Name	Henry Jaglom

Henry Jaglom is a London-born American film director and playwright.

Life and career

Born January 26, 1938 in London, England to Simon and Marie Jaglom, Henry Jaglom trained with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York, where he acted, wrote and directed off-Broadway theater and cabaret before settling in Hollywood in the late 1960s. Under contract to Columbia Pictures, Jaglom guest-starred in such TV shows as Gidget and The Flying Nun and acted in a number of films which included Richard Rush's Psych-Out (1968), Boris Sagal's The 1000 Plane Raid (1969), Jack Nicholson's Drive, He Said (1971), Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie (1971), Maurice Dugowson's Lily, aime-moi (1975) and Orson Welles' never-completed The Other Side of the Wind.

Jaglom began his filmmaking career working with Nicholson on the editing of Hopper's Easy Rider, and made his writing/directing debut in 1971 with A Safe Place, starring Tuesday Weld, Nicholson and Welles. His next film, Tracks (1976), starred Hopper and was one of the earliest movies to explore the psychological cost on America of the Vietnam War. His third film, the first to be a commercial success, was Sitting Ducks (1980), a comic romp that co-starred Zack Norman with Jaglom's brother Michael Emil. Film critic David Thomson said of Jaglom's Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983) that it "is an actors' film in that it grows out of their personalities—it is as loose and unexpected as life, but is shaped and witty as a great short story. In truth, a new kind of film..." It starred Karen Black.

Jaglom co-starred in four of his most personal films - Always, But Not Forever (1985), Someone to Love (1987) starring Orson Welles in his farewell film performance, New Year's Day (1989), which introduced David Duchovny, and Venice/Venice (1992) opposite French star Nelly Alard.

In 1990, Jaglom directed Eating (1990) about a group of women with eating disorders and how they cope with it and one another. Babyfever (1995) was about the issue of women with ticking biological clocks. Last Summer on the Hamptons (1996) was a Chekhovian look at the life of a theatrical family and starred Viveca Lindfors in her last screen role. Déjà Vu (1997) was about the yearning of people trying to find their perfect soul mate and was the only film in which Vanessa Redgrave and her mother, Rachel Kempson, appeared together. Festival in Cannes (2002) explored the lives and relationships of those involved in the world of filmmaking and was shot entirely at the Cannes International Film Festival. Going Shopping (2005) explored that subject as the third part of Jaglom's "Women's Trilogy," the others being Eating and Babyfever.

Hollywood Dreams (2007) dealt with a young woman's obsession with fame in the film industry and introduced Tanna Frederick, who then starred in Jaglom's Irene in Time (2009), a look at the complex relationships between fathers and daughters and how it haunts some women for the rest of their lives. Currently being edited is Frederick's third film with Jaglom, Queen of the Lot, opens in theaters across the United States in November 2010 and co-stars Noah Wyle with a supporting cast that includes Christopher Rydell, Peter Bogdanovich, Jack Heller, Mary Crosby, Kathryn Crosby and Dennis Christopher.

As a playwright, has written four plays that have been successfully performed on Los Angeles stages: The Waiting Room (1974), A Safe Place (2003), Always—But Not Forever (2007) and Just 45 Minutes From Broadway (2009/2010).

Jaglom is also the subject of the Henry Alex Rubin's and Jeremy Workman's 1997 documentary Who is Henry Jaglom?.

References

External links

Category: 1938 births Category:American film directors Category:Living people Category:People from London

Caption	Peter Bogdanovich at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco in 2008
Name	Peter Bogdanovich
Birth date	July 30, 1939
Birth place	Kingston, New York, United States
Spouse	Polly Platt (1966-1970) Louise Stratten (1988-2001)
Partner	Cybill Shepherd (1971-1978)

Peter Bogdanovich (Serbian Cyrillic: Петар Богдановић), (born July 30, 1939) is a Serbian American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola. His most critically acclaimed film is The Last Picture Show (1971).

Early life

The son of immigrants fleeing the Nazis - his father, Borislav Bogdanovich, is a painter and pianist and his mother, Herma Bogdanovich, descended from an Austrian Jewish family - Bogdanovich was conceived in Europe but born in America. He was an actor in the 1950s, studying his craft with acting teacher Stella Adler (he was only 16 but lied about his age and said he was 18 to qualify), and appeared on television and in summer stock. In the early 1960s, Bogdanovich was known as a film programmer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. An obsessive cinema-goer, seeing up to 400 movies a year in his youth, Bogdanovich showcased the work of American directors such as Orson Welles and John Ford, whom he later wrote a book about based on the notes he had produced for the MoMA retrospective of the director, and Howard Hawks. Bogdanovich also brought attention to such forgotten pioneers of American cinema as Allan Dwan.

Bogdanovich was influenced by the French critics of the 1950s who wrote for Cahiers du Cinéma, especially critic-turned-director François Truffaut. Before becoming a director himself, he built his reputation as a film writer with articles in Esquire. These articles were collected in Pieces of Time (1973). In 1968, following the example of Cahiers du Cinéma critics Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, and Éric Rohmer who had created the Nouvelle Vague ("New Wave") by making their own films, Bogdanovich decided to become a director. With his wife Polly Platt, he headed for Los Angeles, skipping out on the rent in the process. Intent on breaking into the industry, Bogdanovich would ask publicists for movie premiere and industry party invitations. At one screening, Bogdanovich was viewing a film and director Roger Corman was sitting behind him. The two struck up a conversation when Corman mentioned he liked a cinema piece Bogdanovich wrote for Esquire. Corman offered him a directing job which Bogdanovich accepted immediately. He worked with Corman on Targets, which starred Boris Karloff, and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, under the pseudonym Derek Thomas. Bogdanovich later said of the Corman school of filmmaking, "I went from getting the laundry to directing the picture in three weeks. Altogether, I worked 22 weeks – preproduction, shooting, second unit, cutting, dubbing – I haven't learned as much since."

Returning to journalism, Bogdanovich struck up a life-long friendship with Orson Welles while interviewing him on the set of Mike Nichols's Catch-22 (1970). Bogdanovich played a major role in elucidating Welles and his career with his writings on the actor-director, most notably his book This is Orson Welles (1992). In the early 1970s, when Welles was having financial problems, Bogdanovich let him stay at his Bel Air mansion for a couple of years.

In 1970, Bogdanovich was commissioned by the American Film Institute to direct a documentary about John Ford for their tribute, Directed by John Ford (1971). The resulting film included candid interviews with the likes of John Wayne, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, and was narrated by Orson Welles. Out of circulation for years due to licensing issues, Bogdanovich and TCM released it in 2006, featuring newer, pristine film clips, and additional interviews with Clint Eastwood, Walter Hill, Harry Carey, Jr., Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and others.

Emergence as a director

The 32-year-old Bogdanovich was hailed by a critics as a "Wellesian" wunderkind when his best-received film, The Last Picture Show, was released in 1971. The film gained eight Academy Awards nominations, including Best Director, and won two statues, for Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson in the supporting acting categories. Bogdanovich co-wrote the screenplay with Larry McMurtry, and it won the 1971 BAFTA award for Best Screenplay. Bogdanovich cast the 21-year-old model Cybill Shepherd in a major role in the film and fell in love with her, an affair that eventually led to his divorce from Polly Platt, his longtime artistic collaborator and the mother of his two daughters.

Bogdanovich followed up The Last Picture Show with the popular hit comedy What's Up, Doc? (1972), starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O'Neal, a screwball comedy indebted to Hawks's Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940). Despite his reliance on homage to bygone cinema, Bogdanovich solidified his status as one of a new breed of A-list directors that included Academy Award winners Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin, with whom he formed The Directors Company. The Directors Company was a generous production deal with Paramount Pictures that essentially gave the directors carte blanche if they kept within budget limitations. It was through this entity that Bogdanovich's Paper Moon (1973) was produced.

Paper Moon, a Depression-era comedy starring Ryan O'Neal that won his 10-year-old daughter Tatum O'Neal an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress, proved the high-water mark of Bogdanovich's career. Forced to share the profits with his fellow directors, Bogdanovich became dissatisfied with the arrangement. The Directors Company subsequently produced only two more pictures, Coppola's The Conversation (1974), which was nominated for Best Picture in 1974 alongside The Godfather, Part II, and Bogdanovich's Daisy Miller, which had a lackluster critical reception.

Later years

Bogdanovich turned back to writing as his directorial career sagged, beginning with The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten (1960–1980), a memoir published in 1984. Teresa Carpenter's "Death of a Playmate" article about Dorothy Stratten's murder was published in The Village Voice and won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize, and while Bogdanovich did not criticize Carpenter's article in his book, she had lambasted both Bogdanovich and Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner, claiming that Stratten was a victim of them as much as of her husband, Paul Snider, who killed her and himself. Carpenter also criticized Bogdanovich for his "puerile preference for ingenues". Carpenter's article served as the basis of Bob Fosse's film Star 80 (1983), in which Bogdanovich, for legal reasons, was portrayed as the fictional director "Aram Nicholas," a sympathetic but possibly misguided and naive character.

On December 30, 1988, the 49-year-old Bogdanovich married 20-year-old Louise Stratten, Dorothy's younger sister, whom he had begun dating a few years after Dorothy's death. The couple divorced in 2001.

Though he achieved success with Mask in 1985, Bogdanovich's 1990 sequel to The Last Picture Show, called Texasville was a critical and box-office disappointment. Both films occasioned major disputes between Bogdanovich, who still demanded a measure of control over his films, and the studios, which controlled the financing and final cut of both films. Mask was released with a song score by Bob Seger against Bogdanovich's wishes (he favored Bruce Springsteen), and Bogdanovich has often complained that the version of Texasville that was released was not the film he had intended. A director's cut of Mask, slightly longer and with Springsteen's songs, was belatedly released on DVD in 2006. A director's cut of Texasville was released on laserdisc, though it has never been released on DVD. Around the time of the release of Texasville, Bogdanovich also revisited his earliest success, The Last Picture Show, and produced a slightly modified director's cut. Since that time, his recut has been the only available version of the film.

Bogdanovich directed two more theatrical films in 1992 and 1993, but their failure kept him off the big screen for several years. One, Noises Off..., based on the Michael Frayn play, has subsequently developed a strong cult following, while the other, The Thing Called Love, is better known as one of River Phoenix's last roles before his untimely drug-related death.

Bogdanovich, drawing from his encyclopedic knowledge of film history, authored several critically lauded books, including Peter Bogdanovich's Movie of the Week, which offered the lifelong cinephile's commentary on 52 of his favorite films, and Who The Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors and Who the Hell's in It: Conversations with Hollywood's Legendary Actors, both based on interviews with directors and actors.

In 2001, Bogdanovich resurfaced with The Cat's Meow. Returning once again to a reworking of the past, this time the supposed murder of director Thomas Ince by Orson Welles's bête noire William Randolph Hearst, The Cat's Meow was a modest critical success but made little money at the box office. Bogdanovich says he was told the story of the alleged Ince murder by Welles, who in turn said he heard it from writer Charles Lederer.

In addition to directing some television work, Bogdanovich has returned to acting with a recurring guest role on the cable television series The Sopranos, playing Dr. Melfi's psychotherapist. Bogdanovich directed a fifth-season episode of the series In an homage to his Sopranos character, he also voiced the analyst of Bart Simpson's therapist in an episode of The Simpsons.

Bogdanovich hosted The Essentials on Turner Classic Movies, but was replaced in May 2006 by TCM host Robert Osborne and film critic Molly Haskell. Bogdanovich is also frequently featured in introductions to movies on Criterion Collection DVDs, and has had a supporting role as a fictional version of himself in the Showtime comedy series Out of Order. He will next appear in The Dream Factory.

In 2006, Bogdanovich joined forces with ClickStar, where he hosts a classic movie channel, Peter Bogdanovich's Golden Age of Movies. Bodganovich also writes a blog for the site. In 2006 he appeared in the documentary Wanderlust.

In 2007, Bogdanovich was presented with an award for outstanding contribution to film preservation by The International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) at the Toronto International Film Festival. The same year, Bogdanovich was sued by Iaroslav Jivov, a Canadian businessman, for breach of contract. Jivov's suit alleged that Bogdanovich took $100,000 as a fee for allowing Jivov's son to work as an assistant on Bogdanovich's next film but failed to live up to his side of the deal.

In 1998, the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress named The Last Picture Show to the National Film Registry, an honor awarded only to culturally significant films.

In 2010, Bogdanovich joined the directing faculty at the School of Filmmaking at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. On April 17, 2010, he was awarded the Master of Cinema Award at the 12th Annual RiverRun International Film Festival.

Filmography

Directing Credits

Targets (aka Before I Die) (1968) (Also Writer/Producer/Editor)

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (aka The Gill Women of Venus and The Gill Women) (1968)

The Last Picture Show (1971) (Also Writer)

Directed by John Ford (1971, Documentary)

What's Up, Doc? (1972) (Also Writer/Producer)

Paper Moon (1973) (Also Producer)

Daisy Miller (1974) (Also Producer)

At Long Last Love (1975) (Also Writer/Producer)

Nickelodeon (1976) (Also Writer)

Saint Jack (1979) (Also Writer)

They All Laughed (1981) (Also Writer)

Mask (1985)

Illegally Yours (1988) (Also Producer)

Texasville (1990) (Also Writer/Producer)

Noises Off (1992) (Also Executive Producer)

The Thing Called Love (1993)

The Cat's Meow (2001)

Hustle (2004) (TV)

Runnin' Down A Dream (2007, Documentary)

Squirrel to the Nuts (2011)

Acting Credits

Targets (aka Before I Die) (1968)...

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (aka The Gill Women of Venus and The Gill Women) (1968)... Narrator (Voice Only)

The Last Picture Show (1971)... DJ (Voice Only)

The Other Side of the Wind (1972)... Brookes Otterlake (Never Released)

Saint Jack (1979)... Eddie Schuman

They All Laughed (1981)... Disk Jockey (Uncredited)

Moonlighting (1986) [Himself]

Northern Exposure (1993, TV)... Himself (1 Episode)

Cybill (1995, TV)... Himself (1 Episode) (Uncredited)

Highball (1997)... Frank

Mr. Jealousy (1998)... Dr. Howard Poke

54 (1998)... Elaine's Patron

Lick the Star (1998, Short Film)... The Principal

Coming Soon... Bartholomew

The Sopranos (2000–2007, TV)... Dr. Elliot Kupferberg (15 Episodes)

Rated X (2000, TV)... Film Professor

Festival in Cannes (2001)... Milo

8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter (2004, TV)... Dr. Lohr (1 Episode)

(2005–2007, TV)... George Merritt (2 Episodes)

Infamous (2006)... Bennett Cerf

The Simpsons (2007, TV)... Psychologist (Voice Only) (1 Episode)

Dedication (2007)... Roger Spade

The Dukes (2007)... Lou

The Fifth Patient (2007)... Edward Birani

Broken English (2007)... Iriving Mann

Humboldt County (2008)... Professor Hadley

Abandoned (2010)... Dr. Markus Bensley

How I Met Your Mother (2010, TV)... Himself (1 episode)

Books

Peter Bogdanovich "The Cinema of Orson Welles" (1961)

Peter Bogdanovich "The Cinema of Howard Hawks" (1962)

Peter Bogdanovich "The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock" (1963)

Peter Bogdanovich "John Ford" (1967; expanded 1978)

Peter Bogdanovich "Fritz Lang in America" (1969)

Peter Bogdanovich "Allan Dwan: The Last Pioneer" (1970)

Peter Bogdanovich "Pieces of Time" (1973; expanded 1985)

Peter Bogdanovich The Killing Of The Unicorn - Dorothy Stratten 1960-1980. William Morrow and Company 1984. ISBN 0-688-01611-1.

