John G. Avildsen | Film stars stories

John G. Avildsen | Film stars stories

John G. Avildsen

John G. Avildsen, b. Chicago, 1936 3968: Okay Bill (s). 1969; Turn on to Love (s); Sweet Dreams (s). 1970: Guess What We Learned in School Today?; Joe. 1971: Cry Uncle. 1972: The Stoolie. 1973; Save the Tiger. 1975: W.W. and the Dixie Dancekirtgs; Fore-play. 1976: Rocky. 1978: Slow Dancing in the Big City. 1980: The Formula. 1981: Neigh-burs. 1983; A Night in Heaven. 1984: The Karate Kid. 1986: The Karate Kid U. 1987: Happy New Year. 1988: For Keeps; Guartlian Angels; Lean on Me. 1989: The Karate Kid III. 1990: Rocky V: The Final Hell 1992: The Power of One. 1994: 8 Seconds. Avildsen worked as an assistant director and : as a cameraman, and he had credits on I Mickey One (65, Arthur Penn), Hurry Sundown (67, Otto Freminger), arid Out of It (69, Paul Williams), before he made

Robert Altman | Movie stars

Robert Altman | Movie stars

Robert Altman, b. Kansas City, Missouri, 1925 1955; The Delinquents. 1957; The James Dean Story. 1964: Nightmare in Chicago. 1967: Countdown. 1969: That CM Day in the Park. 1970: M’A'S’H; Brewster McCloud. 1971: McCabe rind Mrs. Millar. 1972: Images; The Long Goodbye. 1974-. Thieves Like Os; California Split. 1975: Nashville. 1976: Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson. 1977: 3 Women. 1978: A Wedding.1979: Quintet’ A Perfect Couple. 1980: Health; Popeye. 1982: Come Back to the 5 6- Dime, jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. 1983: Streamers. 1984: Secret Honor. 1985: Fool for Lone. 1987: “Les Boreades,” an episode from Aria; Beyond Therapy; O.C. and Sfiggs. 1988: Tanner ’88 (TV). 1990: Vincent and Theo. 1992: The Player. 1993: Short Cuts. In 1975, before I had seen Nashville, 1 wrote, “Altman seems less interested in structure than in

Bruce Beresford | Movie stars

Bruce Beresford | Movie stars

Bruce Beresford, b. Sydney, Australia, 1940 1972; The Adventures of Barry McKenzie. 1974: Barry McKenzie Holds His Own. 1976: Don’s Party. 1977: The Getting of Wisdom. 1978: Money Movers. 1979: Breaker Morant. 1980: The Club. 1981: Puberty Blues. 1983: Tender Mercies. 1985: King David; Crimes of the Hearty The Fringe Dwellers. 1988: “Die Totestadt,” an episode from Aria. 1989: Her Alibi; Driving Miss Daisy. 1991: Mister John­son; Black Robe. 1993: Rich in Love. 1994: A Good Man in Africa; Silent Fall. From Sydney University, Beresford went into advertising and thence to London. He spent two years in the mid-sixties in Nigeria work­ing as a film editor, and in 1966 he got a post at the British Film Institute Production Board, where he administered funds. He began to direct features himself only on returning to Australia in 1971. He shows what a fine line there can be today between struggling to stay in work and getting the laurel.

Bruce Beresford

Bruce Beresford

Bruce Beresford, b. Sydney, Australia, 1940 1972; The Adventures of Barry McKenzie. 1974: Barry McKenzie Holds His Own. 1976: Don's Party. 1977: The Getting of Wisdom. 1978: Money Movers. 1979: Breaker Morant. 1980: The Club. 1981: Puberty Blues. 1983: Tender Mercies. 1985: King David; Crimes of the Hearty The Fringe Dwellers. 1988: "Die Totestadt," an episode from Aria. 1989: Her Alibi; Driving Miss Daisy. 1991: Mister John­son; Black Robe. 1993: Rich in Love. 1994: A Good Man in Africa; Silent Fall. From Sydney University, Beresford went into advertising and thence to London. He spent two years in the mid-sixties in Nigeria work­ing as a film editor, and in 1966 he got a post at the British Film Institute Production Board, where he administered funds. He began to direct features himself only on returning to Australia in 1971. He shows what a fine line there can be today between struggling to stay in work and getting the laurel. Thus, in 1989 he was in charge of the stolid Tom Selleck-Paulina

