R.I.P.

[Mr. Arkadin]

My brother and I also saw Goulet in Camelot several times.

Just to show you how fast he could think on his feet and improvise, during one show my brother saw, he and Guinnevere were sitting on their thrones (he was playing Arthur at this point--early 90's) when something heavy fell backstage scaring the heck out of everyone! He looked upstage and then back at Guinnevere and just said "Those damn guards..." everybody cracked up laughing.

[Moraldo Rubini]

Deborah Kerr has died at age 86. Her first major role was in "Major Barbara." Although she lived a nice long life its is always a sad thing. She seemed quite a lovely lady. Always elegant and classy. I remember her fondly in "Quo Vadis", "The Grass Is Greener", "The Chalk Garden" and many others and lastly saw her in "Reunion At Fairborough."

It's been a couple of weeks since Deborah Kerr's passing, but I saw Mick LaSalle's obituary of her and he brought his own unique perspective to it; so I thought I'd share some:

...Like Greer Garson, who preceded her in stardom, Kerr embodied an essence on screen that's not only difficult to find today but one that's barely even understood. She had refinement and delicacy of manner without seeming prissy. She was vulnerable without being weak, sensual without being lewd and beautiful without being anyone's toy.

Just in her bearing, in her manner, she made the case for personal decorum as a form of giving -- as a caring act of openness to another person's feelings. Kerr had a sincere intensity of focus that could not be faked, and it made her one of the screen's great listeners. When we think of Yul Brynner in The King and I, for example, we think of him as seen through Kerr's eyes.

She will be most remembered for From Here to Eternity, for that single scene -- or perhaps that single production still -- of her kissing Burt Lancaster on a Hawaiian beach as the waves roll over them. What is it about that image that still has meaning 54 years later? Movie magic is hard to dissect, and often not worth dissecting, but one point is worth noting: She's on top. And while the prettiness of the moment might in fact come from Lancaster -- he never looked better in his life -- the power of the moment comes from Kerr.

That power had everything to do with what Kerr had previously meant on screen and what seeing Kerr, swept away by passion, meant to audiences. She had been known as the cinema's perfect lady, often to her own frustration. Cast against type as a hard-drinking adulteress in From Here to Eternity, she still retained her essential aura of probity, and so the scene functioned in several ways simultaneously -- as a statement about the characters, as a statement about Kerr and as a general statement about the raw passions that can lurk beneath the thin veneer of civilization.

Indeed, that beach scene was practically a statement about female sexuality -- and one that audiences have happily endorsed for 54 years.

Curiously, Kerr was not the first choice for the role, and Columbia studio boss Harry Cohn rejected her for it. The part was originally intended for Joan Crawford[!], who, alas, might have been all too convincing as an adulterous alcoholic.
...
Kerr looked 35 years old for about 20 years, a key advantage in her long and successful Hollywood run.
...
After The Arrangement in 1969, she left movies at age 48, saying that she was either too old or too young for every role offered her. It's hard to imagine what place Deborah Kerr might have occupied in the cinema of the 1970's. Refinement was something held in suspicion; reserve was thought to be phoney. It had become an alien world.

...In 1994 she was awarded a special Academy Award for being 'an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance.' That sounded a bit stuffier than she actually was. Better to say that Deborah Kerr's career and esssence made the case for refinement, not as something that denied humanity, but as something that expressed it.

[feaito]

It's a beautiful obituary and very well written. Thanks for sharing Jack.

[moira finnie]

Peter Viertel and Deborah Kerr.

Literally days after the passing of his late wife, Deborah Kerr, author Peter Viertel has died of natural causes at age 86. The son of actress and screenwriter Salka Viertel and author Berthold Viertel, he grew up in Santa Monica where it was not unusual to find Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann in the living room swapping ideas and fiercely held opinions while oozing intellectual glamour.

In his own life, he served in WWII in the Marines and the OSS and while working as a Hollywood screenwriter, contributed to the scripts of Saboteur (1942), The Hard Way (1943), We Were Strangers (1947), and The African Queen (1951), among others.

