Husbands is a 1970 film written and directed by John Cassavetes. This ensemble film, which describes three middle class men in the throes of a midlife crisis, stars Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and Cassavetes.

The film, in cinéma vérité style, was described by Time magazine as Cassevetes' finest work while condemned by other prominent critics.^[1][2][3] It consisted largely of lengthy improvisations by the cast, and provides what one recent critic described as a "devastatingly bleak view of the emptiness of suburban life."^[4]

Plot summary[link]

Gus, Harry, and Archie (Cassavetes, Gazzara and Falk, respectively) are three husbands with families in suburban New York. All are professional men. As the film begins, they are shaken when their best friend Stuart suddenly dies of a heart attack.

They have difficulty coping with the death, and spend two days hanging out, playing basketball, sleeping in the subways, and drinking, including one lengthy scene at a bar in which they have an impromptu singing contest. Harry goes home, has a vicious argument with his wife, and decides to fly to London. The other two decide to go with him.

They check into an expensive hotel, dress in formal clothing, and meet three young women at a gambling casino. They go back to their rooms with the women. Gus pairs off with Mary Tynan (Jenny Runacre), Archie with Julie (Noelle Kao), a young Asian woman who seems not to speak English, and Harry with Pearl Billingham (Jenny Lee Wright). However, their efforts to hook up with these women are awkward and unsuccessful.

Gus and Archie decide to go back to New York, but Harry stays behind. As the film ends, Gus and Archie express concern about Harry and what he will do without them.

Cast notes[link]

Cassavetes wrote the dialogue after improvising with Falk and Gazzara, and built the characters around the personalities of the actors.^[5]

Falk and Gazzara appeared in subsequent Cassavetes films, with Gazzara appearing in Opening Night (1977) and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), and Falk appearing in A Woman Under the Influence (1974).

In his 2006 memoir, Just One More Thing, Falk said that he was asked by Cassavetes to appear in Husbands at a lunch meeting at which Cassavetes agreed to appear with Falk in the Elaine May film Mikey and Nicky.^[6]

Falk said that he and Gazzara contributed to the Husbands script, but that the story, structure and scenes were devised by Cassavetes. Falk suggested the scene at the end of the movie where Archie and Gus arrive home and divide up the gifts. A scene between Archie and Julie was improvised in a hotel room, with Cassavetes at the camera and no other crew present.^[6]

Production notes[link]

This section requires expansion.

Cassavetes needed to cut an hour and a half from the film in order to shorten it to its contractual requirement of 140 minutes. Columbia cut another eleven minutes in response to negative reviews, which was restored upon DVD release in August 2009. The remaining 85 minutes remains lost.^[5]

Critical reception[link]

The film received dramatically disparate receptions, with some prominent critics loving the film and others hating it. Life magazine put Cassavetes and the two other Husbands stars on its cover, and Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel put the film on his list of top ten films of the year.^[7]

Critic Jay Cocks said in Time magazine that "Husbands may be one of the best movies anyone will ever see. It is certainly the best movie anyone will ever live through." He described it as an important and great film, and as Cassavetes' finest work.^[1] Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert said that "seldom has Time given a better review to a worse movie."^[8]

New Yorker critic Pauline Kael described Husbands as "infantile and offensive."^[2]

Writing in The New York Times, Vincent Canby said the film, like Faces, which was "rambling and funny and accurate, and which I admired, the new film demonstrates a concern for panicky, inarticulate squares that is so unpatronizing that it comes close to being reverential in a solemnly religious sense." But Canby said the film was "unbearably long," and said, "It's as if someone decided to photograph a tug-of-war and photographed only the rope between the contestants." He said of the three characters that "when it's all over, they are tired, but not much wiser—which is pretty much the sum and substance of Husbands."^[3]

Ebert's review said that Husbands "is disappointing in the way Antonioni's Zabriskie Point was. It shows an important director not merely failing, but not even understanding why." Ebert found the actors' improvisations unsuccessful: "There are long passages of dialogue in which the actors seem to be trying to think of something to say."^[8] A Cleveland Press critic said that "the dialog consists of fragments, of exclamations, of three actors trying to upstage each other. What has been done is undisciplined and what has been given us is unselective. The camera runs and simply photographs everything that passes before it. The microphone listens. It is like a big budget home movie."^[9]

More recent critics have accepted the film's shortcomings while finding deeper meaning in it. Writing in 2007, critic John Sutherland of The Guardian said that "Sigmund Freud himself could not have done the job more efficiently. It's a film that — like much of Cassavetes' work — is excessively boring, hard to follow, and extraordinarily illuminating about masculinity and its incorrigible delusions."^[10]

Reviewing a DVD release of the film in August 2009, Richard Brody of the New Yorker said that "this formally radical, deeply personal work still packs plenty of surprises."^[5]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Husbands at the Internet Movie Database
• Husbands at AllRovi
• Husbands at Rotten Tomatoes
• Excerpt of Ray Carney on Husbands

Dick Cavett
Cavett in April 2010
Birth name	Richard Alva Cavett
Born	(1936-11-19) November 19, 1936 (age 75) Gibbon, Nebraska, U.S.
Years active	1959–present
Spouse	Carrie Nye (1964-2006; her death) Martha Rogers (m. 2010) «start: (2010)»"Marriage: Martha Rogers to Dick Cavett" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Dick_Cavett)
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Variety Series - Talk 1972 The Dick Cavett Show Special Classification of Outstanding Program and Individual Achievement 1974 The Dick Cavett Show

Richard Alva Cavett (English pronunciation: /ˈkævɨt/; born November 19, 1936) — known as Dick Cavett — is a former American television talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of issues. Cavett appeared regularly on nationally broadcast television in the United States in five consecutive decades, the 1960s through the 2000s.

In recent years, Cavett has written a blog for the New York Times, promoted DVDs of his former shows, and hosted replays of his classic TV interviews with Groucho Marx, Katharine Hepburn, and others on Turner Classic Movies channel.^[1][2]

Early life[link]

Cavett was born in Nebraska,^[3] but sources differ as to the specific town, locating his birthplace in either Gibbon,^[4][5] where his family lived, or nearby Kearney, the location of the nearest hospital.^[6][7] His mother Erabel "Era" (née Richards) and his father Alva B. Cavett both worked as educators.^[8] When asked by Lucille Ball on his own show about his heritage, he said he was "Scottish, Irish, English, and possibly partly French, and, and uh, a dose of German." He also mentioned that one grandfather "came over" from England, and the other from Wales.^[9] Cavett's grandparents all lived in Grand Island, Nebraska. His paternal grandparents were Alva A. Cavett and Gertrude Pinsch.^[10] His paternal grandfather was from Diller, Nebraska and his paternal grandmother was an immigrant from Aachen, Germany.^{[citation needed]} His maternal grandparents were the Rev. R. R. and Etta Mae Richards. Rev. Richards was from Carmarthen, Wales and was a Baptist minister who served parishes across central Nebraska.^{[citation needed]}