Laslo Benedek

Laslo Benedek
Laslo Benedek (1907-92), b. Budapest, Hungary 1948: The Kissing Bandit. 1949: Port of New fork. 1951: Death of a Salesman. 1953: The Wild One. 19.54: Bengal Brigade. 1955: Kinder, Mutter und ein General 1957: Affair in Havana. 1959; Moment of Danger. 1960; Hecours en Grace. 3966: Namu the Killer Whale (d). 1971: The Night Visitor. 1975: Assault on Agathon. Benedek never settled, and be seemed as uneasy with the solemn allegory of Death of a Salesman as with the rampant motor-bike horniness of The Wild One. How that last film ever came to be banned in some tender quar­ters, or regarded highly anywhere, is a puzzle, It is too willing to be a motorized Western

Louise Brooks

Louise Brooks

Mel Brooks (Melvin Kaminsky), b. Brooklyn, 1926 1968: The producers. 1970: The Twelve Chairs. 1974: Blazing Saddles; Young Frankenstein. 1976: Silent Movie. 1977: High Anxiety. 1981: History of the World—Part I 19S7; Spacebalh. 1991: Life Stinks!. 1993: Robin Hood: Men in Tights. A besetting handicap of modern comedy is its belief that media conventions and genre take-offs are funnier than human predicaments. The noblest comedians created a character who might have lived and suffered anywhere, without self-consciousness. The events of their comedies are everyday and ordinary. But for Woody Allen and Mel Brooks, humor grows in the hothouse of burlesque. Their own comic attitudes are less subtle and appealing because their clenched personalities are preoccupied with the cliches of entertainment and the task of rip-off parody. With Allen, this may be a substantial loss. But in the case of Brooks, everything suggests a brash, superficial personality dependent on the role of stage scbmuck

Candice Bergen

Candice Bergen Can dice Bergen, b. Beverly Hills, California, 1946 Candice Bergen had been in movies, and vei4 social on the Hollywood scene, for ow twenty years. She is smart, funny, and has show business in the blood (or the grain one of her childhood companions Charlie McCarthy, for she was the daughls of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen). For while, she was the companion to innovatM producer Bert Schneider. She was in a " classy pictures, like Carnal Knowledge ("| Mike Nichols) and The Group (66, Sid Lumet). But she was taken for granted as| pretty piece of female furnishing. No noticed she could play comedy. Not even i riage to Louis Malle, in 1980, pron salvation.

Pedro Almodovar

Pedro Almodovar

Pedro Almodovar, b. Calzada de Calatrava, Spain, 1951 1974; La Caida de Sodoma (s); Dos Putas, o Historia de Amor que Termina en Boda (s). 1975: Hamenaje (s); E! Sueno (s). 1976; El Estrella (s), 1977: Complementos (s); SKXU Va (s). 1978; Polle, t'olle, Folleme, Tim; Salome (s). 1980: Pepi, Luci, Bom y Otras Chicas del MotitoWPepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom. 1982: Laberinto de Pasiones/Labyrinth of Passion 1983: Entre Tinieblas/Dark Habits. 19&4; Qiie He Hecho Yo Para Merecer Esto?/ What Hace I Done to Deserve This?. 1985; Trayler para Amantes de lo Prohibtdo (s), 1986; Mdtador. 1987: La Ley del Deseo/Lato of Desire. 1988: Mujeres al Borde de wn Ataque de Nervios/Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. 1990: Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down!. 1991: High Heels. 1993: Kifai. Almod6var was one of the most welcome explosions of the eighties and a sign of the new Spain. Whereas Carlos Saura (nearly twenty years older than Almodovar) made intensely measured and psychologically reflective films, with the innate secrecy of someone raised under the Franco regime. Almodovar is excessive, garish, outlandishly inventive, and irrepressible. He is openly gay, devoted to sexual confusion, and eternally committed to the chance of love.