The latter film and his friendship with John Huston led to the notable roman à clef, "White Hunter, Black Heart", which he eventually adapted into a screenplay that was filmed by Clint Eastwood, (who took the juicy part of the Huston-like director for himself). Mr. Viertel also wrote an entertaining memoir, "Dangerous Friends: At Large with Huston and Hemingway" in 1992. Rumor has it that Viertel's reputation as a smooth operator, bon vivant and a talented scribe may have contributed to the tale that he was one of the primary models for the Robert Redford character of Hubbell Gardner in The Way We Were (1973).

In any case, I suspect that Mr. Viertel had a very full life.

Mr. Viertel's full obituary may be seen in the New York Times here.

A web page with some interesting links about Viertel's background may be viewed here.

[Moraldo Rubini]

Norman Mailer passed away yesterday (Saturday, November 10, 2007). Author Gay Talese said, "He could do anything he wanted to do - the movie business, writing, theater, politics. He never thought the boundaries were restricted. He'd go anywhere and try anything." Known primarily as an author, Mailer also delved into Hollywood. Raoul Walsh directed an adaptation of his book The Naked and the Dead, starring Aldo Ray, Cliff Robertson and Raymond Massey in 1958. An American Dream was made into a picture with Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh and Eleanor Parker. Two years later he wrote, directed and acted with Rip Torn in Beyond the Law, about a night in a New York police station. That same year he also directed and starred in another partnership with Rip Torn -- Maidstone -- about a movie director who runs for president. It received poor to mixed reviews. He wrote and directed Tough Guys Don't Dance in the 1980's; a film with Ryan O'Neal and Isabella Rossalini that Vincent Canby called a "demented film noir". As an actor, he will probably best be rememberd as Stanford White in Milos Forman's Ragtime. And art patrons will be reminded of him, because of his work with [Bjork's husband and] conceptual artist Matthew Barney's Cremaster series. Fascinated with the concept of the "cult of personality", in the 1970's he wrote the text for a photo coffee table book about Marilyn Monroe. Like her, Mailer intrigued the public with his personality as much as with his work.

[movieman1957]

Delbert Mann has passed away. The notice from The Baltimore Sun follows.

Pioneering TV, film director Delbert Mann dies at 87
The Associated Press

3:05 PM EST, November 12, 2007

LOS ANGELES

Delbert Mann, who directed Paddy Chayefsky's classic teleplays "Marty" and "The Bachelor Party" and then transformed them into big-screen triumphs, has died. He was 87.

Mann died of pneumonia Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son Fred Mann said Monday.

Mann's 1955 feature version of "Marty" won four Oscars, including for best picture and director.

The low-budget film with mostly little-known actors told the stark, poignant story of a 34-year-old Brooklyn butcher, played by Ernest Borgnine, who felt he was too ugly to find love. His life is changed when he meets an equally shy but sweet woman played by Betsy Blair.

"I knew we had a good story because I had already done it on television," Mann once said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But I certainly never expected it to be the hit that it turned out to be."

Besides picture and director, "Marty" -- the first feature Mann directed -- won Oscars for Borgnine's lead performance and Chayefsky's screenplay.

[moira finnie]

This is sad news about Delbert Mann. Never a technically flashy director, I really admired his small scale movies, especially two which, along with Separate Tables and Marty, should ideally be rebroadcast on TCM. If there is one theme of Delbert Mann's movies that seems most memorable, it was a subject that is almost taboo in current films: our common flawed humanity.

Mann's adaptation of William Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) has one of the outstanding ensemble cast performances of any period, featuring Robert Preston and Dorothy Mcguire doing some of their best work as the leads. This film also features what may be Eve Arden's and Angela Lansbury's greatest film performances, along with the underrated Frank Overton, Shirley Knight and Lee Kinsolving.

Another film, Dear Heart (1965) features Glenn Ford and Geraldine Page in a beautifully acted, deceptively simple and emotionally powerful movie.

Neither of these latter films are on dvd--but should be.