Cavett's parents taught in Comstock, Gibbon, and Grand Island,^[11] where Cavett started kindergarten at Wasmer Elementary School. Three years later, both of his parents landed teaching positions in Lincoln, Nebraska, where Cavett completed his education at Capitol, Prescott, and Irving schools and Lincoln High School. When Cavett was ten, his mother died of cancer at age 36. His father subsequently married Dorcas Deland, also an educator, originally from Alliance, Nebraska. On September 24, 1995 Lincoln Public Schools dedicated the new Dorcas C. and Alva B. Cavett Elementary School in their honor.^[12][13]

In eighth grade, Cavett directed a live Saturday-morning radio show sponsored by the Junior League and played the title role in The Winslow Boy. One of his high-school classmates was actress Sandy Dennis. Cavett was elected state president of the student council in high school, and was a gold-medalist at the state gymnastics championship.^[14][15]

Before leaving for college, he worked as a caddy at the Lincoln Country Club. He also began performing magic shows for $35 a night under the tutelage of Gene Gloye. In 1952 Cavett attended the convention of the International Brotherhood of Magicians in St. Louis and won the Best New Performer trophy.^[15] Around the same time, he met fellow magician Johnny Carson, eleven years his senior, who was doing a magic act at a church in Lincoln.^[16]

While attending Yale University, Cavett played in and directed dramas on the campus radio station, WYBC, and appeared in Yale Drama productions.^[17] In his senior year, he changed his major from English to Drama. He also took advantage of any opportunity to meet stars, routinely going to shows in New York to hang around stage doors or venture backstage. He would go so far as to carry a copy of Variety or an appropriate piece of company stationery in order to look inconspicuous while sneaking backstage or into a TV studio.^[18] Cavett took many odd jobs ranging from store detective to label-typist for a Wall Street firm, and as a copy boy at Time Magazine.^[19]

Marriage[link]

At Yale School of Drama, Cavett met his future wife, Caroline Nye McGeoy (known professionally as Carrie Nye), a native of Greenwood, Mississippi. After graduation, the two acted in summer theater in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and Cavett worked for two weeks in a local lumberyard in order to buy an engagement ring. On June 4, 1964, they were married in New York. Their marriage was at times tumultuous, but they remained married until Nye's death on July 14, 2006.

In 2010, Cavett married business author Martha Rogers, Ph.D. in a small ceremony in New Orleans, Louisiana.^[20]

[edit] The Tonight Show

In 1960, Cavett was living in a three-room, fifth-floor walk-up on West 89th Street in Manhattan for $51 a month.

He was cast in a film by the Signal Corps, but further jobs were not forthcoming. He was an extra on The Phil Silvers Show, a TV remake of Body and Soul, and Playhouse 90 ("The Hiding Place"). He briefly revived his magic act while working as a typist and as a mystery shopper in department stores. Meanwhile, Nye landed several Broadway roles.

Cavett was a copyboy (gofer) at Time^[21] when he read a newspaper item about Jack Paar, then host of The Tonight Show. The article described Paar's concerns about his opening monologue and constant search for material. Cavett wrote some jokes, put them into a Time envelope, and went to the RCA Building. He ran into Paar in a hallway and handed him the envelope.^[21] He then went to sit in the studio audience. During the show, Paar worked in some of the lines Cavett had fed him.^[21] Afterward, Cavett got into an elevator with Paar, who invited him to contribute more jokes. Within weeks, Cavett was hired, originally as talent coordinator. Cavett wrote for Paar the famous line, "Here they are, Jayne Mansfield," as an introduction for the buxom actress.^[22] Cavett appeared on the show in 1961, interpreting Miss Universe of 1961, Marlene Schmidt of Germany.

While at Time, Cavett wrote a letter to Stan Laurel. The two later met at Laurel's apartment in Hollywood. Later the same day, Cavett wrote a tribute that Paar read on the show, which Laurel saw and appreciated. Cavett visited Laurel a few more times, up to three weeks before Laurel's death.

Cavett with Jack Paar in 1973

In his capacity as talent coordinator for The Tonight Show, Cavett was sent to the Blue Angel nightclub to see Woody Allen's act, and immediately afterward struck up a friendship. The very next day, the funeral of playwright George S. Kaufman was held at the Frank E. Campbell funeral home. Allen could not attend, but Cavett did, where he met Groucho Marx in an anteroom. From the funeral, Cavett followed Marx (who later told Cavett that Kaufman was "his personal god") three blocks up Fifth Avenue to the Plaza Hotel, where Marx invited him to lunch.^[21] Years later, Cavett gave the introduction to Marx's one-man show, An Evening with Groucho Marx at Carnegie Hall, and began by saying, "I can't believe that I know Groucho Marx."^[23][24]

Cavett continued with The Tonight Show as a writer after Johnny Carson assumed hosting duties. For Carson he wrote the line, "Having your taste criticized by Dorothy Kilgallen is like having your clothes criticized by Emmett Kelly." He even appeared to do a gymnastics routine on the pommel horse on the show. After departing The Tonight Show, Cavett wrote for Jerry Lewis's ill-fated talk show, for three times the money. He returned to The Tonight Show, however, when Marx was interim host for Carson in July 1964.

Years later, when he was a guest on The Tonight Show, Carson told Cavett that his favorite joke Cavett wrote for him was the humorous caption to a newspaper photo of Aristotle Onassis looking at the home of Buster Keaton, which he was considering purchasing: "Aristotle Contemplating the Home of Buster."^{[citation needed]}

Stand-up comic[link]

Cavett began a brief career as a stand-up comic in 1964 at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village.^[25] His manager was Jack Rollins, who later became famous as the producer of Woody Allen's films.

His most famous line from this period may have been the following:

I went to a Chinese-German restaurant. The food is great, but an hour later you're hungry for power.^[21][22][25]

He also played Mr. Kelly's in Chicago and the Hungry i in San Francisco. In San Francisco, he met Lenny Bruce, about whom he said:

I liked him and wish I had known him better...but most of what has been written about him is a waste of good ink, and his most zealous adherents and hardest-core devotees are to be avoided, even if it means working your way around the world in the hold of a goat transport.^[26]

In 1965, Cavett did some commercial voiceovers, including a series of mock interviews with Mel Brooks for Ballantine beer.^[27] In the next couple of years he appeared on game shows, including What's My Line. He wrote for Merv Griffin and appeared on Griffin's talk show several times, and then on The Ed Sullivan Show.

In 1968, after the premiere of the international film Candy, Cavett went to a party at the Americana Hotel, where those who had just seen the film were being interviewed for TV.

When the interviewer, Pat Paulsen, got to me, he asked what I thought the critics would say about Candy. I said I didn't think it would be reviewed by the regular critics, that they would have to reconvene the Nuremberg Trials to do it justice. He laughed and asked what I had liked, and I said I liked the lady who showed me the nearest exit so that I would not be forced to vomit indoors.

