Actor Cliff Robertson passed away this evening. Most younger audiences will instantly recognize him from Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” franchise. A Columbia Pictures scandal in the late-1970s saw him blacklisted for sheer honesty. He won an Oscar over 40 years ago for his work in “Charly.” I’ll always remember him as one of the many faces of “Midway,” one of Dad’s favorites growing up. He will be missed.
Tag: obits
-
So we closed our eyes and said goodbye
I remember the first time I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band vividly. I was late to the party. Springsteen’s music — still one of my earliest childhood memories — had been thrilling fans for decades before I finally saddled up to what is probably the greatest live show in the business (for my money — money I’ve spent six times since, once in London). But I actually took something pretty specific away from that night.The lights dimmed and then it hit: a long, slow, nuanced saxophone build-up to “The River.” It was beautiful. It was haunting. It was emotional, tender and, above all, spiritual. The very same show solidified for me what is still my favorite Springsteen track — “Spirit in the Night,” from his debut album, “Greetings from Asbury Park” — and that can be attributed in a big way to to the frolicking saxophone that dances through the story of that song. And now, the voice, the breath, the man behind that instrument has been taken from us.
-
Tim Hetherington (1970-2011)
This is terribly sad news. Tim Hetherington, the gifted British photojournalist who justly shared a Best Documentary Feature Oscar nomination with Sebastian Junger earlier this year for their joint debut “Restrepo,” has died on the front line in Misrata, Libya, where he was documenting the conflict. Also killed was his colleague, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Chris Hondros.I haven’t adequate words to respond to this. Hetherington, Hondros and his ilk are braver, better men than the rest of us: they risk their lives so that the rest of the world can see what would otherwise be unimaginable. “Restrepo,” which both Kris and I listed as one of 2010’s finest, is a vivid portrayal of combat unprecedented in its sensory immediacy, the result of many months spent embedded in a US Army unit in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.
Hetherington broke his leg on the assignment; would that the injury remained the biggest misfortune of his career. (On the same assignment, he took the now-famous shot posted below, for which he won the World Press Photo of the Year award in 2007.)
-
So, Sidney
I’ve had the whole of Sidney Lumet’s available DVD catalogue lined up, in chronological order, in my Netflix queue as of late. He was always a filmmaker I looked to in my own pursuits in the field as an idol, someone who seemed to stay way above the fray while consistently cranking out engaging, often seminal work. He had his share of turkeys, but he learned from them and he never stopped evolving as a craftsman.I recently revisited the brilliant, unfortunately buried (due to “Dr. Strangelove”) “Fail Safe.” I had my first viewing of “The Hill” not long after, and “The Pawnbroker” should be on the way. “12 Angry Men” and “Network” see frequent rotation on my player, as they are two films that sit comfortably in my personal top 10 of all time.
The legendary titles need no introduction, but who wouldn’t see fit to mention “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Serpico,” “The Verdict” (which screenwriter Travis Beacham shrewdly noted “was ‘Michael Clayton’ before ‘Michael Clayton’” this morning), “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Prince of the City,” “Equus,” “The Anderson Tapes,” and on and on and on?
-
R.I.P. Sidney Lumet
It burns me up that I have to step out for most of the early part of the day right now, because I woke up to the awful news that Sidney Lumet, prolific marcher to his own drum, has left us. It’s an epic loss, I feel. Two of this man’s films have solid spots in my personal top 10 films of all time. I’ll be back later to pen something more in depth, but for now (and forever), the work speaks for itself.
-
Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)
Forgive the recent posting drought — I’m trying to get back on track. I’m also sorry that it’s taken the passing of one of history’s greatest honest-to-God movie stars to get me back on here, but there we have it — whether you first encountered her in “National Velvet” or as the voice of young Maggie Simpson (just please tell me it wasn’t as Pearl Slaghoople in “The Flintstones”), Elizabeth Taylor’s career is one of those that has been so extensively bronzed into legend that revisiting her films first-hand can yield some real surprises.I’d write a full obit here, but allow me some inter-site shortcutting. I was invited by The Guardian to contribute this “Career in Clips” piece, in which I trace her career trajectory through eight defining performances, ranging from deservedly legendary work in the likes of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Who’s Afraid Virginia Woolf?” to less prominent, but no less fascinating, curios like “Secret Ceremony.”
-
Peter Yates (1929-2011)
11 years after his last theatrical feature (and far longer since the last one anyone saw), the passing of British director Peter Yates likely won’t leave much of a dent on contemporary audiences. Not knowingly, anyway — though his innovative visual and editing schemes in the iconic 1968 Steve McQueen thriller “Bullitt” helped change the shape of the prototypical Hollywood action sequence. It was, of course, his quieter work on “The Dresser” and “Breaking Away” that landed him four career Oscar nominations. But since those, along with that car chase from “Bullitt,” are all being amply covered in the obits, I thought I’d spotlight a more neglected pleasure: his frisky 1972 caper “The Hot Rock.”
-
Pete Postlethwaite (1946-2011)
Pete Postlethwaite had one of those faces — weathered, folded, kneaded, endlessly interesting — that demanded to be on camera, even as it denied him any possibility of leading man status.And yet, in the latter half of his career, Postlethwaite, who sadly passed away yesterday after a lengthy battle with cancer, made a convincing case for the character actor as star. Neither his visage nor his gratifyingly alliterative name threatened more than a career as “that guy,” but somehow we got to know him better than that.
The turning point, of course, was a hard-earned and wholly unexpected 1993 Academy Award nomination for “In the Name of the Father” (speaking as we were, recently, of nods that came without any precursor warning), his granite-hard and quietly mournful performance as Maguire Seven convict Giuseppe Conlon joining a gallery of performances I cited last year as one of the finest Oscar fields in history.