Peter Bogdanovich This Is Orson Welles. HarperPerennial 1992. ISBN 0-06-092439-X.

Peter Bogdanovich A Moment with Miss Gish. Santa Barbara : Santa Teresa Press, 1995. WorldCat.

Peter Bogdanovich Who The Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors. Alfred A. Knopf, 1997. ISBN 0-679-44706-7.

Peter Bogdanovich Peter Bogdanovich's Movie of the Week. 1999.

Peter Bogdanovich Who the Hell's in It: Conversations with Hollywood's Legendary Actors. Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. ISBN 0-375-40010-9.

References

External links

Bogdanovich Receives Visionary Award

Bogdanovich's Who the Hell's in It reviewed in Seattle Weekly

Category:1939 births Category:Living people Category:American Jews Category:American film directors Category:American film actors Category:American screenwriters Category:American vegetarians Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Actors from New York Category:Film historians Category:Film theorists Category:American people of Serbian descent Category:American people of Austrian descent Category:American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Category:The Collegiate School alumni Category:People from Kingston, New York

Name	Tanna Marie Frederick
Caption	Picture by Lesley Bohm.
Birth date	1979
Birth place	Mason City, Iowa
Occupation	Screen and stage actress
Known for	Independent film roles
Parents	David and Nancy Frederick

Tanna Marie Frederick (born 1979) is a stage and independent film actress who rose to prominence for her title role in Henry Jaglom's Hollywood Dreams, for which she received the Best Actress Award at the 2008 Fargo Film Festival.

Biography

Tanna Frederick was born in Mason City, Iowa where her father David Frederick was a pharmacist and her mother Nancy Frederick was a nursing instructor. She attended school in Mason City, and by fourth grade had begun to play in productions of that town's Stebens' Children's Theatre. As she would later put it, she had "been doing five shows a year for most of [her] life."

Following her graduation from high school in 1995, Frederick attended college at the University of Iowa where she double majored in theater and political science. She was a regular on Iowa City stages appearing at the Riverside Theatre as "Jill" in Jack and Jill, and at the University Theatre in a one-woman play that she had written herself and titled Questioning Jabe. She would later recall that while at college she particularly enjoyed working with younger playwrights on new works, and that the programs of the university's Iowa Writer's Workshop were formative in giving her an open mind towards "strange, independent and unusual projects."

Frederick graduated in 1999 as valedictorian of her University of Iowa liberal arts class, and shortly thereafter moved to Los Angeles to follow what the actress has termed her "Joan of Arc calling." including work as a waitress.

At one of the rehearsals for Toussaint, a fellow actor mentioned that he had just played a part in a Henry Jaglom film. At the time Frederick had not heard of Jaglom, but following the colleague's suggestion that "supposedly, if you write him a letter and tell him that you love his films, he'll cast you in a movie," Frederick wrote to Jaglom. In a three-page letter she extolled the virtues of Jaglom's film Déjà Vu—even though she had not actually seen it at the time. Frederick's success with A Safe Place inspired Jaglom to also adapt his 1985 screenplay Always (But Not Forever) to the stage. And her "talent gave Jaglom the impetus to switch the lead characters in the play from a wife who was trying to leave her husband, to a husband who wanted out of his marriage." Her performance as "Margie" also gained her the Best Actress Award at the 2007 Montana Independent Film Festival and the Best Actress Award at the 2008 Fargo Film Festival.

In late 2006, Frederick helped found the Iowa Independent Film Festival to encourage students and local artists to "make great art right in their own backyards" and to "tap into the inspiration that [comes from the event]." According to the festival's website, over sixty films had been submitted for inclusion in the second festival of April 2008. She also used this festival to give herself awards.

In mid-2007, Frederick began work on new editions of Jaglom's 1985 film Always (But Not Forever). In both the stage version (directed by Gary Imhoff) and the screen version (this time directed by Ron Vignone) Frederick plays Jaglom's original character, which Jaglom rewrote for her. The play opened in October 2007 as Always – But Not Forever.

In Winter 2007, Frederick signed on for the title role in Jaglom's Irene in Time, a film about the relationships of fathers and daughters, and in which she plays the eponymous "Irene," a girl searching for a long lost father. Both Irene in Time and the Vignone-directed Always debuted in rough-cut versions at the second annual Iowa Independent Film Festival in April 2008.

As of March 2008, Frederick had also begun work on her third film with Jaglom. In Queen of the Lot, a sequel to Hollywood Dreams, Frederick continues in her role as "Margie Chizek" who in the new film has now become a prominent action film star with problems—one of which is a relationship with a "sleazy" tell-all Hollywood reporter (played by Noah Wyle).

In October 2009, Henry Jaglom's new play "Just 45 Minutes From Broadway" opened at the Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica with Frederick in the lead role. There have been over 100 performances of the play and it's still running.

Ultimately, Tanna hopes that her career takes off before Henry Jaglom moves on to another aspiring actress.

References

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External links

Official Website

Category:American film actors Category:American stage actors Category:University of Iowa alumni Category:People from Cerro Gordo County, Iowa Category:1979 births Category:Living people

Caption	Mazursky at 43rd KVIFF, 2008
Birth date	April 25, 1930
Birth place	Brooklyn, New York
Occupation	film director, screenplay writer, actor
Years active	1953–present
Spouse	Betsy Mazursky (?–present)

Paul Mazursky (born April 25, 1930) is an American film director, screenwriter and actor.

Personal life

He was born Irwin Mazursky in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jean (née Gerson), a piano player for dance classes, and David Mazursky, a laborer. His grandfather was a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine. He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1951. Mazursky is an atheist.

Career

Mazursky made his film debut as an actor in Stanley Kubrick's first feature, Fear and Desire, in which he changed his first name to Paul, and later appeared as a juvenile delinquent in the 1955 film The Blackboard Jungle. He soon became a writer and worked on The Danny Kaye Show in 1963. In 1965, he collaborated with Larry Tucker in crafting the script of the original pilot of The Monkees television series, in which they both also appeared in cameos.

His acting career has continued for several decades, starting with television work in episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Rifleman. He has played supporting roles in A Star Is Born (1976), History of the World Part I (1981), Into the Night (1985), Punchline (1988), Man Trouble (1992), Carlito's Way (1993), Love Affair (1994), 2 Days in the Valley (1996), Miami Rhapsody (1995), and Crazy in Alabama (1999). He also performed the voice of the Psychologist in Antz (1998).

Mazursky's debut as a film screenplay writer was the Peter Sellers comedy I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968). The following year he directed his first film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (produced by Larry Tucker). His career behind the camera would continue for the next two decades as he would direct an impressive string of quirky, dramatic and critically popular films including Alex in Wonderland (1970), Blume in Love (1973), Harry and Tonto (1974), the autobiographical Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), An Unmarried Woman (1978), Willie & Phil (1980), Tempest (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Moon Over Parador (1988), Enemies, a Love Story (1989) and Scenes from a Mall (1991).

Following his filmmaking satire The Pickle (1993), Mazursky has worked only sporadically as a director on such films as Faithful (1996), Winchell (1998), Coast to Coast (2003) and most recently the documentary Yippee (2006).

In his autobiography "Show Me the Magic" (1999), he recounts his experiences in filmmaking and with several well-known screen personalities including Peter Sellers.

Mazursky has appeared as himself in a number of documentaries on film, including A Decade Under the Influence, New York at the Movies and . In Moon Over Parador, with the Rio Opera House available for only three days of shooting, Mazursky cast himself as a dictator's mother when Judith Malina was unavailable, playing the character in drag.

In recent years, Mazursky had a small part as "Sunshine" the poker dealer in The Sopranos. He also appeared in five episodes of season 4 of Curb Your Enthusiasm as Mel Brooks' associate Norm; he later reprised the role in a season 7 episode.

Mazursky has received five Academy Award nominations, four for his screenplay writing on Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), Harry and Tonto (1974), An Unmarried Woman (1978) and Enemies, a Love Story (1989), and once as producer of An Unmarried Woman (nominated for Best Picture). In 2000, was the recipient of the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award.

References

External links

Category:1930 births Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American Jews Category:American atheists Category:Jewish atheists Category:Brooklyn College alumni Category:Jewish actors Category:Living people Category:Second City alumni Category:People from Brooklyn

Name	Orson Welles
Caption	Welles in 1937 (age 21)photographed by Carl Van Vechten
Birth name	George Orson Welles
Birth date	May 06, 1915
Birth place	Kenosha, Wisconsin,
Death date	October 10, 1985
Death place	Los Angeles, California,
Occupation	Actor, director, writer, producer, voice actor
Years active	1934–1985
Spouse	Virginia Nicholson (1934–1940)Rita Hayworth (1943–1948)Paola Mori (1955–1985)
Partner	Dolores del Río (1938–1941)Oja Kodar (1966–1985)
Awards	1941 Best Writing (Original Screenplay) for Citizen Kane 1970 Academy Honorary Award

George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985), best known as Orson Welles, was an American filmmaker, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the twentieth century, especially for his significant and influential early work—despite his notoriously contentious relationship with Hollywood. His distinctive directorial style featured layered, nonlinear narrative forms, innovative uses of lighting such as chiaroscuro, unique camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots, and long takes. Welles's long career in film is noted for his struggle for artistic control in the face of pressure from studios. Many of his films were severely edited and others left unreleased. He has therefore been praised as a major creative force and as "the ultimate auteur."

Welles first found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds performed for the radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was reported to have caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by beings from another world was occurring. Although these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to instant notoriety.

Citizen Kane (1941), his first film with RKO, in which he starred in the role of Charles Foster Kane, is often considered the greatest film ever made. Several of his other films, including The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Touch of Evil (1958), Chimes at Midnight (1965), and F for Fake (1974), are also widely considered to be masterpieces.

In 2002, he was voted the greatest film director of all time in two separate British Film Institute polls among directors and critics Well known for his baritone voice, Welles was also an extremely well regarded actor and was voted number 16 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the greatest American film actors of all time. He was also a celebrated Shakespearean stage actor and an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety shows in the war years.

Youth and early career (1915–1934)

Welles was born May 5, 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, son of Richard Hodgdon Head Welles (1873, Missouri - December 28, 1930, Chicago, Illinois) and Beatrice Ives (1882 or 1883, Springfield, Illinois - May 10, 1924, Chicago, Illinois). His family was raised Roman Catholic. Despite his parents' affluence, Welles encountered many hardships in childhood. In 1919, his parents separated and moved to Chicago. His father, who had made a fortune as the inventor of a popular bicycle lamp, became an alcoholic and stopped working. Welles's mother, a concert pianist, played during lectures by Dudley Crafts Watson at the Chicago Art Institute to support her son and herself (the oldest Welles boy, "Dickie", had been institutionalized at an early age because he had learning difficulties). Beatrice died of jaundice in 1924 in a Chicago hospital a few days after Welles's ninth birthday. After his mother's death, Welles ceased pursuing his interest in music. He was taken in by Dudley Crafts Watson and lived with the family at Watson's family home, "Trillium Dell", on Marshman Avenue in Highland Park, Illinois. At the age of ten, Orson with Watson's third daughter, Marjorie (of the same age), ran away from home. They were found a week later, singing and dancing for money on a street corner in Milwaukee. His father died when Orson was 15 during the summer after Orson's graduation from Todd School for Boys, an independent school in Woodstock, Illinois. Maurice Bernstein, a physician from Chicago, became his guardian.

At Todd School, Welles came under the influence of Roger Hill, a teacher who later became Todd's headmaster. Hill provided Welles with an ad hoc educational environment that proved invaluable to his creative experience, allowing Welles to concentrate on subjects that interested him. Welles performed and staged his first theatrical experiments and productions there.

After his father's death, Welles traveled to Europe with the aid of a small inheritance. Welles later reported that while on a walking and painting trip through Ireland, he strode into the Gate Theatre in Dublin and claimed he was a Broadway star. The manager of Gate, Hilton Edwards, later said he didn't believe him but was impressed by his brashness and some impassioned quality in his audition. Welles made his stage debut at the Gate in 1931, appearing in Jew Suss as the Duke. He acted to great acclaim, which reached the United States. He performed smaller supporting roles as well. On returning to the United States he found his fame ephemeral and turned to a writing project at Todd School that would become the immensely successful Everybody's Shakespeare and subsequently, The Mercury Shakespeare. Welles traveled to North Africa while working on thousands of illustrations for the Everybody's Shakespeare series of educational books, a series that remained in print for decades.

An introduction by Thornton Wilder led Welles to the New York stage. In 1933, he toured in three off-Broadway productions with Katharine Cornell's company, including two roles in Romeo and Juliet. Restless and impatient when the planned Broadway opening of Romeo and Juliet was canceled, Welles staged a drama festival of his own with the Todd School, inviting Micheál MacLíammóir and Hilton Edwards from Dublin's Gate Theatre to appear, along with New York stage luminaries. It was a roaring success. The subsequent revival of Cornell's Romeo and Juliet brought Welles to the notice of John Houseman, who was casting for an unusual lead actor for the lead role in the Federal Theatre Project.

By 1935 Welles was supplementing his earnings in the theater as a radio actor in Manhattan, working with many of the actors who would later form the core of his Mercury Theatre. He married Chicago actress Virginia Nicholson in 1934 and that year he shot an eight-minute silent short film, The Hearts of Age with her. The couple had one daughter, Christopher. She made her only film appearance in 1948, taking the role of Macduff's son in Welles's film Macbeth and later became known as Chris Welles Feder, an author of educational materials for children.

Theatre and Radio (1936–1940)

Federal Theatre Project

Macbeth

In 1936, the Federal Theatre Project (part of Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration) put unemployed theater performers and employees to work. Welles was hired by John Houseman and assigned to direct a play for the Federal Theatre Project's Negro Theater Unit. He offered them Macbeth, in a production that became known as the Voodoo Macbeth, because Welles set it in the Haitian court of King Henri Christophe, with voodoo witch doctors for the three Weird Sisters. Jack Carter played Macbeth. The incidental music was composed by Virgil Thomson. The play was received rapturously and later toured the nation. When the lead actor, Maurice Ellis, fell ill on tour, Welles quickly boarded an airplane to fly to the location and stepped into the part playing the role in blackface. At the age of twenty, Welles was hailed as a prodigy. A few minutes of the Welles production of Macbeth was recorded on film in a 1937 documentary called We Work Again.

Collaboration with Aaron Copland

The young actor/director was chosen by the American composer Aaron Copland in 1937 to direct what is one of Copland's least known works, the opera The Second Hurricane composed for high school students of The Henry Street Settlement Music School in New York. Among the few adult performers in the production was actor Joseph Cotten, Welles's longtime friend and collaborator, who was paid $10 for his performance.

The Cradle Will Rock

After the success of Macbeth, Welles mounted the absurd farce Horse Eats Hat. He consolidated his "White Hope" reputation with Dr Faustus which used light as a prime unifying scenic element in a nearly blacked-out stage. In 1937, he rehearsed Marc Blitzstein's highly political operetta, The Cradle Will Rock. Because of severe federal cutbacks in the Works Progress projects, the show's premiere at the Maxine Elliott Theatre was canceled. The theater was locked and guarded to prevent any of the government-purchased materials being used for a commercial production of the work. In a last-minute move Welles announced to waiting ticket-holders that the show was being transferred to the Venice, about twenty blocks away. Some cast, as well as some crew and audience, walked the distance on foot. The union musicians refused to perform in a commercial theater for lower non-union government wages. The actors' union stated that the production belonged to the federal theater project and could not be performed outside that context without permission. Lacking the participation of the union members, The Cradle Will Rock began with Blitzstein introducing the show and playing the piano accompaniment on stage with some cast members performing their parts from the audience. This impromptu performance was well received by its audience. It afterward played at the Venice for two weeks in the same informal way.