After doing The Star and the Story, a rejected television pilot with Van Johnson, Cavett hosted a special, Where It's At, for Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear.^[28]

In 1968 Cavett was hired by ABC to host This Morning.^[25][29] According to a New Yorker article, the show was too sophisticated for a morning audience,^[25] and ABC first moved the show to prime time, and subsequently to a late-night slot opposite Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show.^[25][30]

[edit] The Dick Cavett Show

Cavett attends the Amfar Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City, January 31, 2008

Intermittently since 1968, Cavett has been host of his own talk show, in various formats and on various television and radio networks:

• ABC (1968–1974)
• CBS (1975)
• PBS (1977–1982)
• USA (1985–1986)
• ABC (1986–1987)
• CNBC (1989–1996)
• Olympia Broadcasting (syndicated radio show, 1986–1990)
• Turner Classic Movies (2006–2007)

Cavett has been nominated for at least ten Emmy Awards and has won three. In 1970, he co-hosted the Emmy Awards Show (from Carnegie Hall in New York) with Bill Cosby (from Century Plaza in Los Angeles).^[31] His most popular talk show was his ABC program, which ran from 1969 to 1974. From 1962 to 1992, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was arguably the most popular of late night variety and talk shows. Unlike many contemporary shows, Cavett managed to remain on the air for five years.^[32] Although his shows did not attract a wide audience, remaining in third place in the ratings behind Carson and Merv Griffin, he earned a reputation as "the thinking man's talk show host" and received favorable reviews from critics.^[1][29] As a talk show host, Cavett has been noted for his ability to listen to his guests and engage them in intellectual conversation.^[14][21] Clive James described Cavett "as a true sophisticate with a daunting intellectual range" and "the most distinguished talk-show host in America."^[14] He is also known for his ability to remain calm and mediate between contentious guests,^[21] and for his deep, resonant voice, unusual for a man of his stature (5'7").^[14][30][33]

His show often focussed on controversial people or subjects, often pairing guests with opposing views on social or political issues, such as Jim Brown and Lester Maddox.^[30]

One particularly controversial show from June 1971 featured a debate between future senator and presidential candidate John Kerry and fellow veteran John O'Neill over the Vietnam War.^[34] O'Neill had been approached by the Nixon administration to work through the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace to counter Kerry's influence on the public.^[35][36] The debate went poorly for the pro-war side, so angering President Nixon that he is heard discussing the incident on the Watergate tapes, saying, "Well, is there any way we can screw him [Cavett]? That's what I mean. There must be ways." To which H. R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff, answered, "We've been trying to."^[37][38]

Cavett himself, asked during a Question and Answer segment with his audience in the late '60s why he wore long sideburns, replied, "It's a form of mild protest. Sort of like boiling my draft card."^{[citation needed]}

Cavett also hosted many popular musicians, both in interview and performance, such as Sly Stone,^[39] Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.^[40] Several of his Emmy Award nominations and one Emmy Award were for Outstanding Musical or Variety Series, and in 2005 Shout Factory released a selection of performances and interviews on a three DVD set, The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons, showcasing interviews of and performances by musicians who appeared on the Dick Cavett show from 1969 to 1974.^[41][42]

Clips from his TV shows have been used in films, for example Annie Hall (1977), Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), and Frequency (2000). He also holds the distinction of being the only famous person to actually interact with the title character of Forrest Gump without the aid of archive footage or computer trickery. Cavett donned a wig and makeup was applied to make him appear as his 1971 self, and he was filmed with Tom Hanks on a recreated set (though archive footage of John Lennon from Cavett's show was digitally added).^{[citation needed]}

Cavett was surprised at footage from his TV show appearing in Apollo 13. He said at the time of the film's release, "I'm happily enjoying a movie, and suddenly I'm in it."^[43]

Bouts with depression[link]

Cavett has openly discussed his bouts with clinical depression, an illness that first affected him during his freshman year at Yale.^[44] According to an interview published in a 1992 issue of People magazine, Cavett contacted Dr. Nathan Kline in 1975 seeking treatment. Kline prescribed antidepressant medication, which according to Cavett was successful in treating his depression.^[45]

In 1980 Cavett suffered what he characterized as his "biggest depressive episode." While on board a Concorde prior to take off, Cavett broke out into a sweat and became agitated. After he was removed from the plane, Cavett was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, where he later underwent electroconvulsive therapy. Regarding this method of treatment Cavett is quoted as saying, "In my case, ECT was miraculous. My wife was dubious, but when she came into my room afterward, I sat up and said, 'Look who's back among the living.' It was like a magic wand."^[45]

He was also the subject of a 1993 video produced by the Depression and Related Affective Disorders Association called A Patient's Perspective.^[46]

In 1997 Cavett was sued by producer James Moskovitz for breach of contract after failing to show up for a nationally syndicated radio program (also called The Dick Cavett Show).^[47][48] Cavett's lawyer, Melvyn Leventhal, asserted at the time that Cavett left due to a manic-depressive episode.^[47] The case was later dropped.^[46]

Other work[link]

Cavett has co-authored two books with Christopher Porterfield: Cavett (1974), his autobiography, and Eye on Cavett (1983). Cavett currently writes a blog, published by the New York Times, entitled "Talk Show: Dick Cavett Speaks Again."

He appeared as himself in various other TV shows, including episodes of The Odd Couple, Cheers, Kate & Allie, and The Simpsons episode Homie the Clown; in Robert Altman's HealtH (1980), and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). In Tim Burton's Beetlejuice, he played a rare bit part as a character other than himself. Cavett often appeared on television quiz and game shows; he appeared on What's My Line?, To Tell the Truth, Password, The $25,000 Pyramid and made a special appearance on Wheel of Fortune in 1989 during their week of shows at Radio City Music Hall, walking on stage after someone solved the puzzle "DICK CAVETT." In 1974, Cavett's company, Daphne Productions, co-produced with Don Lipp Productions a short-lived ABC game show, The Money Maze, although Cavett's name did not appear on the credits.^{[citation needed]}

Cavett was the narrator (on camera and off) for the HBO documentary series Time Was. Each episode covered a decade, ranging from the 1920s to the 1970s, and relied on stock file footage and photographs. The show originally aired in November 1979 and ran for six months with a new show each month.^[49]

Cavett also hosted a documentary series for HBO in the early '80s titled Remember When... that examined changes in American culture over time.

In April, 1981, Cavett traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, to interview the pop group ABBA on the occasion of their tenth anniversary as a group. The special, titled Dick Cavett Meets ABBA, was taped by the Swedish TV network SVT and was broadcast mostly in Europe.

From November 15, 2000, to January 6, 2002, he played the narrator in a Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Show.^[21] He also had a brief stint as the narrator/old man in the Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's Into The Woods.^[50]

Dick Cavett is featured in the 2003 documentary From the Ashes: The Life and Times of Tick Hall about the fire that destroyed his Montauk home and his effort to rebuild it.^[51]

Cavett's signature tune has long been a trumpet version of the vocalise "Glitter and Be Gay" from Leonard Bernstein's Candide. The tune was first played at the midpoint of his ABC late-night show, and later became the theme of his PBS show. The tune is also played as he walks on stage during guest appearances on other talk shows.^[21]

Cavett was present when actor Marlon Brando broke the jaw of paparazzo photographer Ron Galella on June 12, 1973. Galella had followed Cavett and Brando to a restaurant after the taping of The Dick Cavett Show in New York City.^[52]

In 2008 Cavett entered the Iraq war dispute with a New York Times blog entry criticizing General David Petraeus, stating "I can’t look at Petraeus — his uniform ornamented like a Christmas tree with honors, medals and ribbons — without thinking of the great Mort Sahl at the peak of his brilliance." Cavett went on to recall Sahl's expressed contempt of General Westmoreland's display of medals, and criticized Petraeus for not speaking in plain language.^[53]