Dorothy Arzner

Dorothy Arzner

Dorothy Arzner (1900-79), b. San Francisco 1927: Fashions for Women; Ten Modern Commandments; Get Your Man. 1928: Manhattan Cocktail 1929: The Wild Party. 1930: Sarah and Son; Anybody's Woman; Behind the Makeup (eodireeted with Robert Milton); an episode from Paramount on Parade. 1931: Honor Among Lovers; Worfcing Girls. 1932: Merrily We Go to Hell. 1933: Christopher Strong. 1934; Nona. 1936: Craig's Wife. 1937: The Bride Wore Red. 1940; Dance, Girl, Dance. 1943: First Conies Courage. Dorothy Arzner was a professional director of American movies who worked regularly for over a decade, and was a woman. (Only Lois Weber could have made the same claim.) She was not a great filmmaker, and her pioneering should not inflate her reputation. But she turned out some fascinating pictures and clearly was able to pursue a personal if undoc-trinaire interest in the issue of women's identity. That said, one has to confess that she generally played according to the Hollywood concept of "a woman's picture." She did not stretch or threaten the system, as Barbara Loden did with Wanda; hut that is also a sign of how far the 1930s romance was susceptible to a feminist sensibility. And Dorothy Arzner made more films than ever came from Barbara Loden. Ar/ne-r got into pictures through hard work and paying her dues, and she stayed near the top long enough for her retirement to be an act of choice. All of which says very little about why she was unique. The daughter of a Hollywood restaurateur, she dropped out of the University of Southern California and worked her way up at Paramount from typist to cutter to editor to director's assistant.

Richard Boleslavsky

Richard Boleslavsky

Richard Boleslavsky (Ryszard Srzednicki Boleslavsky) (1889-19 b, Warsaw, Poland 1918i Khleb (codirected with Boris Sush vich), 1919: Bohaterstwo Polskiego 1921- Cud Nad Wisk 1930: Treasure • The Last of the Lone Wolf. 1931: The ' Diplomat; Women Pursued, 1933: and the Empress; Storm at Daybreak; B& for Sale. 1934: Men in White; Fugitive 1 Operator 13; The Painted Veil; Holly Party (codirected with Allan Dwan and Roy Rowland). 1935: Clive of India; Les Mi-sfrables; Metropolitan; O'Shauefinessy's Boy. 1936: The Garden of Allah; Theodora Goes Wild; Three Godfathers. 1937: The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (codirected with George Fitz-maurice). For ten years before the First World War, Boleslavsky was an actor at the Moscow Arts Theatre; indeed, he was later to write books on Stanislavsky's teachings. He had acted in Russian films before he began to direct. During the Civil War he fought for the Poles and made a film about the war for them.

Robert Benton | Movie stars

Robert Benton | Movie stars
Robert Benton, b, Waxahachie, Texas., 1932 1972: Bod Company. 1977: The Late Show. 1979: Kramer os. Kramer. 1982: Still of the Night. 1984: Places in the Heart. 1987: Nadine. 1991: Billy Bathgate. Bentou was the Texan on Bonnie and Clyde (67, Arthur Perm), the man who knew the area and the landscape where those outlaws had driven. He studied painting at the Uni­versity of Texas at Austin, and then went on to Columbia after the army. As art director at Esquire magazine, he met die writer David Newman. They collaborated on articles and scripts and conceived Bonnie and Clyde for Truffaut or Godard before it found Warren Beatty and Arthur Penn. Benton has other coscreenplay credits— There Was a Crooked Man (70, Joseph L. Mankiewiez); What’s Up, Doc? (72, Peter Bogdanovich); and Superman (78, Richard Donner). As a director, his first two movies were unexpected and highly original, and they were marked by a sour regard for heroics.

