
Ronald Bergan’s obituary of Richard Widmark in “The Guardian”
You’re Nick Bianco, aren’t you? You’re a big man. I’m Tommy Udo. Imagine me on this cheap rap – big man like me, picked up just for shoving a guy’s ears off his head. Traffic ticket stuff.” These were the first words uttered on screen by Richard Widmark, who has died aged 93. It was one of the most striking debuts in Hollywood history.
The film was Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death (1947), and the nominal stars were Victor Mature and Brian Donlevy. But it was Widmark, in a relatively small part, whom everyone remembered. No matter how far he moved away from Tommy Udo in his long career, even when he played noble characters, that giggling psychopath was always just beneath the surface.
Widmark was born in the farming community of Sunrise, Minnesota, where his Swedish-born father ran the general store. His original ambition was to become a lawyer, so he enrolled at Lake Forest College in Chicago. It was there that he became involved in the dramatic society.
After graduating in 1936, he remained at the college as an instructor in speech and drama. In 1937, while he and a friend were touring Europe on bicycles, they shot a short 8mm documentary about Hitler Youth camps. He then moved to New York, where he worked on radio and landed a few Broadway roles, the best of which were directed by Elia Kazan. It was through Kazan’s influence that Widmark was auditioned by 20th Century Fox and put under contract, and immediately cast in Kiss of Death, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
Critic James Agee described the character of Tommy Udo thus: “A rather frail fellow with maniacal eyes who uses a sinister kind of falsetto baby talk laced with tittering laughs. It is clear that murder is one of the kindest things he is capable of.” Certainly, Udo seems to delight in pushing an elderly wheelchair-bound woman down a flight of stairs. Of the spine-chilling snigger, Widmark explained that it derived from his nervousness at his first screen role, and “I’ve always had a goofy laugh.”
In the Hollywood tradition of stringent typecasting, Widmark reprised this sadistic character, with slight variations, in his next three movies, all released in 1948. In Street With No Name, he played a crooked fight promoter, wrapped up in a scarf and using inhalers, terrified of catching a cold, who wishes to run his gang “along scientific lines”. In one scene, later toned down to get past the censor, he beats up his wife (Barbara Lawrence), whom he suspects of having tipped off the police.
In Road House, he was a psychotic ex-serviceman pushed over the edge by sexual jealousy, and in the William Wellman western Yellow Sky he was the nastiest of the bank robbers opposing reformed outlaw Gregory Peck.
The last of his fanatical chortling villains was in Joseph Mankiewicz’s No Way Out (1950), in which he played a hospitalised racist hoodlum under the care of a black doctor (Sidney Poitier). So convincing was Widmark that a great deal of Poitier’s anger was genuine. In fact, the two actors became firm friends and appeared together again in two films, The Long Ships (1964) and The Bedford Incident (1965).
From the early 1950s, Widmark edged his way into more sympathetic roles, gradually entering the pantheon of Hollywood heroes. During the transitionary period, he gave one of his best performances in Jules Dassin’s Night and the City (1950), shot over 60 straight nights on location in London. As a small-time crook with ambitions to be a wrestling promoter, he is forced on the run by a racketeer before being killed and tossed into the Thames.
In the same year, Widmark crossed sides in Kazan’s Panic in the Streets, playing a doctor in the New Orleans public health service who hunts a gang of petty criminals carrying pneumonic plague. This time, he himself was upstaged by the villain (Jack Palance, in his screen debut).
More good guys followed in war movies – Halls of Montezuma (1950), The Frogmen (1951) and Destination Gobi (1953) – and westerns Red Skies of Montana (1952), Broken Lance and Garden of Evil (both (1954) in which Widmark turned the steely-eyed, gaunt, albino-like figure of his psychopath characters into a straightforward, blue-eyed, muscular blond. But his white rat persona surfaced from time to time, giggle and all. In Sam Fuller’s Pickup on South Street (1953), he played a seedy pickpocket who inadvertently “lifts” some top secret microfilm, which he is prepared to sell to the “commies”. Widmark brilliantly presents the moral ambiguity of the man, finally turning against the spies out of revenge, not patriotism.
He was the heavy, challenging Robert Taylor in The Law and Jack Wade (1958), and Mr Ratchett, the millionaire victim in Murder on the Orient Express (1974), so detestable that almost every passenger on the train has a motive to kill him.
On the whole, however, Widmark played mainly hardbitten heroes, especially in a number of westerns, such as John Ford’s leisurely Two Rode Together (1961), in which he partnered James Stewart; Alvarez Kelly (1966), as William Holden’s antagonist; and The Way West (1967), billed third after Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum. “I love westerns,” Widmark commented. “I love the outdoors, I love horses. That’s why I raise them.”
Apart from his film work, he made a fortune investing in land and owned a couple of ranches for himself. He married former actor and screenwriter Jean Hazelwood in 1942, and claimed never to have even flirted with another woman. “After I was married I thought, ‘well, that’s it’. I never thought beyond that. I happen to like my wife a lot.”
Politically, Widmark was a liberal, poles apart from John Wayne, who directed him in The Alamo (1960). Wayne wanted him to play Colonel William Travis, but Widmark insisted on playing Jim Bowie. “You’re not big enough,” Wayne told him. “I’ll be big enough,” Widmark replied. And he was.