Bibliography[link]

• Cavett by Dick Cavett and Christopher Porterfield, Bantam Books, August 1974. ISBN 0-15-116130-5
• Eye on Cavett by Dick Cavett and Christopher Porterfield, Arbor House, 1983. ISBN 0-87795-463-1
• Talk Show by Dick Cavett, Times Books, 2010. ISBN 0-8050-9195-5

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dick Cavett

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Dick Cavett

• Dick Cavett at the Internet Movie Database
• Dick Cavett at the Internet Broadway Database
• An interview with Dick Cavett, Feb 2011
• Dick Cavett at TVGuide.com
• Dick Cavett talks about his love of magic with Dodd Vickers at MagicNewswire.com
• "Talk Show: Dick Cavett Speaks Again" New York Times Blog
• "Discussion of Dick Cavett's unique talent on MetaFilter"

Peter Falk
As Columbo, circa 1976
Born	Peter Michael Falk (1927-09-16)September 16, 1927 New York City, US
Died	June 23, 2011(2011-06-23) (aged 83) Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Pneumonia
Nationality	American
Education	Ossining High School
Alma mater	Hamilton College
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1956–2008
Spouse	Alyce Mayo (m. 1960–1976; divorced) Shera Danese (m. 1977–2011; his death)
Children	2 daughters
Website
PeterFalk.com

Peter Michael Falk (September 16, 1927 – June 23, 2011) was an American actor, best known for his role as Lt. Frank Columbo in the television series Columbo. He appeared in numerous films such as The Princess Bride, The Great Race and Next, and television guest roles. He was nominated for an Academy Award twice (for 1960's Murder, Inc. and 1961's Pocketful of Miracles), and won the Emmy Award on five occasions (four for Columbo) and the Golden Globe award once. Director William Friedkin, when discussing Falk's role in his 1978 film The Brink's Job, said that "Peter has a great range from comedy to drama. He could break your heart or he could make you laugh."^[1]

In 1968, he starred with Gene Barry in a ninety-minute television pilot about a highly-skilled, laid-back detective. Columbo eventually became part of an anthology series titled The NBC Mystery Movie, along with McCloud and McMillan & Wife. The detective series stayed on NBC from 1971 to 1978, took a respite, and returned occasionally on ABC from 1989 to 2003. Falk was "everyone's favorite rumpled television detective", wrote historian David Fantle.^[2]

In 1996 TV Guide ranked him number 21 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.^[3]

Early life[link]

Born in New York City, Falk was the son of Michael Peter Falk, owner of a clothing and dry goods store, and his wife, Madeline (née Hochhauser),^[4] an accountant and buyer.^[5] His family was Jewish;^[6] his father was of Russian ancestry^[7] and his mother was of Bohemian descent.^[8][9]

Falk's right eye was surgically removed when he was three because of a retinoblastoma; he wore a glass eye for most of his life.^[10] Despite this, Falk participated in team sports, mainly baseball and basketball, as a boy. In a 1997 interview in Cigar Aficionado magazine with Arthur Marx, Falk said, "I remember once in high school the umpire called me out at third base when I was sure I was safe. I got so mad I took out my glass eye, handed it to him and said, 'Try this.' I got such a laugh you wouldn't believe."^[11]

Falk's first stage appearance was at the age of 12 in The Pirates of Penzance at Camp High Point^[12] in upstate New York, where one of his camp counselors was Ross Martin (they would later act together in The Great Race and the Columbo episode "Suitable For Framing"). Falk attended Ossining High School in Westchester County, New York, where he was a star athlete and president of his senior class. After graduating from high school in 1945, Falk briefly attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and then tried to join the armed services as World War II was drawing to a close. Rejected because of his glass eye, he joined the United States Merchant Marine, and served as a cook and mess boy. "There they don't care if you're blind or not", Falk said in 1997. "The only one on a ship who has to see is the captain. And in the case of the Titanic, he couldn't see very well, either."^[11] Falk recalls this period in his autobiography:

"A year on the water was enough for me, so I returned to college. I didn't stay long. Too itchy. What to do next? I signed up to go to Israel to fight in the war with Egypt. ... I just wanted more excitement ... However, the war, to everyone's amazement, was over in the blink of an eye."^[13]

After a year and a half in the Merchant Marine, Falk returned to Hamilton College and also attended the University of Wisconsin. He transferred to the New School for Social Research in New York City, which awarded him a bachelor's degree in literature and political science in 1951. He then traveled in Europe and worked on a railroad in Yugoslavia for six months.^[14] He returned to New York, enrolling at Syracuse University,^[11] but he recalled in his 2006 memoir, Just One More Thing, that he was unsure what he wanted to do with his life for years after leaving high school.^[15]

Falk obtained a Master of Public Administration degree at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University in 1953. The program was designed to train civil servants for the federal government, a career that Falk said in his memoir that he had "no interest in and no aptitude for."^[16] He applied for a job with the CIA, but was rejected because of his membership in the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union while serving in the Merchant Marine, even though he was required to join and was not active in the union.^[17] He then became a management analyst with the Connecticut State Budget Bureau in Hartford.^[18] Falk characterized his Hartford job as "efficiency expert". "I was such an efficiency expert that the first morning on the job, I couldn't find the building where I was to report for work", he said in 1997. "Naturally, I was late, which I always was in those days, but ironically it was my tendency never to be on time that got me started as a professional actor."^[11]

Career[link]

Stage career[link]

While working in Hartford, Falk joined a community theater group called the Mark Twain Masquers, where he performed in plays that included The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, The Crucible, and The Country Girl by Clifford Odets. Falk also studied with Eva Le Gallienne, who was giving an acting class at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut. Falk later recalled that he had "lied his way" into the class, which was for professional actors. He drove down to Westport from Hartford every Wednesday, when the classes were held, and was usually late.^[11]

In his 1997 interview with Arthur Marx in Cigar Aficionado magazine, Falk said "One evening when I arrived late, she looked at me and asked, 'Young man, why are you always late?' and I said, 'I have to drive down from Hartford.'" She looked down her nose and said, "What do you do in Hartford? There's no theater there. How do you make a living acting?" Falk confessed he wasn't a professional actor. According to Falk, she looked at him sternly and said, "Well, you should be." He drove back to Hartford and quit his job.^[11]

Falk stayed with the Le Gallienne group for a few months more, and obtained a letter of recommendation from Le Galliene to an agent at the William Morris Agency in New York.^[11] In 1956, he left his job with the Budget Bureau and moved to Greenwich Village to pursue an acting career.