Lionel Barrymore | Film stars stories

Lionel Barrymore | Film stars stories

Lionel Barrymore (Lionel Blythe) (1878-1954), b. Philadelphia The older brother of Ethel and John, Lionell was unlike John in all important ways: profes-l sional, hardworking, ambitious, humorless,! and dull. He began in the theatre hut in the! years before the First World War he jomedl D. W. Griffith’s company and acted in a great! many two-reelers, occasionally contributing! scripts. He became a leading player only in, the mid-3920s when he established himself at| MGM; The Face in the Fog (22, Crosland); The F-temal City (23, George) Fitzrnaurice); America (24. Griffith); Th Splendid Road (25, Frank Lloyd); The , (26, James Young); The Barrier (26, Geors Hill); The Lucky Lady (26, Baoul Walsh); Tk Temptress (26, Fred Niblo); The Show (27; Tod Browning); Women Love Diamonds (271

June Allyson

June Allyson
June Allyson (Ella Geisman), b, Bronx, New York, 1917 Trained as a dancer, she was a chorus girl while still at school, and went on to play in Broadway musicals. Her film debut was in Best Foot Forward (43, Edward Buzzell), which repeated a stage role. She was put under contract by MGM—as the sort of girl men overseas might like to come home to— for Girl Crazy (43, Norman Taurog); Thousands Cheer (43, George Sidney); Two Girls and a Sailor {44, Richard Thorpe); and Music for Millions (44, Henry Koster). Her petite, sore-throated charm was perfected in Tilt the Clouds Roll By (46, Richard Whorf); Good Netvs (47, Charles Walters); Words and Music (48, Taurojj); as Jo in Little Women (49, Mervyn Le Roy); with her husband, Dick Powell, i

Claudette Colbert- Films, Biography, Photos.

Claudette Colbert- Films, Biography, Photos.
Claudette Colbert (Claudette Lily Chauchoin), b. Paris, 1903 At her best, she was sophisticated gaiety personified,'a tender yet spirited comedienne, most stimulated by the chance to be provocative. She was less convincing in sultry or tear-jerker parts, and she could turn 'smug or superficial in dull roles. She was also fixed in her ways, preferring to give her left face to the camera, a stickler for regular hours, and so demanding before State of the Union ("By five in the afternoon 1 am tired and my face shows it") that Capra replaced her with Katharine Hepburn, Maybe Colbert knew a thankless part when she read it. Her family came to New York when she was six, and after secretarial training she went on the stage, playing romantic leads by the late twenties. She made one silent picture. For ttie Low of Mike (27, Capra), but it was her facility with dialogue (she never seemed French— but English) that persuaded Paramount to sign her up in 1929. She began modestly but by 1930 was taking on a wide range of parts: Manslaughter (George Abbott); Honor Among I-wers (Dorothy Arzner); His Woman (31, Edward Sloman); and The Smiling Lieutenant (31, Ernst Lubitsch), De Mille liked ber enough to make her iiis leading lady: as Poppaea, batbing in asses' milk and the director's boyish lasciviousness in The Sign of the Cross (32); in Four Frightened People (341; as a delectable if silly Cleopatra (34).

Glenn Close- Films, Biography, Photos.

Glenn Close- Films, Biography, Photos.

Glenn Close, b. Greenwich, Connecticut, 1947 Playing Gertrude to Mel Gibson's Hamlet (90, Franco Zeffirelli) may define Glenn Glose's dilemma: men are permitted to play younger. so actresses have to move up a generation— and down a class, for Glose is an experienced stage actress who h;is played in Lave for Love, The Real Thing, and Death and the Maiden. She is only nine years older than Mel Gibson. This is a strange movie career, full of English-like mums or brave girls (she does rather resemble Virginia McKenna): The World According to Carp (82, George Hoy Hill), TV Big Chill (83, Lawrence Kasdan); The Stone Boy (84, Chris Cain); and The Natural (84, Barry Levinson). She dubbed Andie McDowell in Greustoke (84, Hugh Hudson), failed at comedy in Maxle (S.l, Paul Aaron), and did a competent lawyer in love amid the hokum of jagged Edge (85, Hichard Mar-fjuand). Then she won one oi the plum roles of the last decade, Ale\ in Fatal Attraction (87, Adrian Lyne).