Mercury Theatre

Resigning from the Federal Theatre, Welles and Houseman formed the Mercury Theatre, of which Welles became executive producer and whose repertory company eventually included actors such as Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Río, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Frank Readick, Everett Sloane, Eustace Wyatt and Erskine Sanford, all of whom would continue to work for Welles for years. The first Mercury Theatre production was a melodramatic and heavily edited version of William Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar, set in a contemporary frame of fascist Italy. Cinna the Poet dies at the hands not of a mob but of a secret police force. According to Norman Lloyd, who played Cinna the Poet, "it stopped the show." The applause lasted more than ten minutes and the production was widely acclaimed.

In the second year of the Mercury Theater, Welles shifted his interests to radio as an actor, director and producer. He played Hamlet for CBS on The Columbia Workshop, while adapting and directing the play. The Mutual Network gave him a seven-week series to adapt Les Misérables, which he did with great success. In late 1937, Mutual chose Welles to play Lamont Cranston, aka The Shadow, anonymously and in the summer of 1938 CBS gave him (and the Mercury Theatre) a weekly hour-long show to broadcast radio plays based on classic literary works. The show was titled The Mercury Theatre on the Air, with original music by Bernard Herrmann, who would continue working with Welles on radio and in films for years.

The War of the Worlds broadcast

Their October 30, 1938 radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells brought Welles instant fame. The combination of the news bulletin form of the performance with the between-breaks dial spinning habits of listeners from the rival and far more popular Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy program, was later reported in the media to have created widespread confusion among listeners who failed to hear the introduction, although the extent of this confusion has recently come into question. Panic was reported to have spread (after citation from rumors) among many listeners who believed the news reports of a Martian invasion. The myth of the result created by the combination was reported as fact around the world and disparagingly mentioned by Adolf Hitler in a public speech a few months later. The 1970s "docu-drama" The Night That Panicked America was based on events centering around the production of, and events that resulted from, the program.

Welles's growing fame soon drew Hollywood offers, lures which the independent-minded Welles resisted at first. The Mercury Theatre on the Air, which had been a "sustaining show" (without sponsorship) was picked up by Campbell Soup and renamed The Campbell Playhouse.

On October 28, 1940, Welles met H.G. Wells in San Antonio, Texas; a local radio station KTSA recorded the conversation, which was likely the only meeting between the two.

Hollywood (1939–1948)

RKO Radio Pictures president George Schaefer eventually offered Welles what generally is considered the greatest contract ever offered to an untried director: complete artistic control. RKO signed Welles in a two-picture deal; including script, cast, crew, and most importantly, final cut, although Welles had a budget limit for his projects. With this contract in hand, Welles (and nearly the entire Mercury Theatre troupe) moved to Hollywood. He commuted weekly to New York to maintain his commitment to The Campbell Playhouse.

Welles toyed with various ideas for his first project for RKO Radio Pictures, settling on an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which he worked on in great detail. He planned to film the action with a subjective camera. When a budget was drawn up, RKO's enthusiasm cooled because it was greater than the previously agreed limit. RKO also declined to approve another Welles project, The Smiler with the Knife, ostensibly because they lacked faith in Lucille Ball's ability to carry the leading lady role.

In a sign of things to come, Welles left The Campbell Playhouse in 1940 due to creative differences with the sponsor. The show continued without him, produced by John Houseman. In perhaps another sign of things to come, Welles's first experience on a Hollywood film was narrator for RKO's 1940 production of The Swiss Family Robinson.

Citizen Kane

Production

RKO, having rejected Welles's first two movie proposals, agreed on the third offer Citizen Kane, for which Welles co-wrote, produced, directed, and performed the lead role.

Welles found a suitable film project in an idea he conceived with screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, (who was then writing radio plays for The Campbell Playhouse). Initially entitled The American, it eventually became Welles's first feature film (also his most famous and honored role), Citizen Kane (1941).

Mankiewicz based his original notion on an exposé of the life of William Randolph Hearst whom he knew socially but now hated, having once been great friends with Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies. Mankiewicz had been banished from her company because of his perpetual drunkenness. Mankiewicz, a notorious gossip, exacted revenge with his unflattering depiction of Davies in Citizen Kane for which Welles bore most of the criticisms. Welles also had a connection with Davies through his first wife.

Kane's megalomania was modeled loosely on Robert McCormick, Howard Hughes, and Joseph Pulitzer as Welles wanted to create a broad, complex character, intending to show him in the same scenes from several points of view. The use of multiple narrative perspectives in Conrad's Heart of Darkness influenced the treatment.

Supplying Mankiewicz with 300 pages of notes, Welles urged him to write the first draft of a screenplay under John Houseman, who was posted to ensure Mankiewicz stayed sober. On Welles's instruction, Houseman wrote the opening narration as a pastiche of The March of Time newsreels. Orson Welles explained to Peter Bogdanovich about the writers working separately by saying, "I left him on his own finally, because we'd started to waste too much time haggling. So, after mutual agreements on storyline and character, Mank went off with Houseman and did his version, while I stayed in Hollywood and wrote mine."

Charles Foster Kane is based loosely on parts of Hearst's life. Nonetheless, autobiographical allusions to Welles were worked in, most noticeably in the treatment of Kane's childhood and particularly, regarding his guardianship. Welles then added features from other famous American lives to create a general and mysterious personality rather than the narrow journalistic portrait intended by Mankiewicz, whose first drafts included scandalous claims about the death of the film director Thomas Ince.

Once the script was completed, Welles attracted some of Hollywood's best technicians, including cinematographer Gregg Toland, who walked into Welles's office and announced he wanted to work on the picture. Welles later described Toland as "the fastest cameraman who ever lived.". By the time it reached the general public, though the publicity had waned. It garnered nine Academy Award nominations (Orson nominated as a producer, director, writer, and actor), but won only for Best Original Screenplay, shared by Mankiewicz and Welles. Although it basically was ignored at the Academy Awards, Citizen Kane now is hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. Andrew Sarris called it "the work that influenced the cinema more profoundly than any American film since The Birth of a Nation." Floyd Odlum took over control of RKO and began changing its direction. Rockefeller, the most significant backer of the Brazil project, left the RKO board of directors. Around the same time, the principal sponsor of Welles at RKO, studio president George Schaefer, resigned. The changes throughout RKO caused reevaluations of many projects. RKO took control of Ambersons, formed a committee which was ordered to edit the film into what the studio considered a commercial format. They removed fifty minutes of Welles's footage, re-shot sequences, rearranged the scene order, and added a happy ending. Koerner released the shortened film on the bottom of a double-bill with the Lupe Vélez comedy, Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost. Ambersons was an expensive flop for RKO, although it received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Agnes Moorehead.

Welles's South American documentary, entitled It's All True, budgeted at one million dollars with half of its budget coming from the U.S. Government upon completion, grew in ambition and budget while Welles was in South America. While the film originally was to be a documentary on Carnaval, Welles added a new story which recreated the journey of the jangadeiros, four poor fishermen who had made a journey on their open raft to petition Brazilian President Vargas about their working conditions. The four had become national folk heroes; Welles first read of their journey in Time. Their leader, Jacare, died during a filming mishap. RKO, in limited contact with Welles, attempted to rein in the production. Most of the crew and budget were withdrawn from the film. In addition, the Mercury staff was removed from the studio in the U.S.

Welles requested resources to finish the film. He was given a limited amount of black-and-white stock and a silent camera. He completed the sequence, but RKO refused to support any further production on the film. Surviving footage was released in 1993, including a rough reconstruction of the "Four Men on a Raft" segment. Meanwhile, RKO asserted in public that Welles had gone to Brazil without a screenplay and that he had squandered a million dollars. Their official company slogan for the next year was, "Showmanship in place of Genius" -- which was taken as a slight against Welles.

Director for hire (1943–1946)

On returning to Hollywood, Welles found no studios interested in hiring him as a film director after the twin disasters of The Magnificent Ambersons and It's All True. Welles next worked on radio. CBS offered him two weekly series, Hello Americans, based on the research he'd done in Brazil, and Ceiling Unlimited, sponsored by Lockheed, a wartime salute to advances in aviation. Both featured several members of his original Mercury Theatre troupe. Within a few months, Hello Americans was canceled and Welles was replaced as host of Ceiling Unlimited by Joseph Cotten. Welles guest-starred on a great variety of shows, notably guest-hosting Jack Benny shows for a month in 1943. He took an increasingly active role in American and international politics and used journalism to communicate his forceful ideas widely.

In 1943, Welles married Rita Hayworth. They had one child, Rebecca Welles, and divorced five years later in 1948. In between, Welles found work as an actor in other directors' films. He starred in the 1944 film adaptation of Jane Eyre, trading credit as associate producer for top billing over Joan Fontaine. He also had a cameo in the 1944 wartime salute Follow the Boys, in which he performed his Mercury Wonder Show magic act and "sawed" Marlene Dietrich in half after Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn refused to allow Hayworth to perform.

In 1944, Welles was offered a new radio show, broadcast only in California, Orson Welles' Almanac. It was another half-hour variety show, with Mobil Oil as sponsor. After the success of his stand-in hosting on The Jack Benny Show, the focus was primarily on comedy. His hosting on the Jack Benny show included several self-deprecating jokes and story lines about his being a "genius" and overriding any ideas advanced by other cast members. The trade papers were not eager to accept Welles as a comedian, and Welles often complained on-air about the poor quality of the scripts. When Welles started his Mercury Wonder Show a few months later, traveling to Armed Forces camps and performing magic tricks and doing comedy, the radio show was broadcast live from the camps and the material took on a decidedly wartime flavor. Of his original Mercury actors, only Agnes Moorehead remained working with him. The series was cancelled by year's end due to poor ratings.

While he found no studio willing to hire him as a film director, Welles's popularity as an actor continued. Pabst Blue Ribbon gave Welles their radio series This Is My Best to direct, but after one month he was fired for creative differences. He started writing a political column for the New York Post, again called Orson Welles's Almanac. While the paper wanted Welles to write about Hollywood gossip, Welles explored serious political issues. His activism for world peace took considerable amounts of his time. The Post column eventually failed in syndication because of contradictory expectations and was dropped by the Post.

Post-war work (1946–1948)

The Stranger

In 1946, International Pictures released Welles's film, The Stranger, starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, and Welles. Sam Spiegel produced the film, which follows the hunt for a Nazi war criminal living under an alias in America. While Anthony Veiller was credited with the screenplay, it had been rewritten by Welles and John Huston. Disputes occurred during the editing process between Spiegel and Welles. The film became a box office success and it helped his standing with the studios.

In the summer of 1946, Welles directed a musical stage version of Around the World in Eighty Days, with a comedic and ironic rewriting of the Jules Verne novel by Welles, incidental music and songs by Cole Porter, and production by Mike Todd, who would later produce the successful film version with David Niven. When Todd pulled out from the lavish and expensive production, Welles alone supported the finances. When he ran out of money at one point, he convinced Columbia president Harry Cohn to send him enough to continue the show, and in exchange, Welles promised to write, produce, direct, and star in a film for Cohn for no further fee. The stage show soon failed, due to poor box-office, with Welles unable to claim the losses on his taxes. The complicated financial arrangements concerning the show, its losses, and Welles's arrangement with Cohn, resulted in a tax dispute with the IRS.

At the same time in 1946 he began two new radio series, The Mercury Summer Theatre for CBS and Orson Welles Commentaries for ABC. While Summer Theatre featured half-hour adaptations of some of the classic Mercury radio shows from the 1930s, the first episode was a condensation of his Around the World stage play, and remains the only record of Cole Porter's music for the project. Several original Mercury actors returned for the series, as well as Bernard Herrmann. It only was scheduled for the summer months, and Welles invested his earnings into his failing stage play. Commentaries was a political vehicle for him, continuing the themes from his New York Post column. Again, Welles lacked a clear focus, until the NAACP brought to his attention the case of Isaac Woodard. Welles brought significant attention to Woodard's cause. Soon Welles was being hanged in effigy in the South and theaters refused to show The Stranger in several southern states.

The Lady from Shanghai

The film Welles was obliged to make for Cohn helping him complete Around the World in Eighty Days ended up being The Lady from Shanghai, filmed in 1947 for Columbia Pictures. Intended to be a modest thriller, the budget skyrocketed after Cohn suggested that Welles's then-estranged second wife Rita Hayworth co-star. Cohn disliked Welles's rough-cut, particularly the confusing plot and lack of close-ups, and was not in sympathy with Welles's Brechtian use of irony and black comedy, especially in a farcical courtroom scene. Cohn ordered extensive editing and re-shoots. After heavy editing by the studio, approximately one hour of Welles's first cut had been removed, including much of a climactic confrontation scene in an amusement park funhouse. While expressing displeasure at the cuts, Welles was appalled particularly at the musical score. The film was considered a disaster in America at the time of release, though the closing shootout in a hall of mirrors has since become one of the touchstones of film noir. Not long after release, Welles and Hayworth finalized their divorce. Although The Lady From Shanghai was acclaimed in Europe, it was not embraced in the U.S. for several decades. Influential modern critics including David Kehr have subsequently declared it a masterpiece, with Kehr calling it "the weirdest great movie ever made." A similar situation occurred when Welles suggested to Charlie Chaplin that he star in a film directed by Welles based on the life of the French serial killer, Henri Désiré Landru. Instead, Chaplin adapted the idea for his own film, Monsieur Verdoux, with Welles officially credited for the idea.

Macbeth

In 1948 Welles convinced Republic Pictures to let him direct a low-budget version of Macbeth, which featured extremely stylized sets and costumes, and a cast of actors lip-syncing to a prerecorded soundtrack, one of many innovative cost-cutting techniques Welles deployed in an attempt to make an epic film from B-movie resources. The script, adapted by Welles, is a violent reworking of the Shakespearean original, freely cutting and pasting lines into new contexts via a collage technique, and recasting Macbeth as a clash of pagan and proto-Christian ideologies. Some of the voodoo trappings of the famous Welles/Houseman Negro Theatre stage adaptation are also visible, especially in the film's characterization of the Weird Sisters, who create an effigy of Macbeth as a charm to enchant him. Of all Welles's post-Kane Hollywood productions, Macbeth is closest to Citizen Kane in its use of long takes and deep focus photography. Shots of the increasingly isolated Scottish king looming in the foreground while other characters address him from deep in the background overtly reference Kane.

Republic initially trumpeted the film as an important work but decided it did not care for the Scottish accents on the soundtrack and held up general release for almost a year after early negative press reaction, which included Life Magazine's comment that Welles's film "doth foully slaughter Shakespeare.'" Welles left for Europe, while his co-producer and life-long supporter Richard Wilson reworked the soundtrack. Welles ultimately returned and cut twenty minutes from the film at Republic's request and recorded narration to cover the gaps. The film was decried as another disaster. Macbeth had its share of influential fans in Europe, especially the French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, who hailed the film's "crude, irreverent power" and careful shot design, and described the characters as haunting "the corridors of some dreamlike subway, an abandoned coal mine, and ruined cellars oozing with water." In the late 1970s, a fully restored version of Macbeth was released that followed Welles's original vision, and all prints of the truncated continuity have gradually been withdrawn from circulation, turning Welles compulsory recut, which has the distinction of being created by the director himself, into something of a lost work.