His first New York stage role was in an Off-Broadway production of Molière's Dom Juan at the Fourth Street Theatre that closed after its only performance on January 3, 1956. Falk played the second lead, Sganarelle.^[19] His next theater role proved far better for his career. In May, he appeared at Circle in the Square in a revival of The Iceman Cometh with Jason Robards playing the bartender.^[18][20]

Falk made his Broadway debut also in 1956, appearing in Alexander Ostrovsky's Diary of a Scoundrel. As the year came to an end, he appeared again on Broadway as an English soldier in Shaw's Saint Joan, with Siobhán McKenna.^[21] In 1972, he appeared in Broadway's The Prisoner of Second Avenue. According to film historian Ephraim Katz, "His characters derive added authenticity from his squinty gaze, the result of the loss of an eye ..."^[22]

Early films[link]

Despite his stage success, a theatrical agent advised Falk not to expect much film acting work because of his glass eye.^[18] He failed a screen test at Columbia Pictures and was told by studio boss Harry Cohn that "for the same price I can get an actor with two eyes." He also failed to get a role in the film Marjorie Morningstar, despite a promising interview for the second lead.^[23] His first film performances were in small roles in Wind Across the Everglades (1958), The Bloody Brood (1959) and Pretty Boy Floyd (1960).^[24]

Falk's performance in Murder, Inc. (1960) was a turning point in his career. He was cast in the supporting role of killer Abe Reles, in a film based on the real-life murder gang of that name, that had terrorized New York in the 1930s. The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther, while dismissing the movie as "an average gangster film", singled out Falk's "amusingly vicious performance."^[25]

Crowther wrote:^[25]

Mr. Falk, moving as if weary, looking at people out of the corners of his eyes and talking as if he had borrowed Marlon Brando's chewing gum, seems a travesty of a killer, until the water suddenly freezes in his eyes and he whips an icepick from his pocket and starts punching holes in someone's ribs. Then viciousness pours out of him and you get a sense of a felon who is hopelessly cracked and corrupt.

The film turned out to be Falk's breakout role. In his autobiography, Just One More Thing (2006), Falk said that his selection for the film from thousands of other Off-Broadway actors was a "miracle" that "made my career" and that without it, he would not have gotten the other significant movie roles that he later played.^[26] Falk, who played Reles again in the 1960 TV series The Witness,^[24] was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his performance in the film.

In 1961, multiple Academy Award-winning director Frank Capra cast Falk in the comedy Pocketful of Miracles. The film was Capra's last feature, and although it was not the commercial success he hoped it would be, he "gushed about Falk's performance."^[2] Falk was nominated for an Oscar for his role. In his autobiography Capra writes about Falk:

The entire production was agony ... except for Peter Falk. He was my joy, my anchor to reality. Introducing that remarkable talent to the techniques of comedy made me forget pains, tired blood, and maniacal hankerings to murder Glenn Ford (the film's star). Thank you Peter Falk."^[27]:480

For his part, Falk says that he "never worked with a director who showed greater enjoyment of actors and the acting craft." Falk says, "There is nothing more important to an actor than to know that the one person who represents the audience to you, the director, is responding well to what you are trying to do." Falk recalled one time that Capra reshot a scene even though he yelled "Cut and Print", indicating the scene was finalized. When Falk asked him why he wanted it reshot, "he laughed and said that he loved the scene so much he just wanted to see us do it again. How's that for support!"^[2]

For the remainder of the 1960s, Falk had mainly small movie roles and TV guest-starring appearances. Falk turned in a gem of a performance as one of two cabbies who falls victim to greed in the epic 1963 star-studded comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, even though he appears only in the last fifth of the movie. Other roles included a comical crook in the 1964 Rat Pack film, Robin and the 7 Hoods, and the 1965 spoof The Great Race, with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis.

Early television roles[link]

in Decoy (1959)

Falk first appeared on television in 1957, in the dramatic anthology programs that later became known as the "Golden Age of Television." He appeared in one episode of Robert Montgomery Presents in 1957, and also appeared in Studio One, Kraft Television Theater, New York Confidential, Naked City, Have Gun–Will Travel and Decoy.^[24] On The Twilight Zone he portrayed a Castro-type revolutionary complete with beard who was drunk with power and kept seeing his assassins in a newly acquired mirror.

In 1961, Falk was nominated for an Emmy Award^[28] for his performance in the episode "Cold Turkey" of James Whitmore's short-lived series The Law and Mr. Jones on ABC. On September 29, 1961, Falk and Walter Matthau guest-starred in the premiere episode, "The Million Dollar Dump," of ABC's crime drama Target: The Corruptors!, with Stephen McNally. He won an Emmy for The Price of Tomatoes, a Dick Powell TV drama in 1962.^[24]

Falk's first television series was in the title role of the drama The Trials of O'Brien, in which he played a lawyer. The show ran in 1965 and 1966 and was cancelled after 22 episodes.^[24]

In 1971, Pierre Cossette produced the first Grammy Awards show on television with some help from Falk. Cossette writes in his autobiography, "What meant the most to me, though, is the fact that Peter Falk saved my ass. I love show business, and I love Peter Falk."^[29]

[edit] Columbo

Although Falk appeared in numerous other television roles in the 1960s and 1970s, he is best known as the star of the TV series Columbo, "everyone's favorite rumpled television detective", writes historian David Fantle. His character was a shabby and ostensibly absent-minded police detective lieutenant, who had first appeared in the 1968 film Prescription: Murder. Falk described his role to Fantle:

Columbo has a genuine mistiness about him. It seems to hang in the air ... [and] he's capable of being distracted ... Columbo is an ass-backwards Sherlock Holmes. Holmes had a long neck, Columbo has no neck; Holmes smoked a pipe, Columbo chews up six cigars a day."^[2]

Television critic Ben Falk adds that Falk "created an iconic cop ... who always got his man (or woman) after a tortuous cat-and-mouse investigation." He notes also that the idea for the character was "apparently inspired by Dostoyevsky's dogged police inspector, Porfiry Petrovich, in the novel Crime and Punishment.^[30]

Falk tries to analyze the character and notes the correlation between his own personality and Columbo's:

I'm a Virgo Jew, and that means I have an obsessive thoroughness. It's not enough to get most of the details, it's necessary to get them all. I've been accused of perfectionism. When Lew Wasserman (head of Universal Studios) said that Falk is a perfectionist, I don't know whether it was out of affection or because he felt I was a monumental pain in the ass."^[2]

With "general amazement", Falk notes that "the show is all over the world". He added, "I've been to little villages in Africa with maybe one TV set, and little kids will run up to me shouting, 'Columbo, Columbo!'"^[2] Singer Johnny Cash recalled acting in one episode, and although he was not an experienced actor, he writes in his autobiography, "Peter Falk was good to me. I wasn't at all confident about handling a dramatic role, and every day he helped me in all kinds of little ways."^[31]

The debut episode in 1971 was directed by 25-year-old Steven Spielberg in one of his earliest directing roles. Falk recalled the episode to Spielberg biographer Joseph McBride:

Let's face it, we had some good fortune at the beginning. Our debut episode, in 1971, was directed by this young kid named Steven Spielberg. I told the producers, Link and Levinson: "This guy is too good for Columbo" ... Steven was shooting me with a long lens from across the street. That wasn't common twenty years ago. The comfort level it gave me as an actor, besides its great look artistically — well, it told you that this wasn't any ordinary director."^[32]

The character of Columbo had previously been played by Bert Freed in a single TV episode and by Thomas Mitchell on Broadway. Falk first played Columbo in Prescription: Murder, a 1968 TV-movie, and from 1971 to 1978 Columbo aired regularly on NBC as part of the umbrella series NBC Mystery Movie. All episodes were of TV-movie length, in a 90 or 120 minutes slot including commercials. The show returned on ABC in the form of a less frequent series of TV-movies, still starring Falk, from 1989 until 2003.^[24] Falk won four Emmys for his role in Columbo.^[33]

The series was so popular that co-creator William Link wrote a series of short stories published as The Columbo Collection (Crippen & Landru, 2010) which includes a drawing by Falk of himself as Columbo, and the cover features a caricature of Falk/Columbo by Al Hirschfeld.