The following year, he was the belligerent prosecutor in Judgment at Nuremberg, curiously less sympathetic than Maximilian Schell’s defence attorney. In 1968, he took the title role in Don Siegel’s Madigan as a tough New York detective. Although he is killed at the climax, the character was resurrected for six TV movies in the early 1970s. Widmark played Sergeant Dan Madigan as a cold loner, speaking in metallic tones.
From the 1980s, his light hair turned silver, he made fewer appearances, but whenever he gave an interview, the character of Tommy Udo always came up, even though he had created that monster almost half a century earlier.
Jean died in 1997, but he is survived by his second wife, Susan Blanchard, whom he married in 1999, and his daughter Anne from his first marriage.
· Richard Widmark, actor, born December 26 1914; died March 24 2008
“The Guardian” obituary can also be accessed on-line here.
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Derek Bond was born in 1920 in Glasgow. He made his film debut in “The Captive Heart” in 1946. Other movies include “Nicholas Nickleby”, “The Loves of Joanna Godden”, “Uncle Silas” and in 1971, “When Eight Bells Toll”. He died in 2006.
Gavin Gaughan’s “Guardian” obituary:
The actor and trade unionist Derek Bond, who has died aged 87, enjoyed a brief period of stardom at Ealing Studios in the 1940s, projecting an urbane, gentlemanly image on to the screen. Forty years later, however, his deeply conservative views brought about his downfall as president of the actors’ union Equity, and showed him to have misjudged the mood of public opinion.
Although always seeming very English, Bond was born in Glasgow and educated at Haberdashers’ Aske’s school, then based in Hampstead, north London. Originally “convinced that I was going to be an ace newspaper man”, he followed his mother into amateur dramatics and bluffed his way into an understudying job in touring rep. In 1939, he volunteered for the Grenadier Guards, obtaining a commission. In his war memoirs, Steady, Old Man! Don’t You Know There’s a War On (1990), he recalled being wounded in the thigh while serving in north Africa in 1942. He was awarded the military cross, though he had to endure a PoW camp in Bavaria during the last months of the war, having been captured in Florence.
His Ealing phase began, fittingly, with the PoW drama The Captive Heart (1946). Nicholas Nickleby (1947) gave him the title role, though it was generally agreed that the film was inferior to David Lean’s Great Expectations, which, released the previous year, overshadowed all other Dickens’ adaptations. The film critic George Perry, for example, wrote that Bond “gave a bland but not unlikeable performance that at least provided some continuity through what amounted to a succession of cameos”.
His best role was probably as the doomed Captain Oates in Scott of the Antarctic (1948). In the words of another film writer, David Quinlan, Bond’s “upper-class image could not sustain his stardom beyond the early 50s”, and relegated him to drawing-room plays, B-movies and television.
His small screen debut had been as a robot in the amateur dramatics staple R.U.R. (1938). By the 60s, he was presenting film programmes for the BBC, and attempting to interview Tommy Cooper in Cooperama (1966). He was a regular in an unsuccessful soap, 199 Park Lane (1965), while guest roles included a testy Austrian emperor in William Tell, The Invisible Man, Dad’s Army and Crown Court. He wrote, but did not appear in, an Armchair Theatre segment, Unscheduled Stop (1968), which producer Leonard White felt was “just too theatrical at a time when television drama was aiming for close-up reality”.
Bond was among the first reputable actors to appear in sexploitation films, such as Saturday Night Out (1963) and Secrets of a Windmill Girl (1966, starring the young Pauline Collins). This notwithstanding, he was in the Cliff Richard musical Wonderful Life (1964), as a late replacement for a bibulous Dennis Price. Appropriately enough, Bond worked in the spy genre, being well cast as Edward Woodward’s unsympathetic superior in Callan (1969). Ironically, both Bond and his political opposite Corin Redgrave supported Anthony Hopkins in When Eight Bells Toll (1971). Though his episode of The Saint (1967) was set in Paris, he remained thoroughly British.
Believing that his union had become dominated by the far left, in 1984 Bond successfully stood for election as president of Equity, representing Act For Equity, whose members tended to the right. While claiming to “abhor” apartheid, he believed that British actors were losing out on work by refusing to appear in South Africa, despite the cultural boycott and the United Nations blacklist of those who did go. Perhaps his views were influenced by the “very pro-British” South Africans he had met during the war. Whatever his motivation, in July 1984 he survived a motion calling on him to resign on the eve of a scheduled stage appearance in South Africa. The move was backed by Kenneth Williams, who recorded in his diary, “I spoke against Bond and said he should go as an individual not as president of Equity.”
On his return to Britain, Bond was condemned by former Equity president Hugh Manning, and there were protests outside the London theatre where he was playing. Following a referendum, a union ban on appearing in South Africa was imposed in 1986. Bond promptly resigned as president and was replaced by Nigel Davenport.
He was married three times, and is survived by his third wife Annie, a son, a daughter and a stepson.
· Derek William Douglas Bond, actor and trade unionist, born January 26 1919; died October 15 2006
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.
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Danny Purches, the gypsy singer born and bred in a caravan, was discovered singing in London’s Leicester Square by BBC producer Henry Caldwell. Busking in the London streets, Danny sometimes earned 30 in a week. Caldwell gave him a chance on TV. Later, Stanley Black signed him up to sing with his orchestra. After a fabulous success at Sunday concerts with the Eric Delaney Band, Danny signed a five-year contract worth 10,000 with Foster’s Agency. He wears one ear-ring, a gypsy custom denoting that the wearer is fancy free, the other being hung on a chain round his neck.”Danny Purches
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Sites of Interest
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