Son of actor Alex Rocco (Moe Greene in The Godfather), he was only 43 when found dead in the suburban LA home recently. He directed four features, the last of which - Murder in the First (1995), set at Alcatraz in the 1930s with Kevin Bacon and Christian Slater, seemed to be setting the stage for a significant career. But he never directed another film.
His other previous features were Scenes from a Gold Mine, Dream a Little Dream and Where the Day Takes You.
Veteran German actress Monica Bleibtreu (mother of Moritz Bleibtreu) died yesterday.
"Notorious was nice, but it’s not in the color purple range" "Angels and Demons may get nominated for cinematography the imagery was profound" "District Nine will definitely win for best foreign film it made money and everyone loved it" ~ 8movies
Posts: 2714 | Location: nz | Registered: January 12, 2009
His face might be vaguely familiar to non-Australians for the broad range of roles he played over several decades. At home, he was on of the best known Aussie character actors. His career spanned three continents.
Among the films that received wide notice are The Desert Rats, The Shiralee, three of the Margaret Rutherford/Miss Marple mysteries, Breaker Morant, The Castle and Ned Kelly. Locally (Australia), he was best known for the TV series Homocide.
One of the major actors of his time in both Soviet and Russian stage and film, his main exposure to international audiences came from his lead roles in Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror and Nostalghia. He also had a major role in Pavel Lounguin's Tsar, which just premiered in Cannes.
For a few years in the 1940s, initially under contract at RKO, she was the second female lead in several notable films, including The Cat People, Highways by Night, The Falcon Strikes Back, In the Meanttime Darling and Railroaded.
In her brief career, she worked with more major directors the probably any best actress winner of the last decade - Raoul Walsh, Jacques Tourneur, Robert Wise, Otto Preminger and Anthony Mann among them.
She married a wealthy Spaniard in 1949, moved to Madrid where she apparently was a major figure in that city's social scene, and spent the last years of her life in Switzerland.
****************************** LORELAI: You ruined my joke. RORY: Um, no, the punchline ruined your joke. (from Eight O'Clock at the Oasis) ******************************
Posts: 2451 | Location: Baltimore, MD (but originally from Alabama, southern at heart) | Registered: March 19, 2002
Though the details of his death are at this point unclear, he died in his Bangkok hotel room where he was about to begin work on a new film.
Best known to US audiences for his TV role in Kung Fu, this son of the great John Carradine, and brother of Keith and Robert had a multi-decade career in film, often in B and genre movies of not much note, but also many fine performances, including his performance in best picture nominated Bound for Glory (as Woody Guthrie).
Among others, he appeared in Boxcar Bertha (for Martin Scorsese), Death Race 2000, The Serpent's Egg (Ingmar Bergman), The Long Riders (Walter Hill), Bird on the Wire, and of course his great work in Tarantino's Kill Bill films.
He was 72.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: seanflynn,
"On June 4, 2009, Carradine was found dead in his room at the Swissotel Nai Lert Park Hotel on Wireless Road, near Sukhumvit, in central Bangkok, Thailand. The initial police report indicated that Carradine had committed suicide by hanging himself; he was found by a hotel maid sitting in a wardrobe with a cord around his neck and body."
David Carradine was Emmy-nominated for ABC's Kung Fu (1972-73 season). He was Golden Globe-nominated for Hal Ashby's Bound to Glory (1976), which ended up a best-picture Oscar nominee (while Carradine missed out for a best-actor slot, for his portrait of folk singer Woody Guthrie).
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DS0816,
Originally posted by seanflynn: David CARRADINE - Actor
…but also many fine performances, including his Oscar nomination for Bound for Glory as Woody Guthrie.…
He was 72.
That piece of information is, unfortunately, incorrect.
1976 Oscar nominations for best actor were: Robert De Niro (Taxi Driver), Peter Finch (Network), Giancarlo Giannini (Seven Beauties), William Holden (Network), Sylvester Stallone (Rocky). (The winner, awarded posthumously, was Finch.)
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DS0816,
You are so right. It was the film that was nominated for best picture. He had been expected to be nominated as I recall, but somehow I had a brain freeze. Thanks for the correction.
He should have been in instead of Giannini.
Also, latest reports decrease the chances it was suicide. Apparently his neck was not the only part of his body that had something tied to it. It sounds like self-entertainment gone wrong, which happens rarely, but has occurred.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: seanflynn,
Originally posted by seanflynn: You are so right. It was the [Bound for Glory] that was nominated for best picture. [David Carradine] had been expected to be nominated as I recall, but somehow I had a brain freeze. Thanks for the correction.
He should have been in instead of Giannini.…
…You're welcome.
It was a tough race. In hindsight, a best-actor slot should have also been made for the late Lenny Baker (1945-1982), for his performance in Paul Mazurksy's 1950s Brooklyn comedy Next Stop, Greenwich Village. (Baker was nominated for a Golden Globe, as a newcomer, and a supporting bid went to Shelley Winters.)
Baker won the 1976-77 Tony award, for best featured actor in a musical, for the sexual revolution satire I Love My Wife. (I'll provide a link to that, from YouTube, in he which performs "Married Couple Seeks Married Couple" with co-stars Joanna Gleason, Ilene Graff, and James Naughton. Gleason and Naughton became future Tony winners as well.)