Later career[link]

Falk was a close friend of independent film director John Cassavetes and appeared in Cassavetes' films Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence, and, in a cameo, at the end of Opening Night. Cassavetes, in turn, guest-starred in the Columbo episode "Étude in Black" in 1972. Falk describes his experiences working with Cassavetes, and specifically remembers his directing strategies such as "shooting an actor when he might be unaware the camera was running."

You never knew when the camera might be going. And it was never: 'Stop. Cut. Start again.' John would walk in the middle of a scene and talk, and though you didn't realize it, the camera kept going. So I never knew what the hell he was doing. [Laughs] But he ultimately made me, and I think every actor, less self-conscious, less aware of the camera than anybody I've ever worked with."^[34]

In 1978, he appeared on the comedy TV show The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, where Frank Sinatra was the evening's victim.

Falk at a book signing for his 2006 autobiography Just One More Thing

Falk continued to work in films, including his performance as a questionable ex-CIA agent of dubious sanity in the comedy The In-Laws. Director Arthur Hiller said during an interview that the "film started out because Alan Arkin and Peter Falk wanted to work together. They went to Warner's and said, 'We'd like to do a picture,' and Warner's said fine ... and out came The In-laws ... of all the films I've done, The In-laws is the one I get the most comments on."^[1]:290 Movie critic Roger Ebert compared the film with a later remake:

Peter Falk and Alan Arkin in the earlier film, versus Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks this time ... yet the chemistry is better in the earlier film. Falk goes into his deadpan lecturer mode, slowly and patiently explaining things that sound like utter nonsense. Arkin develops good reasons for suspecting he is in the hands of a madman."^[35]

He also appeared in The Princess Bride, Murder By Death, The Cheap Detective, Vibes, Made, and (as himself) in Wim Wenders' 1987 film Wings of Desire and its 1993 sequel, Faraway, So Close!. In 1998, Falk returned to the New York stage to star in an Off-Broadway production of Arthur Miller's Mr. Peters' Connections. His previous stage work included shady real estate salesman Shelley "the Machine" Levine in a Boston/Los Angeles production of David Mamet's prizewinning Glengarry Glen Ross.

Falk also starred in such holiday television movies as A Town Without Christmas (2001), Finding John Christmas (2003) and When Angels Come to Town (2004). In 2005, he starred in The Thing About My Folks. Although movie critic Roger Ebert was not impressed with most of the other actors, he writes in his review, " ... we discover once again what a warm and engaging actor Peter Falk is. I can't recommend the movie, but I can be grateful that I saw it, for Falk."^[36] In 2007, Falk appeared with Nicolas Cage in the thriller Next.

Personal life[link]

Falk married Alyce Mayo, whom he had met when they were both students at Syracuse University,^[37] on April 17, 1960. They adopted two daughters, Catherine (who is a private investigator) and Jackie. They divorced in 1976. On December 7, 1977, Falk married actress Shera Danese,^[38] who guest-starred on the Columbo series on numerous occasions.

Falk was an accomplished artist, and in October 2006 he had an exhibition of his artwork at the Butler Institute of American Art.^[39] He took classes at the Art Students League of New York for many years.^[40][41] Examples of his sketches can be seen on his official website.

Falk was also a chess aficionado and was a spectator at the American Open in Santa Monica, California, in November 1972, and at the U.S. Open in Pasadena, California, in August 1983.^[42]

His memoir, Just One More Thing (ISBN 978-0786717958) was published by Carroll & Graf on August 23, 2006.

Of death, he once said, "It is just the gateway."^[43]

Failing health and death[link]

Rumors of Falk's dementia plagued the actor in the final years of his life; exacerbated when in late April 2008, Falk was photographed by Paparazzi looking disheveled and acting animated in the streets of Beverly Hills. Though the actor said his behavior was due to his frustration over being unable to remember where he had parked his car, the images of his erratic appearance and behavior were published by the media, and Falk was seldom seen in public after the incident.^[44]

At a two-day conservatorship trial in Los Angeles in June 2009, one of Falk's personal physicians, Dr. Stephen Read, reported that Falk had rapidly slipped into dementia after a series of dental operations in 2007.^[45] Dr. Read said it was unclear whether Falk's condition had worsened as a result of anesthesia or some other reaction to the operations. He went on to add that Falk's condition was so bad he could no longer remember the character of Columbo. Shera Danese Falk was appointed as her husband's conservator.^[46]

The 83-year-old Falk died at his longtime Roxbury Drive Beverly Hills home on the evening of June 23, 2011.^[47][48] The cause of death was later revealed as cardiorespiratory arrest, with pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease as underlying causes.^[49] Falk was survived by his wife and two daughters.^[50] His daughters said they would remember his "wisdom and humor".^[51] Falk is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.^[52]

Falk's death was greeted with tributes from many film celebrities.^[53][54] Steven Spielberg said, "I learned more about acting from him at that early stage of my career than I had from anyone else."^[55] Stephen Fry tweeted that Columbo was "TV’s greatest ever detective."^[56] Rob Reiner said, "He was a completely unique actor," and went on to say that Falk's work with Alan Arkin in The In-Laws was "one of the most brilliant comedy pairings we've seen on screen."^[57]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Peter Falk

• Official website
• Peter Falk at the Internet Movie Database
• Peter Falk at the Internet Broadway Database
• Peter Falk at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Peter Falk at the TCM Movie Database
• Peter Falk at AllRovi
• Peter Falk on Charlie Rose
• Works by or about Peter Falk in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Peter Falk collected news and commentary at The New York Times

• "'Just One More Thing' About Falk, TV's 'Columbo'". Fresh Air. June 27, 2011. NPR. http://www.npr.org/2011/06/27/137446127/just-one-more-thing-about-falk-tvs-columbo. 
• Peter Falk at Emmys.com

Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Sōseki in 1912
Born	(1867-02-09)9 February 1867 Tokyo, Japan
Died	9 December 1916(1916-12-09) (aged 49) Tokyo, Japan
Occupation	Writer
Genres	novels, short stories, poetry
Notable work(s)	Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat
Influenced virtually all subsequent Japanese novelists, Karatani Kōjin

Natsume Sōseki (夏目 漱石^?, February 9, 1867 – December 9, 1916), born Natsume Kinnosuke (夏目 金之助^?), is widely considered to be the foremost Japanese novelist of the Meiji period (1868–1912). He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, Chinese-style poetry, and fairy tales. From 1984 until 2004, his portrait appeared on the front of the Japanese 1000 yen note.