Glenn Close | Film stars stories

Glenn Close | Film stars stories

The Real Thing, and Death and the Maiden. She is only nine years older than Mel Gibson. This is a strange movie career, full of English-like mums or brave girls (she does rather resemble Virginia McKenna): The World According to Carp (82, George Hoy Hill), TV Big Chill (83, Lawrence Kasdan); The Stone Boy (84, Chris Cain); and The Natural (84, Barry Levinson). She dubbed Andie McDowell in Greustoke (84, Hugh Hudson), failed at comedy in Maxle (S.l, Paul Aaron), and did a competent lawyer in love amid the hokum of jagged Edge (85, Hichard Mar-fjuand).

Clive Brook

Clive Brook

Clive Brook (Clifford Brook) (1887-1974). b. London The son of an opera singer, Brook was educated at Dulwich College. After working as a writer and violinist, he served with distinction in the First World War: that effortless reference to military service in Shanghai Express was based on Vimy Ridge. After the war, he became an actor, onstage, but principally in the British cinema; Trent's Last Case (20, Richard Garrick); The Loudwater Mystery (21, Norman MacDonald); Daniel Derttnda (21, Walter Rawden); Sonia (21, Denison Clift); Shirley (22, A. V. Bramble); Married to a Woman (22, H. B. Parkinson); Debt of Honor (22, Maurice Elvey); Through Fire and Water (23, Thomas Bentley); Royal Oak (23, Elvey); Woman to Woman (23, Graham Cutt's): The White Shadow (24, Cutts); and The Passionate Adventure (24, Cutts). He then went to America under contract to Thomas Ince: Christine of the Hungry Heart (24, George Archainbaud); The Mirage (24, Archainbaud); Compromise (25, Alan Crosland); Enticement (25, Archainbaud); Seven Sinners (25, Lewis Milestone); and For Alimony Only (26, William De Mille), Thereafter he worked generally for Paramount: You Never Know Women (26, William Wellman); Barbed Wire (27, Rowland V. Lee); The Devil Dancer (27, Fred Niblo); French Dressing (27, Allan Dwan); opposite Clara Bow in Hula (27, Victor Fleming); as "Rolls Royce" in Underworld (27, Josef von Sternberg); The Perfect Crime (28, Bert Glennon); The Yellow Lily (28, Alexander Korda); A Dangerous Woman (29, Lee); The Ftmr Feathers (29, Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack); Anybody's Woman (30, Dorothy Arzner), with Ruth Chatterton; Slightly Scarlet (30, Louis Gasnier); Sweethearts and Wives (30, Clarence Badger);

John Boorman

John Boorman

John Boorman, 1). Shepperton, England, 1933 1965: Catch Us If You Can 1967: Point Blank. 1968: Hell in the Pacific. 1970: Leo the Last. 1972: Deliverance. 1973: Zardoz. 1977; Exorcist II: The Heretic. 1981: Excalibur. 1985: The Emerald Forest. 1987: Hope and Glory. 1990: Where the Heart Is. 1991: / Dreamt I Woke Up. The embattled mentality of anyone who has tried to make films in Britain shows through in most of John Boorman's work. Blank is the most authentic film made by an Englishman in America, almost as a challenge to the cramping attitudes of the British industry. Yet Boorman never became American, or settled into fixed genres. At sixty, he finds it hard to keep in work. He is as commercially unreliable as he is artistically unpredictable. The commercial success of Point Blank and Deliverance brought him to a position of eminence. That both films were intensely American shows how far the cinematic instincts of a young British filmmaker could fit into American subjects and idioms. The brilliant atmospheric eye that distinguished Boot-man i'rom most of his British contemporaries was itself an attribute of the American emphasis on violent action growing out of environment. And the fact that Point Blank was so urban and Deliverance such a unique portrait of wilderness showed, once again, Boorman's will to stretch the range of his own talent. The serious box-office failures in his list—Hell in the Pacific, Leo the Last, Zardvz, and The Heretic—hear witness to the strain of guessing where the next film is coming from. For there is a tension in his work between full-blooded entertainment and allegorical significance. HeU in the Pacific may have incurred the interference of distributors because it fell uneasily between a war film and a sort of Robinson Crwoe/Terri-toriat Imperative in which Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune could not dispense with the enmity thrust upon them by war. Boorman tends to see subdivisions within the species of man.