Welles in Europe (1948–1956)

Welles left Hollywood for Europe in late 1947, enigmatically saying that he had chosen "freedom." In Italy he starred as Cagliostro in the 1948 film Black Magic. His co-star, Akim Tamiroff, impressed Welles so much that Tamiroff would appear in four of Welles's own productions during the 1950s and 1960s.

The Third Man

The following year, Welles starred as Harry Lime in Carol Reed's The Third Man, alongside Joseph Cotten, his good friend and co-star from Citizen Kane, with a script by Graham Greene and a memorable zither score by Anton Karas. The film was an international smash hit, but unfortunately Welles had turned down a percentage of the gross in exchange for a lump-sum advance. A few years later British radio producer Harry Alan Towers would resurrect the Lime character for radio in the series The Lives of Harry Lime. The 1951 series included new recordings by Karas, was very successful, and ran for 52 weeks. Welles claimed to write a handful of episodes—a claim disputed by Towers, who maintains they were written by Ernest Borneman—which later would serve as the basis for the screenplay by Welles, Mr. Arkadin (1955).

Welles also appeared as Cesare Borgia in the 1949 Italian film Prince of Foxes, with Tyrone Power and Mercury Theatre alumnus Everett Sloane, and as the Mongol warrior Bayan in the 1950 film version of the novel The Black Rose (again with Tyrone Power).

Othello

During this time, Welles was channeling his money from acting jobs into a self-financed film version of Shakespeare's play Othello. From 1949 to 1951, Welles worked on Othello, filming on location in Europe and Morocco. The film featured Welles's old friends, Micheál MacLíammóir as Iago and Hilton Edwards as Desdemona's father Brabantio. Suzanne Cloutier starred as Desdemona and Campbell Playhouse alumnus Robert Coote appeared as Iago's associate Roderigo.

in the 1952 film Othello.]]

Filming was suspended several times as Welles ran out of funds and left to find other acting jobs, accounted in detail in MacLiammóir's published memoir Put Money in Thy Purse. When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival it won the Palme d'Or, but was not given a general release in the United States until 1955 (by which time Welles had re-cut the first reel and re-dubbed most of the film, removing Cloutier's voice entirely), and it played only in New York and Los Angeles. The American release prints had a technically flawed soundtrack, suffering from a complete drop-out of sound at every quiet moment. It was one of these flawed prints that was restored by Welles's daughter, Beatrice Welles-Smith in 1992 for a wide re-release. The restoration included reconstructing Angelo Francesco Lavagnino's original musical score (which was inaudible) and adding ambient stereo sound effects (which weren't in the original film). The subject of great controversy among film scholars, the restoration went on to a successful theatrical run in America. A print of the U.S. version was released on laser-disc in 1995 and soon withdrawn after a legal challenge by Beatrice Welles-Smith. The original Cannes version has survived, but is not available commercially.

In 1952 Welles continued finding work in England, after the success of the Harry Lime radio show. Harry Alan Towers offered Welles another series, The Black Museum, with Welles as host and narrator, and this would also run 52 weeks. Director Herbert Wilcox offered him the part of the murdered victim in Trent's Last Case, based on the novel by E. C. Bentley. In 1953 the BBC hired Welles to read an hour of selections from Walt Whitman's epic poem Song of Myself. Towers hired Welles again, to play Professor Moriarty in the radio series, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring John Gielgud, and Ralph Richardson.

Late in 1953, Welles returned to America to star in a live CBS Omnibus television presentation of Shakespeare's King Lear. The cast included MacLiammóir and the British actor, Alan Badel. While Welles received good notices, he was guarded by IRS agents, prohibited to leave his hotel room when not at the studio, prevented from making any purchases, and the entire sum (less expenses) he earned went to his tax bill. Welles returned to England after the broadcast.

In 1954, director George More O'Ferrall offered Welles the title role in the 'Lord Mountdrago' segment of Three Cases of Murder, co-starring Badel. Herbert Wilcox cast him as the antagonist in Trouble in the Glen opposite Margaret Lockwood, Forrest Tucker, and Victor McLaglen. Old friend John Huston cast him as Father Mapple in his 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, starring Gregory Peck.

Mr. Arkadin

Welles's next turn as director was the film Mr. Arkadin (1955), which was produced by his political mentor from the 1940s, Louis Dolivet. It was filmed in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy on a very limited budget. Based loosely on several episodes of the Harry Lime radio show, it stars Welles as a billionaire who hires a man to delve into the secrets of his past. The film stars Robert Arden, who had worked on the Harry Lime series, Welles's third wife, Paola Mori, whose voice was completely dubbed by actress Billie Whitelaw, and guest stars Akim Tamiroff, Michael Redgrave, Katina Paxinou, and Mischa Auer. Frustrated by his slow progress in the editing room, producer Dolivet removed Welles from the project and finished the film without him. Eventually five different versions of the film would be released, two in Spanish and three in English. The version which Dolivet completed was retitled Confidential Report. In 2005 Stefan Droessler of the Munich Filmmuseum oversaw a reconstruction of the surviving film elements. Released on DVD by the Criterion Company, it is considered by Welles scholar and director Peter Bogdanovich to be the best version of Welles's original intentions for the film.

In 1955 Welles also directed two television series for the BBC. The first was The Orson Welles Sketchbook, a series of six 15-minute shows featuring Welles drawing in a sketchbook to illustrate his reminiscences for the camera (including such topics as the filming of It's All True and the Isaac Woodard case), and the second was Around the World with Orson Welles, a series of six travelogues set in different locations around Europe (such as Venice, the Basque Country between France and Spain, and England). Welles served as host and interviewer, his commentary including documentary facts and his own personal observations (a technique he would continue to explore). A seventh episode of this series, based on the Gaston Dominici case, was suppressed at the time by the French government, but was reconstructed after Welles's death and released to video in 1999.

In 1956 Welles completed Portrait of Gina, posthumously aired on German television under the title Viva Italia, a 30-minute personal essay on Gina Lollobrigida and the general subject of Italian sex symbols. Dissatisfied with the results—Welles recalled he had worked on it a lot and the result looked like it—he left the only print behind at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The film cans would remain in a lost-and-found locker at the hotel for several decades, where they were discovered after Welles's death.

Return to Hollywood (1956–1959)

In 1956, Welles returned to Hollywood, guesting on radio shows (notably as narrator of Tomorrow, a nuclear holocaust drama produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration). He guest starred on television shows, including I Love Lucy, and began filming a projected pilot for Desilu, owned by Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, who had recently purchased the former RKO studios. The film was The Fountain of Youth, based on a story by John Collier. Originally deemed not viable as a pilot, the film wasn't aired until 1958. It won the Peabody Award for excellence. Welles's next feature film role was in Man in the Shadow for Universal Pictures in 1957, starring Jeff Chandler. Around this time period, however, Welles began to suffer from weight problems that would eventually deteriorate his health conditions.

Touch of Evil

Welles stayed on at Universal to direct (and co-star with) Charlton Heston in the 1958 film Touch of Evil, based on Whit Masterson's novel Badge of Evil (Welles, who wrote the screenplay for the film, claimed never to have read the book). Originally only hired as an actor, Welles was promoted to director by Universal Studios at the suggestion (and insistence) of Charlton Heston. Reuniting many actors and technicians with whom he'd worked in Hollywood in the 1940s (including cameraman Russell Metty (The Stranger), make-up artist Maurice Siederman (Citizen Kane), and actors Joseph Cotten, Marlene Dietrich, and Akim Tamiroff), filming proceeded smoothly, with Welles finishing on schedule and on budget, and the studio bosses praising the daily rushes. After the end of production, the studio re-edited the film, re-shot scenes, and shot new exposition scenes to clarify the plot. Welles wrote a 58-page memo outlining suggestions and objections. The studio followed a few of the ideas, but cut another 30 minutes from the film and released it. The film was widely praised across Europe, awarded the top prize at the Brussels World's Fair. In 1978, the long preview version of the film was rediscovered and released. In 1998, editor Walter Murch and producer Rick Schmidlin, consulting the original memo, used a workprint version to attempt to create a version of the film as close as possible to that outlined in the memo. This is at best a compromise that should not be mistaken for Welles's original intent. Welles stated in that memo that the film was no longer his version—it was the studio's, but as such, he was still prepared to help them with it.

As Universal reworked Touch of Evil, Welles began filming his adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote in Mexico, starring Mischa Auer as Quixote and Akim Tamiroff as Sancho Panza. While filming would continue in fits and starts for several years, Welles would never complete the project.

Welles continued acting, notably in The Long, Hot Summer (1958) and Compulsion (1959), but soon returned to Europe.

Return to Europe (1959–1970)

He continued shooting Don Quixote in Spain, but replaced Mischa Auer with Francisco Reiguera, and resumed acting jobs. In Italy in 1959, Welles directed his own scenes as King Saul in Richard Pottier's film David and Goliath. In Hong Kong he co-starred with Curd Jürgens in Lewis Gilbert's film Ferry to Hong Kong. In 1960, in Paris he co-starred in Richard Fleischer's film Crack in the Mirror. In Yugoslavia he starred in Richard Thorpe's film The Tartars.

By this time he had ceased filming Quixote. Though he would continue toying with the editing well into the 1970s, he never completed the film. As the process went on, Welles gradually voiced all of the characters himself and provided narration. In 1992, the director Jesús Franco constructed a film out of the portions of Quixote left behind by Welles. Some of the film stock had decayed badly. While the Welles footage was greeted with interest, the post-production by Franco was met with harsh criticism.

In 1961 Welles directed In the Land of Don Quixote, a series of eight half-hour episodes for the Italian television network RAI. Similar to the Around the World with Orson Welles series, they presented travelogues of Spain and included Welles's wife, Paola, and their daughter, Beatrice. Though Welles was fluent in Italian, the network was not interested in him providing Italian narration because of his accent, and the series sat unreleased until 1964, by which time the network had added Italian narration of its own. Ultimately, versions of the episodes were released with the original musical score Welles had approved, but without the narration.

The Trial

In 1962 Welles directed his adaptation of The Trial, based on the novel by Franz Kafka and produced by Alexander Salkind and Michael Salkind. The cast included Anthony Perkins as Josef K, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Paola Mori and Akim Tamiroff. While filming exteriors in Zagreb, Welles was informed that the Salkinds had run out of money, meaning that there could be no set construction. No stranger to shooting on found locations, Welles soon filmed the interiors in the Gare d'Orsay, at that time an abandoned railway station in Paris. Welles thought the location possessed a "Jules Verne modernism" and a melancholy sense of "waiting", both suitable for Kafka. The film failed at the box-office. Peter Bogdanovich would later observe that Welles found the film riotously funny. During the filming, Welles met Oja Kodar, who would later become his muse, star and partner for the last twenty years of his life. Welles also stated in an interview with the BBC that it was his best film.

Welles played a film director in La Ricotta (1963)—Pier Paolo Pasolini's segment of the Ro.Go.Pa.G. movie, although his renowned voice was dubbed by Italian writer Giorgio Bassani. He continued taking what work he could find acting, narrating or hosting other people's work, and began filming Chimes at Midnight, which was completed in 1966. Filmed in Spain, it was a condensation of five Shakespeare plays, telling the story of Falstaff and his relationship with Prince Hal. The cast included Keith Baxter, John Gielgud, Jeanne Moreau, Fernando Rey and Margaret Rutherford, with narration by Ralph Richardson. Music was again by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino. Jess Franco served as second unit director.

Chimes at Midnight

Chimes at Midnight was based on Welles's play Five Kings which condensed five of Shakespeare's plays into one show in order to focus on the story of Falstaff. Welles produced the show in New York in 1939 but the opening night, where part 1 was acted, was a disaster and part 2 was never put on. He revamped the show and revisited it in 1960 at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. But again, it was not successful. However, this later production was used as the base for the movie. The script contained text from five history plays: primarily Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2, but also Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Keith Baxter played Prince Hal, and internationally respected Shakespearean interpreter, John Gielgud, played the King, Henry IV. The film's narration, spoken by Ralph Richardson, is taken from the chronicler Raphael Holinshed. According to Jeanne Moreau, Welles delayed filming for two weeks due to stage fright. Welles held this film in high regard and considered it, along with The Trial, his best work. As he remarked in 1982, "If I wanted to get into heaven on the basis of one movie, that's the one I'd offer up."

In 1966, Welles directed a film for French television, an adaptation of The Immortal Story, by Karen Blixen. Released in 1968, it stars Jeanne Moreau, Roger Coggio and Norman Eshley. The film had a successful run in French theaters. At this time Welles met Kodar again, and gave her a letter he had written to her and had been keeping for four years; they would not be parted again. They immediately began a collaboration both personal and professional. The first of these was an adaptation of Isak Dinesen's The Heroine, meant to be a companion piece to The Immortal Story and starring Kodar. Unfortunately, funding disappeared after one day's shooting. After completing this film, he appeared in a brief cameo as Cardinal Wolsey in Fred Zinnemann's adaptation of A Man for All Seasons—a role for which he won considerable acclaim.

In 1967 Welles began directing The Deep, based on the novel Dead Calm by Charles F. Williams and filmed off the shore of Yugoslavia. The cast included Jeanne Moreau, Laurence Harvey and Kodar. Personally financed by Welles and Kodar, they could not obtain the funds to complete the project, and it was abandoned a few years later after the death of Harvey. The surviving footage was eventually edited and released by the Filmmuseum München. In 1968 Welles began filming a TV special for CBS under the title Orson's Bag, combining travelogue, comedy skits and a condensation of Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice with Welles as Shylock. Funding for the show sent by CBS to Welles in Switzerland was seized by the IRS. Without funding, the show was not completed. The surviving film clips portions were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München.

In 1969, Welles authorized the use of his name for a cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Orson Welles Cinema remained in operation until 1986, with Welles making a personal appearance there in 1977. Also in 1969 he played a supporting role in John Huston's The Kremlin Letter. Drawn by the numerous offers he received to work in television and films, and upset by a tabloid scandal reporting his affair with Kodar, Welles abandoned the editing of Don Quixote and moved back to America in 1970.

Final years (1970–1985)

Welles returned to Hollywood, where he continued to self-finance his own film and television projects. While offers to act, narrate and host continued, Welles also found himself in great demand on talk shows, and made frequent appearances for Dick Cavett, Johnny Carson, Dean Martin, and Merv Griffin. Welles's primary focus in this period was filming The Other Side of the Wind, a project that took six years to film but has remained unfinished and unreleased. An early role was portraying Louis XVIII of France in Waterloo (1970). Welles also narrated the beginning and ending scenes of the Bud Yorkin historical comedy Start the Revolution Without Me, which starred Gene Wilder, Donald Sutherland, and Hugh Griffith, among others.

(1974)]] In 1971 Welles directed a short adaptation of Moby-Dick, a one-man performance on a bare stage, reminiscent of his stage production Moby Dick Rehearsed from the 1950s. Never completed, it was eventually released by the Filmmuseum München. He also appeared in La Décade prodigieuse, co-starring with Anthony Perkins and directed by Claude Chabrol, based on a detective novel by Ellery Queen. That same year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an honorary award "For superlative artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures". Welles pretended to be out of town and sent John Huston to claim the award. Huston criticized the Academy for awarding Welles while they refused to give him any work.