Early years[link]

Born as Natsume Kinnosuke in the town of Babashita in the Edo region of Ushigome (present Kikui, Shinjuku), Natsume began his life as an unwanted child, born to his mother late in her life, forty years old and his father then fifty-three.^[1] When he was born, he already had five siblings. Having five children and a toddler had created family insecurity and was in some ways a disgrace to the Natsume family.^[1] In 1868, a childless couple, Shiobara Masanosuke and his wife, adopted him until the age of nine, when the couple divorced.^[1] He returned to his family and was welcomed by his mother although regarded as a nuisance by his father. His mother died when he was fourteen, and his two eldest brothers died in 1887, intensifying his sense of insecurity.^{[citation needed]}

Natsume attended the First Tokyo Middle School (now Hibiya High School),^[2] where he became enamored with Chinese literature, and fancied that he might someday become a writer. His desire to become an author arose when he was about fifteen when he told his older brother about his interest in literature.^[1] However, his family disapproved strongly of this course of action, and when Natsume entered the Tokyo Imperial University in September 1884, it was with the intention of becoming an architect. Although he preferred Chinese classics, he began studying English at that time, feeling that it might prove useful to him in his future career, as English was a necessity in Japanese college.^[1]

In 1887, Natsume met Masaoka Shiki, a friend who would give him encouragement on the path to becoming a writer, which would ultimately be his career. Shiki tutored him in the art of composing haiku. From this point on, he began signing his poems with the name Sōseki, which is a Chinese idiom meaning "stubborn". In 1890, he entered the English Literature department, and quickly mastered the English language. Natsume graduated in 1893, and enrolled for some time as a graduate student and part-time teacher at the Tokyo Normal School.^{[citation needed]}

In 1895, Natsume began teaching at Matsuyama Middle School in Shikoku, which became the setting of his novel Botchan. Along with fulfilling his teaching duties, Natsume published haiku and Chinese poetry in a number of newspapers and periodicals. He resigned his post in 1896, and began teaching at the Fifth High School in Kumamoto. On June 10 of that year, he married Nakane Kyoko.^{[citation needed]}

Natsume Sōseki's lodgings in Clapham, South London

In the United Kingdom, 1901–1903[link]

In 1900, the Japanese government sent Natsume to study in Great Britain as "Japan's first Japanese English literary scholar".^[3] He visited Cambridge and stayed a night there, but gave up the idea of studying at the university because he could not afford it on his government scholarship.^[4] He studied instead at University College, London (UCL). He had a miserable time of it in London, spending most of his days indoors buried in books, and his friends feared that he might be losing his mind.^[5] He also visited Pitlochry in Scotland.

He lived in four different lodgings, only the last of which, lodging with Priscilla and her sister Elizabeth Leale in Clapham (see the photograph), proved satisfactory. Five years later, in his preface to Bungakuron (The Criticism of Literature), he wrote about the period:

The two years I spent in London were the most unpleasant years in my life. Among English gentlemen I lived in misery, like a poor dog that had strayed among a pack of wolves.^[6]

He got along well with the one Leale sister, who shared his love of literature (notably Shakespeare—his tutor at UCL was the Shakespeare scholar W. J. Craig^[7]—and Milton) and spoke fluent French, much to his admiration. The Leales were a Channel Island family, and Priscilla had been born in France. The sisters worried about Natsume's incipient paranoia and successfully urged him to get out more and take up cycling.

Despite his poverty, loneliness, and mental problems, he solidified his knowledge of English literature during this period and returned to Japan in 1903.

After his return to the Empire of Japan, he replaced Koizumi Yakumo (Lafcadio Hearn) at the First Higher School, and subsequently became a professor of English literature at Tokyo Imperial University, where he taught literary theory and literary criticism.^{[citation needed]}

Literary career[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2009)

Natsume's literary career began in 1903, when he began to contribute haiku, renku (haiku-style linked verse), haitaishi (linked verse on a set theme) and literary sketches to literary magazines, such as the prominent Hototogisu, edited by his former mentor Masaoka Shiki, and later by Takahama Kyoshi. However, it was the public success of his satirical novel I Am a Cat in 1905 that won him wide public admiration as well as critical acclaim.^[8]

He followed on this success with short stories, such as Rondon tō ("Tower of London") in 1905 and the novels Botchan ("Little Master"), and Kusamakura ("Grass Pillow") in 1906, which established his reputation, and which enabled him to leave his post at the university for a position with Asahi Shimbun in 1907, and to begin writing full-time. Much of his work deals with the relation between Japanese culture and Western culture. Especially his early works are influenced by his studies in London; his novel Kairo-kō was the earliest and only major prose treatment of the Arthurian legend in Japanese.^[9] He began writing one novel a year until his death from a stomach ulcer in 1916.

Obverse of a 1984 series 1000 Japanese yen banknote

Major themes in Natsume's works include ordinary people fighting against economic hardship, the conflict between duty and desire (a traditional Japanese theme; see giri), loyalty and group mentality versus freedom and individuality, personal isolation and estrangement, the rapid industrialization of Japan and its social consequences, contempt of Japan's aping of Western culture, and a pessimistic view of human nature. Natsume took a strong interest in the writers of the Shirakaba (White Birch) literary group. In his final years, authors such as Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and Kume Masao became close followers of his literary style.^{[citation needed]}

Major works[link]

Natsume's major works include:

See also[link]

• Anglo-Japanese relations
• Japanese literature
• List of Japanese authors
• Fusanosuke Natsume – Natsume's grandson
• Minae Mizumura – finished Natsume's last, unfinished novel, Light and Darkness

Sources[link]

• Bargen, Doris D. Suicidal Honor: General Nogi and the Writings of Mori Ogai and Natsume Sōseki. University of Hawaii Press (2006). ISBN 0-8248-2998-0
• Brodey, I. S. and S. I. Tsunematsu, Rediscovering Natsume Sōseki, (Kent: Global Oriental, 2000)
• Doi, Takeo, trans. by W. J. Tyler, The Psychological World of Natsume Sōseki. Harvard University Asia Center (1976). ISBN 0-674-72116-0
• Gessel, Van C. Three Modern Novelists: Soseki, Tanizaki, Kawabata. Kodansha International, 1993
• Keene, Donald. Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era: Fiction, Chapter 12. 2nd Revised Edition, Columbia University Press, 1998.
• Milward, Peter. The Heart of Natsume Sōseki: First Impressions of His Novels. Azuma Shobo (1981). ASIN: B000IK2690
• Olson, Lawrence. Ambivalent Moderns: Portraits of Japanese Cultural Identity. Savage, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield (1992). ISBN 0-8476-7739-7
• Ridgeway, William N. A Critical Study of The Novels of Natsume Sōseki, 1867–1916. Edwin Mellen Press (January 28, 2005). ISBN 0-7734-6230-9
• Yu, Beongchoeon. Natsume Sōseki. Macmillan Publishing Company (1984). ISBN 0-8057-2850-3

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Natsume Sōseki

	Novels portal
	Japan portal

• natsumesoseki.com
• Natsume Sōseki at かまくら GreenNet, the website of Kamakura City
• Natsume Souseki at Meisaku Live
• Video: House of Ogai Mori & Soseki Natsume
• Natsume Souseki at Amazon Kindle Store
• Works by Natsume Sōseki at Project Gutenberg
• Sōseki page including links to the entire text of Kokoro
• Natsume Sōseki on aozora.gr.jp (complete texts with furigana)
• Tohoku University: Natsume Soseki Library
• Natsume Sōseki's grave

Ben Gazzara
Photograph by Carl van Vechten, 1955
Born	Biagio Anthony Gazzarra (1930-08-28)August 28, 1930 New York City, New York, United States
Died	February 3, 2012(2012-02-03) (aged 81) New York City, New York, United States
Cause of death	Pancreatic cancer
Residence	New York City, New York, United States
Nationality	American
Education	City College of New York
Alma mater	The New School, Actors Studio
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1953–2012
Home town	New York City, New York, United States
Spouse	Louise Erickson (m. 1951–1957; divorced) Janice Rule (m. 1961–1979; divorced) Elke Krivat (m. 1982–2012; his death)

Biagio Anthony Gazzarra (August 28, 1930 – February 3, 2012), known as Ben Gazzara, was an American film, stage, and Emmy Award winning television actor and director.