For Your Oscar Consideration: Charlotte Gainsbourg, "Antichrist" - Best Actress in a Leading Role Sharlto Copley, "District 9" - Best Actor in a Leading Role Christoph Waltz, "Inglourious Basterds" - Best Actor in a Supporting Role
"Inglourious Basterds" - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction "District 9" - Best Editing, Best Visual Effects "God Bless Us Everyone", A Christmas Carol - Best Original Song
Posts: 19990 | Location: Natal, RN, Brazil | Registered: October 21, 2002
You almost certainly never heard of him, but there's a good chance his two best known (and notorious) films might have gotten your attention at some point - the mid 1970s soft core sex/violence melodramas Ilsa - She Wolf of the SS and Ilsa - Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks. The former in particular got a lot of press (and condemnation) when it was released, which of course led it to becoming a minor hit, then steady availability ever since on video and DVD.
Edmonds came to Hollywood as an actor, doing some minor TV and playing a goofy sidekick type in Gidget Goes Hawaiian and Beach Ball and similar. He directed 8 films in all (mainly grind house and drive-in fare) before becoming a production head at Producers Sales Organization in the late 1980s, where he oversaw films like Short Circuit, 8 Million Ways to Die and Clan of the Bear. He also apparently helped connect Quentin Tarantino's script for True Romance with Tony Scott.
One of the leading Canadian filmmakers of his time, Allan King had success on TV, in documentaries and in feature films over a long career that began in the 1950s at the Canadian Broadcasting Feature.
His greatest fame came from his feature documentary work, ranging from his breakout film Warrendale (1967), a cinema-verite look at a home for disturbed children, which got a theatrical release in the US and made several 10 best lists and other acclaim. Others followed -- A Married Couple (1969), Come On Children (1973) and for me above all the towering Dying at Grace (2004), a sensitive and revealing look at the final days of several patient's at a Toronto hospice.
Among his features, the best known was the 1982 Silence of the North with Ellen Burstyn.
(CNN) -- Ed McMahon, the longtime pitchman and Johnny Carson sidekick whose "Heeeeeeerre's Johnny!" became a part of the vernacular, has died. Ed McMahon had suffered several health problems in recent years.
McMahon passed away peacefully shortly after midnight at the Ronald Reagan/UCLA Medical Center, his publicist, Howard Bragman, said Tuesday
McMahon, 86, was hospitalized in February with pneumonia and other medical problems.
He had suffered a number of health problems in recent years, including a neck injury caused by a 2007 fall. In 2002, he sued various insurance companies and contractors over mold in his house and later collected a $7 million settlement.
Though he later hosted a variety of shows -- including "Star Search" and "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes" -- McMahon's biggest fame came alongside Carson on "The Tonight Show," which Carson hosted from 1962 to 1992. The two met not long after Carson began hosting the game show "Who Do You Trust?" in 1957. iReport.com: Share your memories of Ed McMahon
"Johnny didn't look as if he was dying to see me," McMahon, who was hosting a show on a Philadelphia TV station, told People magazine in 1980 about the pair's first meeting. "He was standing with his back to the door, staring at a couple of workmen putting letters on a theater marquee. I walked over and stood beside him. Finally the two guys finished, and Johnny asked, 'What have you been doing?' I told him. He said, 'Good to meet you, Ed,' shook my hand, and I was out of the office. The whole meeting was about as exciting as watching a traffic light change."
Though McMahon was surprised to be offered the job as Carson's sidekick, the two soon proved to have a strong chemistry. Carson was, by nature, introverted and dry-witted; McMahon was the boisterous and outgoing second banana, content to give Carson straight lines or laugh uproariously at his jokes (a characteristic much-parodied by comedians).
Carson made cracks about McMahon's weight, his drinking and the pair's trouble with divorce. McMahon was married three times; Carson, who died in 2005, had four wives.
McMahon was also the show's designated pitchman, a talent he honed to perfection during "Tonight's" 30-year run with Carson, even if sometimes the in-show commercial spots fell flat.
For one of the show's regular sponsors, Alpo dog food, McMahon usually extolled the virtues of the product while a dog eagerly gobbled down a bowl. But one day the show's regular dog wasn't available, and the substitute pooch wasn't very hungry.
McMahon recalled the incident in his 1998 memoir, "For Laughing Out Loud."
"Then I saw Johnny come into my little commercial area. He got down on his hands and knees and came over to me. ... I started to pet Johnny. Nice boss, I was thinking as I pet him on the head, nice boss. By this point the audience was hysterical. ... I just kept going. I was going to get my commercial done. 'The next time you're looking at the canned dog food ...' -- he rubbed his cheek against my leg -- " ... reach for the can that contains real beef.' Johnny got up on his knees and started begging for more. I started petting him again ... and then he licked my hand."
McMahon also promoted Budweiser, American Family Insurance and -- during the most recent Super Bowl -- Cash4Gold.com. Entertainment Weekly named him No. 1 on its list of TV's greatest sidekicks.
Edward Leo Peter McMahon Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan, on March 6, 1923. His father was a promoter, and McMahon remembered moving a lot during his childhood.
"I changed towns more often than a pickpocket," McMahon told People.
He later joined the Marines and served in World War II and Korea.
Though McMahon was well-rewarded by NBC -- the 1980 People article listed his salary between $600,000 and $1 million -- his divorces and some poor investments took their toll. In June 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported that McMahon was $644,000 in arrears on a $4.8 million loan for a home in Beverly Hills, California, and his lender had filed a notice of default.
McMahon and his wife, Pamela, told CNN's Larry King that McMahon had gotten caught in a spate of financial problems.
"If you spend more money than you make, you know what happens. And it can happen. You know, a couple of divorces thrown in, a few things like that," said McMahon, who added that he hadn't worked much since the neck injury. advertisement
McMahon later struck a deal that allowed him to stay in the house.
He is survived by his wife, Pamela, and five children. A sixth child, McMahon's son Michael, died in 1995.