In 1972, Welles acted as on-screen narrator for the film documentary version of Alvin Toffler's 1970 book Future Shock.

The following year, Welles completed F for Fake, a personal essay film about art forger Elmyr de Hory and the biographer Clifford Irving. Based on an existing documentary by François Reichenbach, it included new material with Oja Kodar, Joseph Cotten, Paul Stewart and William Alland. An excerpt of Welles's 1930s War of the Worlds broadcast was recreated for this film, however none of the dialogue heard in the film actually matches what was originally broadcast. Welles filmed a five minute trailer, rejected in the US, that featured several shots of a topless Kodar.

Working again for a British producer, Welles played Long John Silver in director John Hough's Treasure Island (1972), an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, which had been the second story broadcast by The Mercury Theatre on the Air in 1938. Welles also contributed to the script, his writing credit was attributed to the pseudonym 'O. W. Jeeves'. Welles original recorded dialog was re dubbed by Robert Rietty. in the film Treasure Island]]

Welles hosted and narrated a syndicated anthology series, Orson Welles's Great Mysteries, over the 1973-1974 television season. It did not last beyond that season; however, the program could be perceived as a television revival of the Mercury Theatre whose executive producer Welles had been in the 1930s and 1940s.

In 1975, Welles narrated the documentary , focusing on Warner Bros. cartoons from the 1940s. Also in 1975, the American Film Institute presented Welles with its third Lifetime Achievement Award (the first two going to director John Ford and actor James Cagney). At the ceremony, Welles screened two scenes from the nearly finished The Other Side of the Wind. Filming had begun in 1972 and by 1976, Welles had almost completed the film. Financed by Iranian backers, ownership of the film fell into a legal quagmire after the Shah of Iran was deposed. Written by Welles, the story told of a destructive old film director looking for funds to complete his final film. It starred John Huston and the cast included Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg, Norman Foster, Edmond O'Brien, Cameron Mitchell, and Dennis Hopper. While there have been several reports of all the legal disputes concerning ownership of the film being settled, enough disputes still exist to prevent its release. The Showtime cable network has promised support for the project should the various entanglements associated with it be resolved.

In 1979 Welles completed his documentary Filming Othello, which featured Michael MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards. Made for West German television, it was also released in theaters. That same year, Welles completed his self-produced pilot for The Orson Welles Show television series, featuring interviews with Burt Reynolds, Jim Henson and Frank Oz and guest-starring The Muppets and Angie Dickinson. Unable to find network interest, the pilot was never broadcast.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Welles participated in a series of famous television commercial advertisements, acting as the on-camera spokesman for the Paul Masson wine company. The sign-off phrase of the commercials—"We will sell no wine before its time"—became a national catchphrase. He was also the voice behind the long-running Carlsberg "Probably the best lager in the world" campaign. The "probably" tag is still in use today. In 1979 Welles also appeared in the biopic The Secret of Nikola Tesla, and a cameo in The Muppet Movie as Lew Lord.

In 1981, Welles hosted the documentary The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, about Renaissance-era prophet Nostradamus. In 1982 the BBC broadcast The Orson Welles Story in the Arena series. Interviewed by Leslie Megahey, Welles examined his past in great detail, and several people from his professional past were interviewed as well. It was reissued in 1990 as With Orson Welles: Stories of a Life in Film. Welles provided narration for the tracks "Defender" from Manowar's album Fighting the World and "Dark Avenger" on Manowar's 1982 album, Battle Hymns. His name was misspelled on the latter album, as he was credited as "Orson Wells".

During the 1980s, Welles worked on such film projects as The Dreamers, based on two stories by Isak Dinesen and starring Oja Kodar, and The Orson Welles Magic Show, which reused material from his failed TV pilot. Another project he worked on was Filming The Trial, the second in a proposed series of documentaries examining his feature films. While much was shot for these projects, none of them was completed. All of them were eventually released by the Filmmuseum München.

In 1984, Welles narrated the short-lived television series Scene of the Crime. During the early years of Magnum, P.I., Welles was the voice of the unseen character Robin Masters, a famous writer and playboy. Welles's death forced this minor character to largely be written out of the series. In an oblique homage to Welles, the Magnum, P.I. producers ambiguously concluded that story arc by having one character accuse another of having hired an actor to portray Robin Masters.

The last film roles before Welles's death included voice work in the animated films The Enchanted Journey (1984) and (1986), in which he played the planet-eating robot Unicron. His last film appearance was in Henry Jaglom's 1987 independent film Someone to Love, released after his death but produced before his voice-over in Transformers: The Movie. His last television appearance was on the television show Moonlighting. He recorded an introduction to an episode entitled "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice", which was partially filmed in black and white. The episode aired five days after his death and was dedicated to his memory.

Death

On October 10, 1985, Welles did his final interview on The Merv Griffin Show. He died two hours later of a heart attack at his home in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California. Welles' ashes were buried on the property of a long time friend, retired bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez, in Ronda, Spain.

Personal life

In 1932, Welles fell in love with the Mexican actress Dolores del Río. They lived a torrid romance between 1938 and 1942, though he was ten years her junior. They collaborated together in the movie Journey into Fear but the affair ended soon afterward.

In 1934, Welles eloped with Chicago-born actress and socialite Virginia Nicolson. They divorced in 1940 after Welles's affair with Vera Zorina was vaguely mentioned in Walter Winchell's column.

Welles married Rita Hayworth in 1943. The couple had been estranged during the making of The Lady from Shanghai. After five years, Rita filed for divorce, her reason to the press being, "I can't take his genius any more." During his last interview and only two hours before his death, Welles answered Merv Griffin's suggestive comment "But one of your wives--oh, I have envied you so many years for Rita Hayworth", by calling her "one of the dearest and sweetest women that ever lived" and saying that he was "lucky enough to have been with her longer than any of the other men in her life."

In 1955 Welles married Italian actress Paola Mori (Countess Paola Di Girifalco). Estranged for decades, the couple were never divorced. Croatian-born actress Oja Kodar became Welles's longtime companion both personally and professionally from 1966 on. They lived together for the last twenty-four years of his life. A year after Orson's death, Paola and Oja finally agreed on the settling of his will. On the way to their meeting to sign the papers, however, Paola was killed in a car accident.

Welles had three children: author Christopher Welles, or Chris Welles Feder (born in 1938, with Virginia Nicolson), Rebecca Welles Manning (born December 17, 1944 - died October 14, 2004, with Rita Hayworth) and Beatrice Welles (born in 1955, with Paola Mori).

According to a 1941 physical exam taken when he was 26, Welles was tall and weighed . His eyes were brown. Other sources cite that he was tall, but the slates from costume tests made during the 1940s show him as . Welles gained a significant amount of weight in his 40s, eventually rendering him morbidly obese, at one point weighing nearly four hundred pounds (181.4 kg). His obesity was severe to the point that it restricted his ability to travel, aggravated other health conditions, including his asthma, and even required him to go on a diet in order to play Sir John Falstaff. Some have attributed his over-eating and drinking to depression over his marginalization by the Hollywood system.

In April 1982, Merv Griffin interviewed Welles and asked about his religious beliefs. Welles replied, "I try to be a Christian, I don't pray really, because I don't want to bore God." After the success of his 1941 film Citizen Kane, Welles announced that his next film would be about the life of Jesus Christ, and that he would play the lead role. However, Welles never got around to making the film. He narrated the Christian–documentary The Late, Great Planet Earth as well as the 1961 Biblical film about the life of Christ, King of Kings.

Some of Welles's claimed familial ties have not held up under scrutiny. Despite the persistent urban legend, promoted by Welles himself, he was not the great-grandson of Abraham Lincoln's wartime Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles. Perhaps the genesis of the myth dates to a 1970 interview on The Dick Cavett Show during which Welles remarks about his venerable great-grandfather Gideon Welles. Orson Welles's father was Richard Head Welles, son of his paternal grandfather Richard Jones Welles; Gideon Welles had no son by that name. His sons were Hubert (1833–1862), John Arthur (1845–1883), Thomas G. (1846–1892), and Edgar Thaddeus Welles (1843–1914).

Politics

Welles was politically active from the beginning of his career. He remained a man of the left throughout his life, and always defined his political orientation as "progressive". He was a strong supporter of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, and often spoke out on radio in support of progressive politics. In particular, he was an early and outspoken critic of American racism and the practice of segregation. He campaigned heavily for Roosevelt in the 1944 election. For several years, he wrote a newspaper column on political issues and briefly toyed with running for office. In 1970, Welles narrated (but did not write) a satirical political record on the administration of President Richard Nixon entitled The Begatting of the President.

In the 2006 book, Whatever Happened to Orson Welles?, writer Joseph McBride made several controversial claims about Welles. Though Welles said otherwise during his lifetime, McBride claimed Welles left America in the late 1940s to escape McCarthyism and the blacklist. McBride also claimed, in spite of the sexual content of Welles's contemporary work (F for Fake and the unfinished Other Side of the Wind), that Welles was extremely puritanical about sex based on his comment to Peter Bogdanovich that The Last Picture Show was "a dirty movie"

Welles once told Cahiers du cinéma about sex in film, "In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God."

Unfinished projects

Welles's reliance on self-production meant that many of his later projects were filmed piecemeal or were not completed. Welles financed his later projects through his own fundraising activities. He often also took on other work to obtain money to fund his own films.

Don Quixote

In the mid-1950s, Welles began work on Don Quixote, initially a commission from CBS television. Welles expanded the film to feature length, developing the screenplay to take Quixote and Sancho Panza into the modern age. Filming stopped with the death of Francisco Reiguera, the actor playing Quixote, in 1969. Orson Welles continued editing the film into the early 1970s. At the time of his death, the film remained largely a collection of footage in various states of editing. The project and more importantly Welles's conception of the project changed radically over time. A version of the film was created from available fragments in 1992 and released to a very negative reception.

The Merchant of Venice

In 1969 Welles was given another TV commission to film a condensed adaptation of The Merchant of Venice. Although Welles had actually completed the film by 1970 the finished negative was later mysteriously stolen from his Rome production office.

The Other Side of the Wind

In 1970 Welles began shooting The Other Side of the Wind. The film relates the efforts of a film director (played by John Huston) to complete his last Hollywood picture and is largely set at a lavish party. By 1972 the filming was reported by Welles as being "96% complete", though it is likely that Welles had only edited about 40 minutes of the film by 1979. In that year, legal complications over the ownership of the film forced the negative into a Paris vault where it remained until 2004, when Peter Bogdanovich (who also acted in the film) announced his intention to complete the production. As of 2009, legal complications over the Welles estate have kept the film from being finished or released. Some footage is included in the documentary Working with Orson Welles (1993).

Other unfinished projects

Heart of Darkness - Welles' projected first film in 1940, planned in extreme detail and with some test shots filmed. (The footage is now lost) It was planned to be entirely shot in long takes from the narrator's point of view, who would be played by Welles seeing his own reflection in the window as his boat sailed down river. The project was abandoned because it could not be delivered on budget, and Citizen Kane was made instead. Mr. American Early 1940 drafts of Citizen Kane were based far more overtly on the life of Howard Hughes than on William Randolph Hearst, and would have made for a substantially different picture.

It's All True - see above for the genesis of this project. Welles did not originally want to direct this 1942 documentary on South America, but after its abandonment by RKO, he spent much of the 1940s attempting to buy the negative of his material from RKO, so that he could edit and release it in some form. The footage remained unseen in vaults for decades, and was assumed lost. Over 50 years later, some (but not all) of the surviving material saw release in the 1993 documentary It's All True: Based on an Unfinished Film by Orson Welles.

Cyrano de Bergerac - Welles spent around nine months c. 1947-8 co-writing the screenplay for this along with Ben Hecht, a project Welles was assigned to direct for Alexander Korda. He began scouting for locations in Europe whilst filming Black Magic, but Korda was short of money, so sold the rights to Columbia pictures, who eventually dismissed Welles from the project, and then sold the rights on to United Artists, who in turn made a film version in 1950, which was not based on Welles' script. Around the World in 80 Days - After Welles' elaborate musical stageshow of this Jules Verne novel, encompassing 38 different sets, he began shooting some test footage in Morocco for a film version in 1947. The footage was never edited, funding never came through, and Welles abandoned the project. Nine years later, the stage show's producer Mike Todd made his own award-winning film version of the book. Moby Dick Rehearsed - a film version of Welles' 1955 London metaplay, starring Gordon Jackson, Christopher Lee, Patrick McGoohan, and with Welles as Ahab. Using bare, minimalist sets, Welles alternated between a cast of nineteenth-century actors rehearsing a production of Moby Dick, with scenes from Moby Dick itself. Kenneth Williams, a cast member who was apprehensive about the entire project, recorded in his autobiography that Welles' dim, atmospheric stage lighting made some of the footage so dark as to be unwatchable. The entire play was filmed, but is now presumed lost. The recording was made during one weekend at the Hackney Empire theatre. The producers of Histoires extraordinaires, the 1968 anthology film based on short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, announced in June 1967 that Welles would direct one segment based on both "Masque of the Red Death" and "The Cask of Amontillado" for the omnibus film. Welles withdrew in September 1967 and was replaced. The script, written in English by Welles and Oja Kodar, is in the Filmmuseum Munchen collection. One-Man Band, a Monty Python-esque spoof in which Welles plays all but one of the characters (including two characters in drag), made c.1968-9. Welles intended this completed sketch to be one of several items in a television special on London. Other items filmed for this special - all included in the "One Man Band" documentary by his partner Oja Kodar - comprised a sketch on Winston Churchill (played in silhouette by Welles), a sketch on peers in a stately home, a feature on London gentlemen's clubs, and a sketch featuring Welles being mocked by his snide Savile Row tailor (played by Charles Gray).

Treasure Island - Welles wrote two screenplays for this in the 1960s, and was eager to seek financial backing to direct it. Eventually, his own screenplay (under the pseudonym of O.W. Jeeves) was further rewritten, and formed the basis of the 1972 film version directed by John Hough, in which Welles played Long John Silver.

The Deep, an adaptation of Charles Williams' Dead Calm. The picture was entirely set on two boats and shot mostly in close-ups, and was filmed off the coasts of Yugoslavia and the Bahamas, between 1966 and 1969, with all but one scene completed. Originally planned as commercially viable thriller, to show that Welles could make a popular, successful film. It was shelved in 1970 when Welles worried that critics would not respond favourably to this film as his theatrical follow-up to the much-lauded Chimes at Midnight, and Welles focussed instead on F for Fake. It was abandoned altogether in 1973 due to the death of its star Laurence Harvey. The Munich Film Museum holds a restored copy, with title cards filling out the missing scene.

Filming The Trial - after the success of his 1978 film Filming Othello made for West German television, and mostly consisting of a monologue to the camera, Welles began shooting scenes for this follow-up film, but never completed it.

The Big Brass Ring, the script of which was eventually adapted and filmed by George Hickenlooper in 1999 as a play-within-a-film, about Orson Welles' production of the play. Welles' complete screenplay was one of his last projects, written in 1985.

King Lear - at the time of his death, Welles was in talks with a French production company to direct a film version of the Shakespeare play, in which he would also play the title role.

An adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada for which Welles flew to Paris to discuss the project personally with the Russian author.

Cultural depictions

The 1996 documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane chronicles the battle between Welles and Hearst. A 1999 HBO docudrama, RKO 281, tells the story of the making of Citizen Kane, starring Liev Schreiber as Orson Welles.