-
Goodbye Ronni
I was driving, in between interviews this morning, when I got the tragic news of Ronni Chasen’s random, senseless death. Deadline followed up on an initial Radar Online report and the news spread from there.Ronni was a long-time publicist who worked with just about everyone in town at one point or another. She was a driven, persistent professional, amazing at her job but also a truly sweet person. I considered her a friend, and to know she experienced such a horrific death is nearly too much to bear.
The sad reality is this business, the business she had such a hand in shaping, will take a moment to grieve and then it’ll be taking calls and business as usual. But part of me thinks Ronni, who never slowed down, wouldn’t have it any other way.
-
Jill Clayburgh (1944-2010)
It’s odd to think that younger readers may principally recognize Jill Clayburgh, the New York City-born actress who passed away yesterday after a long battle with leukemia, from her Emmy-nominated role in TV’s “Nip/Tuck” — where she played Bobbi Broderick, a vengeful victim of unsuccessful liposuction, done in the hope of securing a job ahead of younger, thinner rivals.It was a sharp, upsetting performance, all the more haunting because it was easy to imagine Bobbi as the soured middle-aged self of Erica Benton, the unaffected, sexually liberated divorcée she played, to career-making effect, in Paul Mazursky’s 1978 romantic dramedy “An Unmarried Woman.”
The film is rarely spoken of today, but Clayburgh’s immense performance, balancing sweetly goofy comedy with stabs of untempered pain and anger, was something of a feminist touchstone for the depiction of “real” women in American cinema — she won Best Actress at Cannes for her efforts, and was nominated for an Oscar that unwisely went to Jane Fonda instead.
-
R.I.P. George Hickenlooper
I was at dinner tonight when I saw the news of George Hickenlooper’s untimely passing via Twitter, and my jaw dropped. “Natural causes” at 47 is just difficult to process.He was in Denver campaigning for his brother, John, the city’s mayor and candidate for Governor. He was just in Austin promoting his latest film, “Casino Jack.” He was in good spirits and ready to push through the circuit and now, he’s gone. What can you say? (Moisés Chiullan remembers his friend here.)
I met Hickenlooper once, when a mutual director friend invited us to an early private screening of a film. And I’ve followed his always thoughtful discussions on this or that blog. He was a good guy and he’ll be missed. I’ll be popping in my recently purchased “Apocalypse Now” Blu-ray as soon as I get back to Los Angeles to give “Hearts of Darkness” (which I haven’t seen since film school) another look. Seems right.
[Photo: IMDb]
-
Tony Curtis (1925-2010)
This has been such a grim week for losing major industry talents — Gloria Stuart, Sally Menke, Arthur Penn and now Tony Curtis — that I’m almost loath to mention it, lest fate be tempted. But the passing of Curtis can hardly go without at least brief notice: for many, he’ll always come to mind first in the guise of his gleeful Cary Grant send-up from “Some Like It Hot,” but he was also one of the tartest and most evasive leading men of his generation, balancing rote beefcake duty with broad comedy and excitingly off-kilter choices like “The Boston Strangler” and “Sweet Smell of Success.”
-
Arthur Penn (1922-2010)
I had a bad feeling that after Gloria Stuart and Sally Menke we were bound to get a third (as it always happens), and so we have. Arthur Penn has passed away a day after his 88th birthday. He’s obviously best known for helming 1968’s “Bonnie and Clyde,” which changed the face of American cinema at a time captured brilliantly in Mark Harris’s “Pictures at a Revolution,” but there were other gems along the way like “Mickey One,” “Little Big Man” and “The Missouri Breaks.” Not to mention trailblazing work on the small screen (specifically during the 1960 presidential debates) and on the stage. He will be missed.
After the break, John F. Kennedy’s closing statements from the October 21, 1960 presidential debate, which Penn directed.
-
Bye Sally
This is just the most awful news to wake up to. Truly tragic, a blow right from left field.Film editor Sally Menke, long-time friend and collaborator with Quentin Tarantino who helped craft his films into some of the most memorable pieces of cinema ever, has passed away today at the far-too-young age of 56. Menke was hiking yesterday in Griffith Park. Her body was found around 2:15 am this morning and though a cause of death has not been confirmed, it appears yesterday’s record-breaking heat wave (temperatures got up to 113 degrees in downtown) could be the culprit.
This is just terrible, but (and again, the heat isn’t a confirmed factor yet), it raises a truly serious issue. Take care of yourself in this kind of weather. A talented contributor to the art form that makes everyone reading these words tick is gone and for what?
-
A note on Chabrol
I wouldn’t even know where to start writing an obituary for Claude Chabrol, the French nouvelle vague master who passed away yesterday at the age of 80. His filmography is so vast — spanning 52 years and 54 features, many of which I have yet to see — and his influence so extensive that formal tributes are best left to those more learned than I.Still, that’s not to say he hasn’t made a number of films that mean something to me, chief among them 1970’s “Le Boucher,” a character-study-as-thriller so perfectly and precisely formed it hurts a little to watch it. It was my first Chabrol, and indeed one of my first forays into the French arthouse canon, introduced to me in childhood by my dad — who counts it among his favorite films.
I’ve inherited his affection: the film’s simple set-up — shy young schoolteacher strikes up a friendship with a lonely village butcher who may or may not be a killer — is an undercoat for a deeply compassionate study of emotional repression and moral judgment, with a for-the-ages lead turn by his then-wife Stéphane Audran.