Obituaries
Entries from September 2010
By Lee Pfeiffer
News reports indicate that Hollywood legend Tony Curtis has died at age 85. According to the MSNBC news show Morning Joe, the actor's daughter Jamie Lee Curtis has confirmed the rumor. Entertainment Tonight says that Curtis died of a heart attack in his Nevada home. The actor, who was born Bernard Schwartz,was one of the last symbols of Hollywood's golden era. He emerged as a star almost immediately. It was a far cry from his upbringing in the Bronx, where he and his brother Julius were temporarily placed in an orphanage because their parents could not provide adequate care for them. Curtis served in the U.S. Navy during WWII, having enlisted because he was impressed by seeing Cary Grant in Destination Tokyo. After the War, Curtis found stardom in Hollywood through a contract with Universal. He ended up becoming one of the top sex symbols of the 1950s and 60s. His ability to play light comedy as well as intense drama made him a major box-office draw for many years. He earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones, but the Academy didn't recognize his most memorable performance in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, wherein he uses a dead-on impersonation of Cary Grant to try to seduce Marilyn Monroe. He also gave a brilliant performance in Sweet Smell of Success opposite Burt Lancaster. As his big screen career waned in the 70s, Curtis moved to television. In 1972, he starred opposite Roger Moore in The Persuaders. Although the show was not a hit in the USA, it was enormously popular internationally and a big screen version is being planned.
Curtis' active love life included six marriages, including one to Janet Leigh. He also married his 17 year-old Taras Bulba co-star Christine Kaufmann. In recent years, Curtis concentrated on writing his autobiography and immersing himself in painting. He had long ago acquired a reputation as an artist of considerable talent. Curtis' volatile personality and shoot-from-the-hip tendency to say whatever crossed his mind resulted in some minor scandals even in his later years, but he lived to see his career re-evaluated by Hollywood historians who had often dismissed his talents. Among his other major films: Trapeze, Spartacus, The Boston Strangler, Operation Petticoat, The Vikings, Sex and the Single Girl and The Great Race. For more click here
By Lee Pfeiffer
Arthur Penn, the acclaimed director of stage, TV and screen, has died at age 88. A low-key man not prone to publicity or bombast, Penn quietly changed the course of cinematic history with his direction of the ground-breaking 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, which ushered in a New Wave of American cinema. Penn had already gained acclaimed through his work in the early days of TV. He directed the television adaptation of The Miracle Worker, as well as both the hit Broadway and big screen versions of the story. Penn also played a key role in American political history by advising John F. Kennedy how to prepare for his presidential debate against Richard Nixon in 1960. Most audiences who heard the debate on radio thought Nixon was the winner, but Penn shrewdly played up JFK's charisma and good looks for the TV audience. The result was that JFK won a narrow margin in the election.
Penn's work on the troubled Bonnie and Clyde is the stuff of legend. The film opened to anemic reviews and business before young audiences transformed it into a pop culture phenomenon that changed international cinema forever. Penn never replicated its success, though even his misfires have since built up cult status. Among his other films: The Left-Handed Gun, The Chase, Night Moves, Alice's Restaurant, Little Big Man and The Missouri Breaks. (Cinema Retro was fortunate to get an exclusive interview with Arthur Penn that will run in a future issue). Click here for New Times obituary by film critic David Kehr.