Tim Robbins's 1999 film Cradle Will Rock chronicles the process and events surrounding Welles and John Houseman's production of the 1937 musical by Marc Blitzstein. In it Welles is played by actor Angus MacFadyen.

Playwright and actor Austin Pendleton wrote the play Orson's Shadow about Welles and his collaboration with Laurence Olivier. It deals with the time that Welles directed Laurence Olivier in a production of Eugène Ionesco's play Rhinoceros. According to this play, Welles privately disliked Olivier's film adaptations of Shakespeare's works (which were far more successful than Welles's), at one point stating that Olivier's film of Hamlet "looked like a Joan Crawford movie". Welles struggled with getting Olivier to play not merely someone lower-class (as he did in The Entertainer) but getting Olivier to play someone utterly non-descript.

Author Kim Newman has featured Orson Welles as a character in several stories from his Anno Dracula series.

In the Tim Burton-directed biopic Ed Wood (1994), Welles (played by Vincent D'Onofrio and dubbed by Maurice LaMarche) makes a brief "cameo appearance", giving advice to director Edward D. Wood, Jr. who idolises Welles. Inspired, Wood proceeds to finish his film Plan 9 from Outer Space, sometimes called one of the worst films of all time. Though Ed Wood is based on Wood's life, in reality the scene is entirely fictional: Wood never met Orson Welles. D'Onofrio would again portray Welles in the 2005 30-minute film Five Minutes Mr. Welles concerning Welles' role in the film The Third Man.

Although the character Brain from the animated series Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain was not initially modeled after Welles, Maurice LaMarche was shown a picture of Brain and tasked with finding a voice for the character. LaMarche immediately thought of Welles and decided to do his Welles impersonation. LaMarche also played Welles in The Critic (where his "later work", ads for such products as 'Mrs. Pell's Fishsticks', is referenced) and in the Futurama episode "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences", in which he performs a WOTW-like play.

One of the recurring celebrity characters on the influential Canadian sketch comedy TV show Second City Television (SCTV) was John Candy's impersonation of Welles. ON SCTV, Candy-as-Welles appeared in an embarrassing array of commercials, talk shows, and other low-budget productions. It's unknown whether or not Welles ever saw Candy's impersonation.

Me and Orson Welles, released in November 2009, stars Zac Efron as a teenager who convinces Welles (Christian McKay) to cast him in Welles's 1937 production of Julius Caesar, based on Robert Kaplow's novel.

The final segment of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XVII features a parody of Welles's 1938 War Of The Worlds radio broadcast in which, having been fooled once, the people of Springfield refuse to believe that an actual alien invasion is taking place. Welles was again voiced by Maurice LaMarche in the episode.

Acclaim

Citizen Kane was nominated for numerous prizes at the 1941 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role. The only Oscar won, however, was Best Original Screenplay, which Welles shared with Herman J. Mankiewicz. Welles later gave his statuette to cinematographer Gary Garver as payment for services rendered. Also, the film The Magnificent Ambersons was nominated for Best Picture, a year later.

The Stranger was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1947. Welles himself was awarded a Career Golden Lion in 1970.

In 1952, Welles's Othello won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Welles was nominated for Best Foreign Actor in a Leading Role at the 1968 BAFTA Awards for his performance in Chimes at Midnight.

Welles was given the first Career Golden Lion award in the Venice Film Festival in 1970.

In 1970, Welles won an Honorary Academy Award for "superlative and distinguished service in the making of motion pictures." In light of his poor treatment by the Academy and by the American film industry in general, Welles did not attend the ceremony. In 1970, he was awarded the French Légion d'honneur, the highest civilian decoration in France. Welles was also a distinguished Foreign Member of the Académie française, succeeded by Peter Ustinov.

Welles was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Film Institute in 1975.

In 1978, Welles was presented with the Los Angeles Film Critics Career Achievement Award.

Welles was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1979.

In 1982, Welles was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globe Awards for his role in Butterfly, and won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Recording for his role on Donovan's Brain.

Welles was awarded a Fellowship of the British Film Institute in 1983.

In 1984, Welles was given the D. W. Griffith Award of the Directors Guild of America.

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Welles as the 16th Greatest Male Star of All Time.

When asked to describe Welles's influence, Jean-Luc Godard remarked: "Everyone will always owe him everything." (Ciment, 42)

A highly divergent genus of Hawaiian spiders "Orsonwelles" is named in his honor (Hormiga et al. 2003)

He won three Grammy Awards, each win in the category of Best Spoken Word Recording: in 1976, for "Great American Documents" (shared with Helen Hayes, Henry Fonda and James Earl Jones; in 1978, for the original motion picture soundtrack to Citizen Kane; and in 1981, for a recording of Donovan's Brain.

Filmography and awards

References

Bibliography

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Bazin, Andre: Orson Welles, Harper and Row, 1978

Benamou, Catherine L.: It's All True: Orson Welles's Pan-American Odyssey, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007

Beja, Morris, ed.: Perspectives on Orson Welles, G. K. Hall, 1995

Berg, Chuck and Erskine, Tom, ed.: The Encyclopedia of Orson Welles, Checkmark Books, 2003

Bessy, Maurice: Orson Welles: An investigation into his films and philosophy, Crown, 1971

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Comito, Terry, ed.: Touch of Evil, Rutgers, 1985

Conrad, Peter: Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life, London: Faber and Faber, 2003

Cowie, Peter: The Cinema of Orson Welles, Da Capo Press, 1973.

D'Angela, Toni (ed.), Nelle terre di Orson Welles, Alessandria: Edizioni Falsopiano 2004.

Davies, Anthony: Filming Shakespeare's Plays, Cambridge University Press, 1988

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Estrin, Mark: Orson Welles Interviews, University Press of Mississippi, 2002

Feder, Chris Welles: In My Father's Shadow: a Daughter Remembers Orson Welles, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009

France, Richard, ed.: Orson Welles on Shakespeare, London: Routledge, 2001

France, Richard: "The Theatre of Orson Welles", Bucknell University Press, 1977

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Higham, Charles: The Films of Orson Welles, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970

Higham, Charles: "Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of an American Genius", New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985

Hormiga, G., M.A. Arnedo & R.G. Gillespie, 2003, "Speciation on a Conveyor Belt: Sequential Colonization of the Hawaiian Islands by "Orsonwelles" spiders (Araneae: Linyphiidae)., Syst. Biol. 52, 89-109.

Howard, James: "The Complete Films of Orson Welles", Citadel Press, 1991

Ishaghpour, Youssef: Orson Welles, cinéaste, une caméra visible, éditions de la différence, 2001

Jorgens, Jack J.: Shakespeare on Film, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977

Leaming, Barbara: Orson Welles, New York: Viking, 1985

Lyons, Bridget Gellert, ed.: Chimes at Midnight, Rutgers, 1988

Mac Liammóir, Micháel. Put Money in Thy Purse: The Filming of Orson Welles's Othello, Virgin, 1994

McBride, Joseph: Orson Welles, Harcourt Brace, 1977

McBride, Joseph: Orson Welles, Da Capo Press, 1996.

Mulvey, Laura: Citizen Kane, London: BFI, 1992

Naremore, James. The Magic World of Orson Welles, Southern Methodist University Press, 1989.

Naremore, James, ed.: Orson Welles's Citizen Kane: a Casebook, Oxford University Press, 2004

Noble, Peter: The Fabulous Orson Welles, London: Hutchinson and Co., 1956

Perkins, V. F.: The Magnificent Ambersons, London: BFI, 1999

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: "Orson Welles's Essay Films and Documentary Fictions", in Placing Movies, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: "The Battle Over Orson Welles", in Essential Cinema, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: "Orson Welles as Ideological Challenge" in Movie Wars, A Capella Books, 2000

Rosenbaum, Jonathan: Discovering Orson Welles, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007

Shakespeare Bulletin, Volume 23, Number 1, Spring 2005: Special Welles issue.

Simon, William G., ed.: "Special Welles issue", in: Persistence of Vision: the Journal of the Film Faculty of the City University of New York; Number 7, 1988

Simonson, Robert. "Orson's Shadow Talkback Series Continues May 4 with Welles's Daughter." 3 May 2005

Taylor, John Russell: Orson Welles: a Celebration, Pavilion, 1986

Taylor, John Russell: Orson Welles, Pavilion, 1998

Walsh, John Evangelist: Walking Shadows: Orson Welles, William Randolph Hearst and Citizen Kane, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004

Walters, Ben: Welles, London: Haus Publishing, 2004 ISBN 978-1-904341-80-2

Welles, Orson: Les Bravades, Workman, 1996

Welles, Orson and Bogdanovich, Peter: This is Orson Welles, Da Capo Press, 1998.

Welles, Orson: Mr. Arkadin, London: HarperCollins, 2006

Welles, Orson: The Big Brass Ring, Black Spring Press, 1991

Welles, Orson: The Cradle Will Rock, Santa Teresa Press, 1994

Welles, Orson: "The Other Side of the Wind", in: Cahiers du cinéma/ Festival International du Film de Locarno, 2005

White, Rob: The Third Man, London: BFI, 2003

Wood, Bret: Orson Welles: a Bio-Bibliography, Greenwood Blue, 1990

External links

Wellesnet

Orson Welles - The One Man Band (1995)

Senses of Cinema Great Directors Critical Database: Orson Welles

Orson Welles bibliography

Orsonwelles.co.uk

Mercury Theatre on the Air

The Unseen Welles

Guide to the Orson Welles Materials: Lily Library, Indiana University

Category:1915 births Category:1985 deaths Category:American expatriates in Spain Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American film editors Category:American film producers Category:American magicians Category:American people of English descent Category:American radio actors Category:American radio personalities Category:American radio producers Category:American screenwriters Category:American theatre directors Category:Best Original Screenplay Academy Award winners Category:California Democrats Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:Grammy Award winners Category:People from Kenosha, Wisconsin Category:School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Category:Shakespearean actors Category:Special effects people Category:Woodstock, Illinois Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients

Name	Seymour Cassel
Birthname	Seymour Joseph Cassel
Birthdate	January 22, 1935
Birthplace	Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Yearsactive	1959–present

Seymour Joseph Cassel (born January 22, 1935) is an American actor.

Life and career

Cassel was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Pancretia Ann (née Kearney) and Seymour Joseph Cassel.

Cassel's early career was tied to fellow actor John Cassavetes. He made his movie debut in Cassavetes' first film, Shadows, on which he also served as associate producer. In 1961 he co-starred with Cassavetes in Too Late Blues and 1962's The Webster Boy. He also appeared in The Lloyd Bridges Show in an acclaimed episode "A Pair of Boots" directed by his friend Cassavetes. Cassel appeared on such popular programs as Twelve O'Clock High, Combat! and The F.B.I.. He also appeared as Colonel Gumm's henchman, "Cancelled" in the 1960s "Batman" tv episode, "A Piece of the Action", which also introduced Van Williams and Bruce Lee as The Green Hornet and Kato respectively.

In 1968, Cassel was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Chet in John Cassavetes's Faces. Other collaborations with Cassavetes included a starring role with Gena Rowlands in Minnie and Moskowitz, supporting roles in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Love Streams, and a cameo appearance in Opening Night. Having also appeared in major Hollywood productions such as Dick Tracy and Indecent Proposal, Cassel has always been very supportive of the American independent film community, especially in the wake of Cassavetes' death. Cassel had a small role in Steve Buscemi's directorial debut Trees Lounge and appeared in three films by Wes Anderson: Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic. Cassel appeared for four seasons in comedian Tracey Ullman's hit television series, Tracey Takes On....

In 2006, he co-starred in the NBC TV series Heist. In September 2007, Cassell was a candidate for national president of the Screen Actors Guild, along with Charley M. De La Peña, Alan Rosenberg (incumbent), and Barry Simmonds.

In 2009 Cassell was once again a candidate for national president of the Screen Actors Guild along with Anne Marie Johnson and Ken Howard. Howard was the eventual winner and is current President of the Screen Actors Guild.

In the 2007 Biography Slash, the former Guns N' Roses guitarist Saul Hudson and friend of Cassel's son, credited Cassel with giving him the nickname "Slash" because he was always on the go zipping from one place to another and never sitting still.

Filmography

Shadows (1959)

Faces (1968)

Coogan's Bluff (1968)

The Revolutionary (1970)

Minnie and Moskowitz (1971)

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

Black Oak Conspiracy (1977)

Valentino (1977)

Opening Night (1978)

California Dreaming (1978)

Convoy (1978)

Mr. Mike's Mondo Video (1979)

Sunburn (1979)

The Mountain Men (1980)

King of The Mountain (1981)

Love Streams (1984)

Eye of the Tiger (1986)

Plain Clothes (1988)

Colors (1988)

Track 29 (1988)

Wicked Stepmother (1989)

Dick Tracy (1990)

White Fang (1991)

In the Soup (1992)

Honeymoon in Vegas (1992)

Boiling Point (1993)

Indecent Proposal (1993)

It Could Happen To You (1994)

"Chasers" (1994) as Master Chief Seymie Bogg

Tracey Takes On... (1996)

Trees Lounge (1996)

Obsession (1997 German TV)

Rushmore (1998)

The Last Home Run (1998)

The Crew (2000)

Bartleby (2001 film) (2001)

''61* (2001)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Con Man (2002)

The Burial Society (2002)

Passionada (2002)

Manna from Heaven (2002)

Stealing Harvard (2002)

Stuck on You (2003)

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

Thanksgiving (2004)

Bittersweet Place (2005)

Lonesome Jim (2005)

The Wendell Baker Story (2005)

Artie Lange's Beer League (2006)

Postal (2007)

Reach for Me (2008)

Chasing 3000 (2008)

Irene in Time (2009)

Flight Of The Conchords (2009)

Staten Island (2009)

Pete Smalls Is Dead (2010)

References

External links

Interview with the Palisadian-Post

Category:1935 births Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:Living people Category:People from Detroit, Michigan Category:Sundance Film Festival award winners

Name	Juliet Landau
Birth name	Juliet Rose Landau
Birth date
Birth place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1990–present

Juliet Rose Landau is an American actress best known for co-starring as Loretta King Hadler in Tim Burton's Ed Wood and for portraying Drusilla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spin off show Angel (the latter appearance earning her a Saturn Award nomination). She has appeared in a diverse range of roles. She is active in film, television and theater.

Personal life

Landau was born on the 30th of March, 1972, in Los Angeles to parents Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. She was a professional ballerina. Her mentor was the late actress, Susan Peretz. Juliet is a member of The Actors Studio and as recently as 2008 was being mentored by Mike Medavoy.

Career

She co-starred in Ed Wood as Loretta King and starred opposite Whoopi Goldberg in New Line Cinema's Theodore Rex. She played the role of Drusilla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, appearing on Buffy and spin off show Angel over the course of six seasons. Steve Vinberg of The New York Times hailed "The wildly gifted Juliet Landau plays Drusilla like an acid-addled cross between Ophelia and Cassandra."

Lead roles in Independents include: The Yellow Wallpaper, , Hack, Toolbox Murders, Repossessed, Carlo's Wake, Life Among the Cannibals, Ravager, Direct Hit, Citizens and a co-starring turn in Henry Jaglom's Going Shopping.

TV guest appearances include: Millennium, La Femme Nikita, Strong Medicine and a starring role in the Lifetime movie Fatal Reunion. She just completed a project for HBO directed by Jake Scott. She used her skill with dialects by lending her voice to various characters on the popular animated series Justice League Unlimited and Ben 10 as well as the animated movie . She has also provided her voice for both BioShock video games.