Claude Chabrol

Claude Chabrol

Claude Chabrol, b. Paris, 1930 1958: Le Beau Serge. 1959; Les Cousins; A Double Twir/Web of Passion; Les Bonnes femmes. 196L Les Godelureatix. 1962: "L'Avarice," episode in Lea Sept Pechiis Caai-feur; L'Oeil du Malitt; Ophelia. 1963: Land™. 1964: "L'Homme qui Vendit la Tour Eiffel," episode in Les Phis Belles Kscroi/ueries du blonde; "La Mu^tte," episode in Paris Vu tar. . . ; Le Tigrc Aime la Chair Fraiche. 1965: Varif-Ckantal Contre le Docteur K)ta; Le _ ; Se Parfiitnc a In Dynamite. 1966: La Ligne r Demarcation; J> Scandale/Tlie Champagne urders. 1967: La Route de Corintlie. 1968: Les 3; La Femnu: Infidele. 1969: Que la BSte are. 1970: Le Voucher; La Rupture. 1971: savant la Nuit; La Decade Prodigieuse/Ten Wonder. 1972: Les Noces Ranges; •tear Popaut. 1974: Nada; Une Partie de tKif/Love Match. 1975: Les Innocents aux tins Sales/Innocents with Dirly Hand*. 76: Les Magidens; Folies Bourgeoises/Tfte tt. 1977. Alice, IM la Demierc Fugue. 1978: Liens de Sang/Eland Relatives; Violelte •e. 1979: Le Chet-al d'Orgetiil. 1982: Les du Chapelier. 1984: an episode in : Vu Par... 20 Ans Aprcs; The Blood of (TV). 1985: Poukt au Vinaigre. 1986: or Latardin 1987: Le Cri de Hibou; ties. 1988: Une Affaire dus Femmes/Story Vomn. 1989: Docteur U. 1990: Quiet r in Ctichy. 1991: Mathme Bovary. 1993: ; The Eye of Vichy [d], 1994: Enfer. Chabrol is one of the most enigmatic directors at work today. A fringe instigator of the original New Wave, he has managed to create a world for himself—some private Hollywood—in which it is possible to produce a stream of subtle studies ofhumaii motivation

Charles Chaplin

Charles Chaplin

Sir Charles Chaplin (1889-1977), b. London 1914: Making a Living; Kid Auto Races at Venice; Mabel's Strange Predicament; Between Showers; A Film Johnnie; Tango Tangles; His Favourite Pastime; Cruel, Cruel Looe, The Star Boarder; Mabel at the Wheel; Twenty Minutes of Love; Caught in a Cabaret; Caught in the Rain; A Busy Day; The Fata! Mallet; Her Friend the Bandit; The Knockout; Mabel's Busy Day; Mabel's Married Life; Laughing Gas; The Property Man; The Face i>n the Bar-Room Floor; Recreation; The Mas-querader; His New Profession; The Rounders; The New Janitor; Those Love Pangs; Dougft and Dynamite; Gentlemen of Nerve; His Musical Career; His Trusting Place; Tito's Punctured Romance; Gutting Acquainted; Ht? Prehistoric Past. 1915: His New Job; A Night Out; The Champion; In the Park; The jitney , Elopement; The Tramp; By the Sea; Work; A Woman; The Bank, Shanghaied; A Night in the Show. 1916: The Burlesque on Carmen,;i Police; The Floorwalker; The Fireman; The j Vagabond; One A.M.; The Count; The Puiwi-J shop; Behind the Screen; The Rink. 1917: Easy Street; The Cure; The Immigrant; Thsl Adventurer. 1918: Triple Trouble; A Dogil Life; The Bund; Shoulder Arms. 1919: Sunny-] .side; A Day's Pleasure. 1920: The Kid; Idle Class. 1922: Pay Day. 1923: The Pilg. A Woman of Paris. 1925: The Gold 1928: The Circus. 1931: City Lights. 19 Modern Times. 1940: The Great Dictate, 1947: Monsieur Verdoux. 1952: Limeligk 1957: A King in Neto Yorfc. 1967; A Cwintes from Hung Kimg