Actress Gloria Stuart, who epitomized the late career Hollywood comeback, has died at age 100. Stuart toiled for decades in films opposite major stars such as Boris Karloff and James Cagney, but never managed to land a star-making role. At one point she quit the industry altogether in favor of sailing to exotic places around the globe. However, when James Cameron cast her in Titanic in 1997, Stuart not only achieved stardom but became the oldest actress ever to receive an Oscar nomination. Click here for more
By Lee Pfeiffer
Singer Eddie Fisher has died from complications from hip surgery. He was 82. Fisher was once a national singing sensation in the 1950s. He wed Debbie Reynolds and seemed poised for a successful acting career as well. However, the storybook marriage fell apart. Henceforth, Fisher would be known primarily for the more scandalous aspects of his love life. When his best friend Mike Todd was killed in a plane crash in 1958, Fisher not only comforted his widow Elizabeth Taylor, but ended up marrying her shortly thereafter- much to the horror of an outraged public that was then used to sanitized stories about the purity of entertainer's lives.In an instance of bitter irony, Fisher lost Taylor to actor Richard Burton, when the two co-starred in the 1963 epic Cleopatra. The romantic scandal was so torrid that it became front page news all over the world and made Fisher the butt of comic's jokes as the unwitting cuckolded husband. Fisher later married another sex symbol, Connie Stevens, but that marriage also ended in divorce. Fisher would remarry two more times. He attempted a comeback in the 1980s but the effort failed. He wrote two autobiographies that outraged his family and children by painting his ex-wives in unflattering ways and divulging embarrassing pillow talk. He is the father of actresses Carrie and Joely Fisher. For more click here
Screenwriter Irving Ravetch, who worked in partnership with his wife Harriet Frank Jr, has died at age 89. The couple were Oscar nominated and their screenplays included such gems as The Long Hot Summer, Hud, Hombre, and Norma Rae . Click here for NY Times obituary
James Bacon wrote about Hollywood legends for so many years that he became a legend himself. The well-liked and highly trusted columnist used inventive tactics to get the big gossip scoops but always treated the stars with dignity and respect. Consequently, he enjoyed a level of trust with his subjects that would be almost unimaginable today. Bacon counted Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and many other superstars among his closest friends. Bacon, who died this week at age 96, was still actively writing about the Hollywood scene almost until the end of his life. Click here for more
Noted character actor Harold Gould, who was a familiar face on TV and in major films, has died at age 86. Among his screen credits: The Sting, Harper, Love and Death and regular appearances on the TV series Rhoda and The Golden Girls. Click here for details
Kevin McCarthy, the distinguished actor who starred in director Don Siegel's 1950s sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, has died at age 96. McCarthy was, until recently, still a regular present at film industry events. With his white hair and dignified manner of speech, he often played men of great stature. However, Body Snatchers afforded him screen screen immortality as the courageous small town doctor who tries to combat aliens who are taking over the bodies of earthlings. McCarthy also had a memorable cameo in Philip Kaufman's excellent 1978 remake of the film. For more on his remarkable career, click here. (See Cinema Retro issue #4 for coverage of McCarthy and Clint Eastwood's joint appearance at a Don Siegel tribute)
The esteemed French film director Claude Chabrol has died at age 80. A contemporary of Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer, Chabrol began his career as a film critic and movie publicist before becoming one of the pioneers in the New Wave of European cinema in the 50s and 60s. He worked continuously until his death. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Chabrol “was a great cineaste and showed humor and truculence, both in his films and in his life.†Click here to read New York Times critic David Kehr's overview of his career.
Clive Donner, the distinguished British film director, has died at age 84. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. Donner made his directorial debut with The Secret Place, a well-received 1957 low-budget crime drama starring young David McCallum. His biggest financial success was producer Charles K. Feldman's madcap hippie comedy What's New Pussycat?, though he also had a hit during that era with another British youth comedy Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush. Donner gained great acclaim with his 1963 film adaptation of Harold Pinter's play The Caretaker which starred Robert Shaw, Alan Bates and Donald Pleasence. His 1964 film Nothing But the Best was also highly praised. In later years, however, Donner's track record was checkered, directing semi-epics like Alfred the Great and low-brow comedies such as The Nude Bomb. He did gain much praise for his 1980s TV adaptations of Dickens' Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol. In the 1960s, Donner also directed episodes of popular British TV series such as Danger Man starring Patrick McGoohan. Click here for more
Cammie King Conlon, who played Bonnie, the ill-fated daughter of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind died earlier this week at age 76. She largely retired from show business as a child, but did provide the voice of Faline in Disney's Bambi. Ironically, she had spoken by phone with GWTW star Olivia de Havilland just before her death. For more click here
Jackson Gillis' name may not be familiar to retro TV fans but his work certainly is. He wrote memorable scripts for classic series such as The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Perry Mason, Columbo, I Spy and many others. Gillis has died at the age of 93. Click here for biography
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