Landau has received outstanding reviews for her work in the theater. Lead roles include Awake and Sing at The Pittsburgh Public Theater, the world premiere of Failure of Nerve, Uncommon Women and Others, The Pushcart Peddlers, Billy Irish, We're Talking Today Here, the musical How To Steal An Election, the West Coast premiere of Irish Coffee and the world premiere of Murray Shisgal's musical The Songs Of War. She played Natasha in a reading of The Three Sisters that Al Pacino put together at The Actors Studio.

Her first work as director was Take Flight, a short documentary film about Gary Oldman. It is about Oldman's creative process. He has said, "Juliet Landau is an exceptional talent! I entrusted Juliet to make a documentary film about me and I am thrilled with the results! Take Flight is a special film that shows me in a very different light. I will work with Juliet again without hesitation." She will helm these projects. She portrayed Claire in the British horror film Haunted Echoes, who was directed by Harry Bromley Davenport.

In 2009 Juliet Landau co-wrote two issues of the comic book series for IDW Publishing, in collaboration with Brian Lynch. The issues (#24 and #25 of the series, appearing in August and September 2009) feature Drusilla, the character she played on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. In addition to writing, she contributed numerous ideas and references for both the cover and interior art of the issues. She has stated that she would like to write more comics set in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe.

Filmography

Naught for Hire (web series) (2010, pre-production) as Precious

It's Raining Cats and Cats (2009, pre-production) as 7 characters

Material Lies (2009, pre-production) as Sarah

Land of Canaan (2009, pre-production) as Elizabeth

Monster Mutt (2009) as Nataliya

(2009) as Labella

Take Flight: Gary Oldman Directs Chutzpah (2008) as Director

"Hero" (2008 Godhead music video) as co-director and appears in with lead singer, Jason Miller

Haunted Echoes (aka: Darkness Visible) (2008) as Claire

(2008) as Helen, Natalie and Anodite Verdona

The Yellow Wallpaper (2008) as Charlotte

Hack! (2007) as Mary

Bioshock (2007) as Little Sisters

Justice League Unlimited (2005–2006) as Tala, Plastique, Bernadeth and Rama Kushna

Going Shopping (2005) as Isabella

Fatal Reunion (2005 TV movie) as Lisa Calders

Angel (2000–2004) as Drusilla

Strong Medicine - Episode "Seize the Day" (2003) as Lorraine

Toolbox Murders (2004) as Julia Cunningham

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series) (1997–2003) as Drusilla

Repossessed (2002) as Alison Labatte

Citizens (TV series) (2002) as Zoey

Freedom Park (2001) as ?

La Femme Nikita - Episode "Before I Sleep" (1999) as Sarah Gerrard and Jan Baylin

Millennium - Episode "Forcing the End" (1999) as Jeanie Bronstein

Carlo's Wake (1999) as Anna Torello

Ravager (1997) as Sarra

Life Among the Cannibals (1996) as Rachael

Theodore Rex (1995) as Dr. Veronica Shade

Direct Hit (1994) as Shelly

Ed Wood (1994) as Loretta King

Neon City (1992) as Twink

Parker Lewis Can't Lose (TV series- Episode "Dance of Romance") as Lucinda

The Grifters as Young Lilly

Pump Up the Volume (scenes deleted) as Joni

References

External links

Juliet Landau's Official Website

Category:American film actors Category:American Jews Category:American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Category:Jewish actors Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people

John Kerwin is a fifteen-time award winning late night talk show host and writer.

Early years

Raised in Briarwood, Queens, USA Kerwin began performing as a stand-up comedian at Catch a Rising Star, sharing the stage with contemporaries such as Jon Stewart, Rosie O’Donnell and Ray Romano. After majoring in creative writing at Cornell University, Kerwin relocated to Los Angeles, where he became the house emcee at the Hollywood Improv. He also performed at comedy clubs throughout the USA.

TV

Kerwin performed in a “man in the street” local television series, “Meet Your Favorite Star”. He pretended to be notables such as actor Ben Affleck, singer Lenny Kravitz, and others. In his follow-up series “Breaking News” Kerwinposed as a news reporter, interviewing locals on faux breaking news segments. These led to The John Kerwin Show on Time Warner Cable, in which Kerwin was host and head writer.

Kerwin co-created and hosted pilots for The Yesterday Show with John Kerwin. In this “retro” talk show, Guests included celebrities such as Dick Cavett, Cheryl Ladd, Kathy Griffin, Charo. Kerwin headed the writing team.

Category:Living people Category:American television talk show hosts Category:American stand-up comedians Category:Cornell University alumni Category:People from Queens Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:American comedy writers

Name	Holland Taylor
Caption	Taylor at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival
Birth date	January 14, 1943
Birth place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Birthname	Holland Virginia Taylor
Occupation	Actress
Yearsactive	1969—present

Holland Virginia Taylor (born January 14, 1943) is an American actress known for her film, television and theatre work. Her television roles include Ruth Dunbar in Bosom Buddies, senator's wife Margaret Powers on Norman Lear's The Powers That Be, Judge Roberta Kittleson in The Practice and Evelyn Harper in Two and a Half Men.

Early life

Taylor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1943, the daughter of Virginia, a painter, and C. Tracy Taylor, an attorney. She is the youngest of three girls in the family and her sisters are Patricia and Pamela. Taylor attended high school at Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school in West Chester, Pennsylvania, then majored in drama at Bennington College in 1964, before moving to New York City to become an actress.

Career

Taylor's long career began in the theater. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s she appeared in numerous Broadway and off-Broadway productions, including starring roles in Simon Gray's Butley and A. R. Gurney's The Cocktail Hour; for the latter she was nominated for a Drama Desk award. Taylor also has the dubious distinction of having starred in Broadway's most infamous flop, Moose Murders, where she filled in, with less than a week's rehearsal, for veteran character actress Eve Arden who had jumped from the sinking ship.

In 1983 Taylor had one of her greatest theatrical moments in Breakfast with Les and Bess, which prompted legendary New York magazine theater critic John Simon to sing, "...Miss Taylor is one of the few utterly graceful, attractive, elegant and technically accomplished actresses in our theater...seeing her may turn you, like me, into a Taylor freak..."

Concentrating on theater, television took a backseat but she did take on the role of Denise Cavanaugh on the long running soap opera, The Edge of Night who was so evil, she killed herself just to frame her husband. Then encouraged by her acting coach, the legendary Stella Adler, Taylor took a role that would make her well known: Tom Hanks' sexy, demanding boss in the 1980s sitcom Bosom Buddies.

The actress' rising fame, built slowly over many years, led her to roles that made her a well known name in the industry. She proved herself to be equally adept both at comedy and at drama. From 1992 to 1993 she starred in Norman Lear's The Powers That Be with John Forsythe and David Hyde Pierce; and from 1995 to 1998 on The Naked Truth. But it was the recurring role of rapacious Judge Roberta Kittleson on The Practice from 1998 to 2003, that brought her long-overdue fame and for which she won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress. In her Emmy speech, she brought the house down when she lifted the Emmy over her head and said, "Overnight!" Taylor thanked David E. Kelley, The Practice's producer/writer and creator, for "giving me a chariot to ride up here on: A woman who puts a flag on the moon for women over 40—who can think, who can work, who are successes, who can cook, and who can COOK!"

Taylor was also nominated for an Emmy for her recurring role on AMC's "The Lot," and has been nominated four times since 2003, for best supporting actress for her role on the TV series Two and a Half Men, playing Evelyn Harper, the snobbish, overbearing mother of Charlie Sheen. Taylor's television movie and series guest roles have been extensive and include appearances on ER, Veronica's Closet, and recurring roles on Ally McBeal; Monk and as billionaire Peggy Peabody on The L Word.

Taylor's movie roles have included Reese Witherspoon's tough Harvard law professor in the 2001 comedy Legally Blonde; Tina Fey's mother in Baby Mama; The Truman Show; Happy Accidents; Next Stop Wonderland; George of the Jungle; The Wedding Date; How to Make an American Quilt; Romancing the Stone; and D.E.B.S..

Prudence, the castle's majordomo and love interest of the Grand Duke, in Disney's Cinderella II and is her only animated role.

Taylor's first love remains the theater and she has spent the last two years researching, writing and producing a one-woman play about the late Texas Governor Ann Richards.

Charitable work

Taylor has been a long-time, major supporter of Aid For AIDS in Los Angeles, serving on their Honorary Board and as an ongoing participant in their largest annual fundraiser, Best In Drag Show, among other fundraising efforts.

Emmy Award nominations

2000 - (Won) - Outstanding Supporting Actress - Drama Series - The Practice

2000 - (Nominated) - Outstanding Guest Actress - Comedy Series - The Lot

2005 - (Nominated) - Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy Series - Two and a Half Men

2007 - (Nominated) - Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy Series - Two and a Half Men

2008 - (Nominated) - Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy Series - Two and a Half Men

2010 - (Nominated) - Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy Series - Two and a Half Men

Filmography

Film

J.T. (1969) .... Mrs. Arnold

The Next Man (1976) .... TV Interviewer

(1979) .... Beverly

Fame (1980) (uncredited) .... Claudia van Doren

The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982) .... Frances Shand Kydd

I Was a Mail Order Bride (1982) .... Dottie Birmington

Reuben, Reuben (1983)

Concealed Enemies (1984) .... Mrs. Marbury

Romancing the Stone (1984) .... Gloria Hart

Key Exchange (1985) .... Mrs. Fanshaw

Perry Mason Returns (1985) .... Paula Gordon

The Jewel of the Nile (1985) .... Gloria Hart

(1987) .... Ernestine King

She's Having a Baby (1988) .... Sarah Briggs

People Like Us (1990) .... Dolly

Alice (1990) .... Helen

Big Deals (1991)

The Rape of Doctor Willis (1991) .... Dr. Greenway

Cop and ½ (1993) .... Captain Rubio

Betrayal of Trust (1994) .... Mary Shelton

(1994) .... Florence Newsom

The Counterfeit Contessa (1994) .... Wallace Everett

The Favor (1994) .... Maggie Sand

A Walton Wedding (1995) .... Aunt Flo

Awake to Danger (1995) .... Dr. Joyce Lindley

(1995) (TV)

With Hostile Intent (1995) .... Lois Baxter

To Die For (1995) .... Carol Stone

How to Make an American Quilt (1995) .... Mrs. Rubens

Last Summer in the Hamptons (1995) .... Davis

Steal Big Steal Little (1995) .... Mona Rowland-Downey

One Fine Day (1996) .... Rita

George of the Jungle (1997) ... Beatrice Stanhope

Just Write (1997) .... Emma Jeffreys

Betty (1997) .... Crystal Ball

The Unknown Cyclist (1998) (uncredited) .... Celia

The Truman Show (1998) .... Truman's Mother

Next Stop Wonderland (1998) .... Piper Castleton

My Last Love (1999) .... Marnie Morton

The Sex Monster (1999) .... Muriel

The Spiral Staircase (2000) .... Emma Warren

Happy Accidents (2000) .... Therapist, Maggie Ann "Meg" Ford

Mail to the Chief (2000) .... Katherine Horner

Keeping the Faith (2000) .... Bonnie Rose

The Deadly Look of Love (2000) .... Evelyn McGinnis

Strange Frequency (2001) .... Marge Crowley (segment "Room Service")

Town & Country (2001) .... Mistress of Ceremonies

Legally Blonde (2001) .... Professor Stromwell

The Day Reagan Was Shot (2001) .... Nancy Reagan

Fits and Starts (2002)

(2002) (V) (voice) .... Prudence

Home Room (2002) .... Dr. Hollander

(2002) .... Grandmother

(2003) .... Grandmother

Intent (2003) .... Judge Cavallo

D.E.B.S. (2004) .... Mrs. Petrie

The Wedding Date (2005) .... Bunny

(2007) (V) (voice) .... Prudence

Baby Mama (2008) .... Rose

Television

Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (1967) .... Trish Wanamaker (1971)

Somerset (1970) .... Sgt. Ruth Winter (unknown episodes, 1973)

Beacon Hill (1975) .... Marilyn Gardiner (unknown episodes)

Kojak .... Elizabeth (1 episode, 1977)

The Edge of Night (1976) .... Denise Norwood Cavanaugh, R.N. (1977–1978, 1980)

ABC Afterschool Special .... Felicia Martin (1 episode, 1981)

Bosom Buddies .... Ruth Dunbar (21 episodes, 1980–1981)

All My Children (1970) .... Jill Ollinger (unknown episodes, 1981–1982)

The Love Boat .... Kathy Brighton (1 episode, 1983)

Kate & Allie .... Linda Cabot (1 episode, 1984)

Me and Mom (1985) .... Zena Hunnicutt (unknown episodes)

Harry (1987) .... Ina Duckett, R.N. (unknown episodes)

Perfect Strangers .... Olivia Crawford (1 episode, 1987)

CBS Summer Playhouse .... Fran Grogan / ... (2 episodes, 1987–1989)

Murder, She Wrote .... Winifred Thayer (1 episode, 1989)

Wiseguy .... Allison Royce / ... (1 episode, 1990)

Going Places .... Dawn St. Clare (3 episodes, 1990–1991)

The Powers That Be .... Margaret Powers (20 episodes, 1992–1993)

.... Dean Susan McMann (7 episodes, 1993–1994)

.... Agent Gretchen McCord (2 episodes, 1994–1995)

The Naked Truth .... Camilla Dane (2 episodes, 1995–1998)

Something So Right .... Abigail (1 episode, 1996)

Veronica's Closet .... Millicent (2 episodes, 1998)

Buddy Faro .... Olivia Vandermeer (1 episode, 1998)

ER .... Phyllis Farr (1 episode, 1999)

The Lot (1999) .... Letitia DeVine (unknown episodes)

The 51st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards (1999) (TV) .... Herself

Ally McBeal .... 2nd Woman in Face Bra Infomercial / ... (2 episodes, 1999–2000)

Strong Medicine .... Lillian Pynchon (1 episode, 2000)

DAG .... Katherine Twigg (1 episode, 2000)

The Living Edens .... Narrator (1 episode, 2000)

The Fighting Fitzgeralds .... Rose (1 episode, 2001)

Strange Frequency .... Marge Crowley (1 episode, 2001)

Battery operated boyfriend (2002) .... Madeline Collins (unknown episodes)

Disney's Fillmore! .... Mrs. Cornwall (1 episode, 2002)

Intimate Portrait .... Herself (2 episodes, 2002–2004)

Banzai .... Herself (1 episode, 2003)

The Practice .... Judge Roberta Kittleson (29 episodes, 1998–2003)

The L Word .... Peggy Peabody (8 episodes, 2004–2008)

Big Brother .... Herself (1 episode, 2005)

Monk .... Peggy Davenport (2 episodes, 2005–2007)

The 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards (2006) (TV) .... Herself

The 33rd Annual People's Choice Awards (2007) (TV) .... Herself

Two and a Half Men .... Evelyn Harper / ... (75 episodes, 2003–present)

Theater

Broadway

"Breakfast with Les and Bess"

"Moose Murders"

"Murder Among Friends"

"Butley" (Alan Bates)

"Something Old, Something New"

"We Interrupt this Message"

"The Devils" (Anne Bancroft)

Off-Broadway

"Vagina Monologues"

"The Cocktail Hour"

"Drinks Before Dinner"

"Children"

"Fashion"

"Colette (Zoe Caldwell)"

"Love Letters"

Regional

"Kindertransport"

"A Delicate Balance"

"Passion Play (Galati)"

"The Philanthropist"

"Black Comedy"

Los Angeles

"The Unexpected Man" The Geffen Playhouse

"Kinder Transport" The Tiffany Theatre

"Narrator – LA Philharmonic “Persephone, Stravinski, Essa-Pekka Salonen, Conductor"

"Narrator – LA Philharmonic “Ahknaten, Philip Glass, John Adams, Conductor"

References

External links

Holland Taylor Bio at CBS - Two and a Half Men

Category:American film actors Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:Bennington College alumni Category:Emmy Award winners Category:Actors from Pennsylvania Category:People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:1943 births Category:Living people

Name	Harriet Schock
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Harriet Schoch
Born	Texas
Genre	Pop
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, teacher, author, actor
Years active	1973 — present
Label	20th Century RecordsEvening StarFuture Schock
Associated acts	Helen Reddy, Vicki Carr, Syreeta, Smokey Robinson, Roberta Flack, Carl Anderson
Url	http://www.harrietschock.com/
Notable instruments	Piano}}

Harriet Schock is an American singer, songwriter, teacher, author, and actress. She made three albums for a major label in the 70s, scoring gold and platinum awards for her Grammy-nominated Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady, before moving into teaching and soundtrack work, and then resuming an ongoing recording career in the 90s.