Early life[link]

Gazzara was born in New York City, the son of Italian immigrants Angelina (née Cusumano) and Antonio Gazzarra, who was a laborer and carpenter.^[1] Gazzara grew up in New York's Kips Bay neighborhood; he lived on East 29th Street and participated in the drama program at Madison Square Boys and Girls Club located across the street.^[2] He attended New York City's Stuyvesant High School; but finally graduated from Saint Simon Stock in the Bronx.^[3] Years later, he said that the discovery of his love for acting saved him from a life of crime during his teen years.^[4] He went to City College of New York to study electrical engineering. After two years, he relented. He took classes in acting at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator and afterward joined the Actors Studio.

Career[link]

In 1954, Gazzara (having tweaked his original surname from "Gazzarra") made several appearances on NBC's legal drama Justice, based on case studies from the Legal Aid Society of New York. Gazzara starred in various Broadway productions around this time, including creating the role of Brick in Tennessee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1955) opposite Barbara BelGeddes, directed by Elia Kazan, although he lost out to Paul Newman when the film version was cast. He joined other Actors Studio members in the 1957 film The Strange One. Then came a high-profile performance as a soldier on trial for avenging his wife's rape in Otto Preminger's courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder (1959).

Gazzara became well known in several television series, beginning with Arrest and Trial, which ran from 1963 to 1964 on ABC, and the more-successful series Run for Your Life from 1965-68 on NBC, in which he played a terminally ill man trying to get the most out of the last two years of his life. For his work in the series, Gazzara received two Emmy nominations for "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" and three Golden Globe nominations for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama."^[5][6] Contemporary screen credits included The Young Doctors (1961), A Rage to Live (1965) and The Bridge at Remagen (1969).

Gazzara told Charlie Rose in 1998 that he went from being mainly a stage actor who often would turn up his nose at film roles in the mid-1950s to, much later, a ubiquitous character actor who turned very little down. "When I became hot, so to speak, in the theater, I got a lot of offers," he said. "I won't tell you the pictures I turned down because you'll say, 'You are a fool,' and I was a fool."

Some of the actor's most formidable characters were those he created with his friend John Cassavetes in the 1970s. They collaborated for the first time on Cassavetes's film Husbands (1970), in which he appeared alongside Peter Falk and Cassavetes himself. In The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), Gazzara took the leading role of the hapless strip-joint owner, Cosmo Vitelli. A year later, he starred in yet another Cassavetes-directed movie, Opening Night, as stage director Manny Victor, who struggles with the mentally unstable star of his show, played by Cassavetes's wife Gena Rowlands. Also during this period he appeared in the television miniseries QB VII (1974), and the films Capone (1975), Voyage of the Damned (1976), High Velocity (1976), and Saint Jack (1979).

In the 1980s, Gazzara appeared in several movies, such as They All Laughed (directed by Peter Bogdanovich), and in a villainous role in the oft-televised Patrick Swayze film Road House, which the actor jokingly said is probably his most-watched performance. He starred with Rowlands in the critically acclaimed AIDS-themed TV movie An Early Frost (1985), for which he received his third Emmy nomination.

Gazzara appeared in 38 films, many for television, in the 1990s. He worked with a number of renowned directors, such as the Coen brothers (The Big Lebowski), Spike Lee (Summer of Sam), David Mamet (The Spanish Prisoner), Walter Hugo Khouri (Forever), Todd Solondz (Happiness), John Turturro (Illuminata), and John McTiernan (The Thomas Crown Affair).

In his seventies, Gazzara continued to be active. In 2003, he was in the ensemble cast of the experimental film Dogville, directed by Lars von Trier of Denmark and starring Nicole Kidman, as well as the television film Hysterical Blindness (he received his first Emmy Award for his role). Several other projects have recently been completed or are currently in production. In 2005, he played Agostino Casaroli in the television miniseries, Pope John Paul II. He completed filming his scenes in the film The Wait in early 2012, shortly before his death.^[7]

In addition to acting, Gazzara worked as an occasional television director; his credits include the Columbo episodes "A Friend in Deed" (1974) and "Troubled Waters" (1975). Gazzara was nominated three times for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play—in 1956 for A Hatful of Rain, in 1975 for the paired short plays Hughie and Duet, and in 1977 for a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, opposite Colleen Dewhurst.

Personal life[link]

Gazzara married three times; to Louise Erickson (1951–57), Janice Rule (1961–1979), and German model Elke Krivat from 1982. He also disclosed a love affair with actress Audrey Hepburn.^[8] They co-starred in two of her final films, Bloodline (1979) and They All Laughed (1981).

During filming of the war movie The Bridge at Remagen (1969) co-starring Gazzara and his friend Robert Vaughn, the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia. Filming was halted temporarily, and the cast and crew were detained before filming was completed in West Germany.^[9][10][11] During their departure from Czechoslovakia, Gazzara and Vaughn assisted with the escape of a Czech waitress whom they had befriended. They smuggled her to Austria in a car waved through a border crossing that had not yet been taken over by the Soviet army in its crackdown on the Prague Spring.^[12]

Other[link]

Gazzara was the honorary starter of the 1979 Daytona 500, the first flag-to-flag Daytona 500 broadcast live on CBS. He was also featured in a 1994 article in Cigar Aficionado.^[3]

Death[link]

Gazzara was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1999. On February 3, 2012, he died of pancreatic cancer at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York.^[13]

Selected filmography[link]

Further reading[link]

• "Broadway: The Golden Age - by the Legends Who Were there," a film by Rick McKay Films, etc. Broadcast on KCET, Ch.28 (PBS in Los Angeles, December 16, 2006. Gazzara speaks openly about getting off of 29th St.
• Harris, Irving (2009), Madison Square Memoir: The Magic and History of Madison Square Boys and Girls Club (visit www.madisonsquare.org); Gazzara wrote the introduction.
• Sutton, Imre, 2008. Back to E.29th Street: Where Fact and Fiction Revisit Kips Bay, N. Y. (Fullerton, CA: Americo Publications) See http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/11665.

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External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ben Gazzara

• Ben Gazzara at the Internet Movie Database
• Ben Gazzara at the Internet Broadway Database
• Ben Gazzara at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Ben Gazzara at the TCM Movie Database
• Ben Gazzara at AllRovi