[moira finnie]

Word comes this afternoon that Laraine Day has passed away at 87. In her heyday in the movies in the '30s and '40s, she played, among other parts, the often elusive love of Dr. Kildare (Lew Ayres), the girl who distracts Joel McCrea in Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (1940), the rich girl who gave Cary Grant something to fight for in Mr. Lucky(1943) and the accomplished actress whose favorite role in The Locket (1946) is beloved by all film noir aficionados.

She is survived by three children, numerous grandchildren and a twin brother, Lamar Johnson. Please click here to see an appreciative obituary in the LA Times today.

[Moraldo Rubini]

I just learned that Ira Levin died a week ago. The macabre writer had a knack for writing tales that would make it to the big screen. His novels A Kiss Before Dying, Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives and The Boys from Brazil all found their way to Hollywood.

Levin started relatively young. As a college senior, he entered a television screenwriting contest sponsored by CBS. He was runner-up and the screenplay was bought by rival NBC. While continuing to write for television, he published his first novel, A Kiss Before Dying. It won the 1954 Edgar Award for Best First Novel and hit the screen two years later, starring Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter and Joanne Woodward and was remade with Matt Dillon and Sean Young.

He received his second Edgar Award in 1980 for Deathtrap, which made for a rollicking Sidney Lumet movie with Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve and Dyan Cannon.

He quite at home with stage writing as well. Deathtrap, of course; but he also adapted No Time for Sargeants for the stage and even wrote the musical Drat! The Cat!, which gave us the lounge hit "He Touched Me" (nee "She Touched Me").

RIP Ira Levin

[Moraldo Rubini]

Comic Actress Pat Kirkwood passed away on Christmas Day at age 86. She suffered from Alzheimers and resided at a nursing home in Ilkley (northern England).

Kirkwood was born to a Scottish shipping clerk and made her London stage debut 16 years later in Cinderella. She made her screen debut the following year in the British musical comedy Save a Little Sunshine. After starring in a number of British musicals, she headed for Hollywood where she was featured with Van Johnson, Keenan Wynn, Edward Arnold (and Guy Lombardo! [Happy new year!]) in No Leave, No Love -- a bomb at MGM. Soon after, she suffered a nervous breakdown and spent the next eight months in a New York sanitorium.

She married four times, most notably perhaps to Hubert Gregg MBE, the British movie/radio star. In 1948, she met Prince Philip and was seen dancing the night away at various London nightclubs while Princess Elizabeth was home and eight months pregnant. She always denied an affair, but she was cast as dubious company in British society from then on. She never had any children, but is survived by her fourth husband, Peter Knight. Quite a life!

RIP Pat Kirkwood

[moira finnie]

James Costigan, who began his career as an actor and developed into an interesting, literate writer of such adaptations as Love Among the Ruins and Eleanor and Joe has died. One of his original screenplays, called Little Moon of Alban (1959) with 2 marvelous performances by Christopher Plummer as an English soldier and Julie Harris as an Irish nurse was shown several years ago on PBS. I've never forgotten how good it was! Here's a linkto the NYT obit for this writer.

[Moraldo Rubini]

Surprised to see that no one's mentioned the passing of the lovely Suzanne Pleshette yet. I loved her felt-upholstered voice and dark good looks charmed me in If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium and The Birds. In the latter, juxtaposed against the sophisticated party girl Melanie Daniels, one couldn't help but wonder how Mitch could ever have broken up with her. When she played Arabella Flagg in The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin she said, "People are 98% water and if you don't stir them up once in awhile, they stagnate." She needn't have worried about this as her career hopped from stage to screen to tv and back again.

I'm going to miss her.

[mrsl]

Gee, I too, will certainly miss Lois Nettleton. She often played the 'plain' girl but I thought she was quite pretty. In fact her first movie role was the plain wife of Anthony Franciosa in Period of Adjustment. She did several Twilight Zone episodes, one of which was extraordinary - the one where the sun was burning up the earth, that one was scary.

I will miss her a lot.

Anne

[jdb1]

Very sad to hear about the deaths of Pleshette and Nettleton. These two were women who, along with some others, like Ina Balin, were the role models for me and my friends in our early teen years. They were beautiful and stylish, but not so glamorous as to be unrealistic for us; they played strong and intelligent women; and they always acted their age. There's very little of that going around any more.