Biography

Childhood

Schock, whose father was a dermatologist, grew up in Texas as one of two sisters, and was encouraged to play piano from an early age. Her natural ability to play by ear quickly became apparent.

Songwriting and Recording

After a brief spell working in advertising, Schock became a staff writer for Colgems-EMI, and, in a deal that fell through, almost became a Columbia Records recording artist. Shortly thereafter, she signed with 20th Century Records, and her recording career began in earnest, with a series of three albums, Hollywood Town, She's Low Clouds (both 1974), and You Don't Know What You're In For (1976), all notable for their pithy lyrical approach, and musical incisiveness. On the strength of these recordings, Schock was twice awarded Cashbox's Best New Female Artist.

During this period, Helen Reddy scored a #8 Billboard Hot 100 with Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady. Schock's original version had appeared on her debut album, Hollywood Town. Reddy recorded further Schock-written songs, while many other artists began to interpret Schock's work, including Roberta Flack, Johnny Mathis, Smokey Robinson, Syreeta, Nancy Wilson, Manfred Mann, Vicki Carr, and Jeannie Kendall.

In addition to "Ain't No Way To Treat A Lady", another widely recorded Harriet Schock song is "First Time On A Ferris Wheel", co-written with Misha Segal. Among the most celebrated versions is Carl Anderson's, which appeared on his eponymous 1986 album for Epic Records. The song was composed during the period in the 80s when Schock worked for Berry Gordy, writing songs for Jobete.

Schock then resumed her own recording career with two albums produced by Nik Venet - American Romance (1995) and Rosebud (1999). In 2010, she released her seventh album, Breakdown on Memory Lane.

Having taught songwriting at the University of Southern California from 1986 to 1988, she moved into private tuition, and - in the late 90s - her songwriting manual, Becoming Remarkable, was published by Blue Dolphin.

Film and Television Music

Schock has written songs for film and television since the 1970s. Among the films are Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection, The Last Dragon and The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking. Television shows include The Partridge Family, The Benny Hill Show and the Jane Seymour TV movie Matters of the Heart.

Schock wrote the theme song for the PBS series Jakers! The Adventures of Piggley Winks, and then provided music for the Henry Jaglom films Going Shopping, Hollywood Dreams (2006), and Irene in Time (2009).

Acting

Harriet appeared with her band in Henry Jaglom's Irene in Time (2009).

In 2009 and 2010, Schock took a role in the Henry Jaglom play Just 45 Minutes From Broadway.

Discography

Albums

Hollywood Town (20th Century, T-437, 1974)

Produced by Roger Gordon

She's Low Clouds (20th Century, T-460, 1974)

Produced by Roger Gordon

You Don't Know What You're In For (20th Century, T-499, 1976)

Produced by Gene Page and Billy Page. Arranged by Gene Page.

American Romance (Future Schock, FSD-19201-2, 1992)

Produced by Nik Venet

Rosebud (Evening Star, E*SRNKV 2002, 1997)

Produced by Nik Venet

Live - from Fairfax to Pasadena (Thunder Digital, TDD-10107-2, 2001)

Produced by Phil Appelbaum

Breakdown On Memory Lane (Future Schock, 2010)

Produced by Travis Allen

Bibliography

Becoming Remarkable: For Songwriters and Those Who Love Songs, Blue Dolphin 1999 ISBN 978-1-57733-034-9

References

External links

Official website

Blue Dolphin Harriet Schock page

[ All Music Guide Harriet Schock page]

Harriet Schock at CD Baby

Category:Living people Category:American female pop singers Category:American pop pianists Category:American singer-songwriters

Name	Dennis Hopper
Caption	Hopper in June 2008
Alt	Dennis Hopper, with gray hair and a gray goatee, wearing a hat and sunglasses.
Birth name	Dennis Lee Hopper
Birth date	May 17, 1936
Birth place	Dodge City, Kansas, U.S.
Death date
Death place	Venice, California, U.S.
Death cause	Prostate cancer
Occupation	Actor, director, artist
Years active	1954–2010
Spouse	Brooke Hayward (1961–1969)Michelle Phillips (1970)Daria Halprin (1972–1976)Katherine LaNasa (1989–1992)Victoria Duffy (1996–2010)
Nationality	American

Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954, and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). During the next 10 years, Hopper appeared frequently on television in guest roles, and by the end of the 1960s had played supporting roles in several films.

He directed and starred in Easy Rider (1969), winning an award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as co-writer. "With its portrait of counterculture heroes raising their middle fingers to the uptight middle-class hypocrisies, Easy Rider became the cinematic symbol of the 1960s, a celluloid anthem to freedom, macho bravado and anti-establishment rebellion." Film critic Matthew Hays notes that "no other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the 1960s than that of Dennis Hopper."

He was unable to build on his success for several years, until a featured role in Apocalypse Now (1979) brought him attention. He subsequently appeared in Rumble Fish (1983) and The Osterman Weekend (1983), and received critical recognition for his work in Blue Velvet and Hoosiers, with the latter film garnering him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He directed Colors (1988) and played the villain in Speed (1994). Hopper's later work included a leading role in the television series Crash. Hopper was also featured in the 2010 animated film Alpha and Omega as an Alpha-wolf named Tony. This movie was his last as he died of Prostate Cancer before its release in September 2010.

Hopper was also a prolific and acclaimed photographer, a profession he began in the 1960s.

Early life

Hopper was born in Dodge City, Kansas, the son of Marjorie Mae (née Davis, July 12, 1917 - January 12, 2007) and Jay Millard Hopper (June 23, 1916 – August 7, 1982). Hopper had two brothers, Marvin and David.

After World War II, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where the young Hopper attended Saturday art classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. At the age of 13, Hopper and his family moved to San Diego, where his mother worked as a lifeguard instructor and his father was a post office manager (Hopper has acknowledged, though, that his father was in the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, in China with Mao). Hopper was voted most likely to succeed by his 1954 high school graduating class (Helix High School, La Mesa, California, a suburb of San Diego). It was there that he developed an interest in acting, studying at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, and the Actors' Studio in New York City (he studied with Lee Strasberg for five years). Hopper struck up a friendship with actor Vincent Price, whose passion for art influenced Hopper's interest in art. He was especially fond of the plays of William Shakespeare.

Film career

]] Hopper was reported to have an uncredited role in Johnny Guitar in 1954 but he has stated that he was not even in Hollywood when this film was made. Hopper made his debut on film in two roles with James Dean (whom he admired immensely) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). Dean's death in a 1955 car accident affected the young Hopper deeply and it was shortly afterwards that he got into a confrontation with veteran director Henry Hathaway on the film From Hell To Texas. Hopper refused directions for eighty takes over several days.

In his book Last Train to Memphis, American popular music historian Peter Guralnick says that in 1956, when Elvis Presley was making his first film in Hollywood, Hopper was roommates with fellow actor Nick Adams and the three became friends and socialized together. In 1959 Hopper moved to New York to study Method acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actor's Studio.

In a December 1994 interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Hopper credited John Wayne with saving his career, as Hopper acknowledged that because of his insolent behavior, he could not find work in Hollywood for seven years. Hopper stated that because he was the son-in-law of actress Margaret Sullavan, a friend of John Wayne, Wayne hired Hopper for a role in The Sons of Katie Elder. This role enabled Hopper to begin making movies again.

Hopper had a supporting role as "Babalugats," the bet-taker in Cool Hand Luke (1967). Hopper acted in mainstream films including The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and True Grit (1969). Both of these films starred John Wayne, and in both Hopper's character is killed. During the production of True Grit, he became well acquainted with Wayne.

In 1968, Hopper teamed with Peter Fonda, Terry Southern and Jack Nicholson to make Easy Rider, which premiered in July 1969. With the release of True Grit a month earlier, Hopper had starring roles in two major box office films that summer. Hopper won wide acclaim as the director for his improvisational methods and innovative editing for Easy Rider. The production was plagued by creative differences and personal acrimony between Fonda and Hopper, the dissolution of Hopper's marriage to Hayward, his unwillingness to leave the editor's desk, and his accelerating abuse of drugs and alcohol.

In 1971, Hopper released The Last Movie. Expecting an accessible follow-up to Easy Rider, audiences were treated to artistic flourishes (the inclusion of "scene missing" cards) and a hazily existentialist plot that dabbled in non-linearity and the absurd. After finishing first at the Venice Film Festival, the film was dismissed by audiences and critics alike during its first domestic engagement in New York City. During the tumultuous editing process, Hopper ensconced himself at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico, which he had purchased in 1970, for almost an entire year. In between contesting Fonda's rights to the majority of the residual profits from Easy Rider, he married Michelle Phillips in October 1970.

Hopper was able to sustain his lifestyle and a measure of celebrity by acting in numerous low budget and European films throughout the 1970s as the archetypical "tormented maniac", including Mad Dog Morgan (1976), Tracks (1976), and The American Friend (1977). With Francis Ford Coppola's blockbuster Apocalypse Now (1979), Hopper returned to prominence as a hypo-manic Vietnam-era photojournalist. Stepping in for an overwhelmed director, Hopper won praise in 1980 for his directing and acting in Out of the Blue. Immediately thereafter, Hopper starred as an addled short-order cook "Cracker" in the Neil Young/Dean Stockwell low-budget collaboration Human Highway. Production was reportedly often delayed by his unreliable behavior. Peter Biskind states in the New Hollywood history Easy Riders, Raging Bulls that Hopper's cocaine intake had reached three grams a day by this time period, complemented by an additional thirty beers, marijuana, and Cuba libres.

After staging a "suicide attempt" (really more of a daredevil act) in a coffin using 17 sticks of dynamite during an "art happening" at the Rice University Media Center (filmed by professor and documentary filmmaker Brian Huberman). and later disappearing into the Mexican desert during a particularly extravagant bender, Hopper entered a drug rehabilitation program in 1983. During this period, he gave critically acclaimed performances in Rumble Fish (1983) and The Osterman Weekend (1983).

It was not until he portrayed the gas-huffing, obscenity-screaming iconic villain Frank Booth in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) that his career revived. After reading the script, Hopper called Lynch and told him "You have to let me play Frank Booth. Because I am Frank Booth!" Hopper won critical acclaim and several awards for this role and the same year received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as an alcoholic basketball lover in Hoosiers.

In 1988, Hopper directed the critically acclaimed Colors. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for the 1991 HBO films Paris Trout and Doublecrossed (in which he played real life drug smuggler and DEA informant Barry Seal). The same year he starred as King Koopa in Super Mario Bros., a 1993 critical and commercial failure loosely based on the video game of the same name. and Combat!.

Hopper teamed with Nike in the early 1990s to make a series of television commercials. He appeared as a "crazed referee" in those ads. He portrayed villain Victor Drazen in the first season of the popular drama 24 on the Fox television network.

Hopper starred as a U.S. Army colonel in the NBC 2005 television series E-Ring, a drama set at The Pentagon, but the series was cancelled after fourteen episodes aired in the USA. Hopper appeared in all 22 episodes that were filmed. He also played the part of record producer Ben Cendars in the Starz television series Crash.

Photography and art

Hopper was a prolific photographer, painter, and sculptor. His photography is known for portraits from the 1960s. His painting style ranges from abstract impressionism to photorealism and often includes references to his cinematic work and to other artists.

Ostracized by the Hollywood film studios due to his reputation for being a "difficult" actor, Hopper eventually turned to photography in the 1960s with a camera bought for him by his first wife, Brooke Hayward. During this period he created the cover art for the Ike & Tina Turner single River Deep – Mountain High (released in 1966).

Hopper became a prolific photographer, and noted writer Terry Southern profiled Hopper in Better Homes and Gardens magazine as an up and coming photographer "to watch" in the mid 1960s.

He began working as a painter and a poet as well as a collector of art in the 1960s as well, particularly Pop Art. One of the first art works Hopper owned was an early print of Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans bought for $75.

In March 2010, it was announced that Hopper was on the "short list" for Jeffrey Deitch's inaugural show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA).

In April 2010, Deitch confirmed that Hopper's work, curated by Julian Schnabel, will indeed be the focus of his debut at MOCA.

In May 2010 it was announced that Hopper will be the subject of an upcoming biography by American writer Tom Folsom, Hopper: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream. The subtitle is a direct reference to the Hunter S. Thompson book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

On the Gorillaz album Demon Days, Hopper narrates the song "Fire Coming out of the Monkey's Head."

Personal life

at the 62nd Academy Awards in 1990.]] According to Rolling Stone magazine, he was "one of Hollywood's most notorious drug addicts," for 20 years. He spent much of the 1970s and early 1980s living as "an outcast" in a small town he purchased after the success of Easy Rider. Hopper was also "notorious for his troubled relationships with women," including Michelle Phillips, who divorced him after less than two weeks of marriage. Hopper was married five times in total — he was in the process of divorcing Victoria Duffy, his wife of 14 years, at the time of his death — and was survived by:

Brooke Hayward (born 1937), daughter of Leland Hayward and Margaret Sullavan; married 1961 – divorced 1969, 1 child, daughter Marin Hopper (born on June 26, 1962)

Michelle Phillips (born 1944); married 31 October 1970 – divorced 8 November 1970

Daria Halprin (born 1948); married 1972 – divorced 1976, 1 child, daughter Ruthanna Hopper (born circa 1974)

Katherine LaNasa (born 1966); married June 17, 1989 – divorced April 1992, 1 child, son Henry Lee Hopper (born on September 11, 1990)

Victoria Duffy (born 1968); married April 13, 1996 – separated January 12, 2010, 1 child, daughter Galen Grier Hopper (born on March 26, 2003)

Hopper had two granddaughters, Violet Goldstone and Ella Brill.

In 1999, actor Rip Torn filed a defamation lawsuit against Hopper over a story Hopper told on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Hopper claimed that Torn pulled a knife on him during pre-production of the film Easy Rider. According to Hopper, Torn was originally cast in the film but was replaced with Jack Nicholson after the incident. According to Torn's suit, it was actually Hopper who pulled the knife on him. A judge ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was ordered to pay $475,000 in damages. Hopper then appealed but the judge again ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was required to pay another US$475,000 in punitive damages.

According to Newsmeat, Hopper donated $2,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2004 and an equal amount in 2005.

Hopper has been honored with the rank of commander of France's National Order of Arts and Letters, at a ceremony in Paris.

Hopper supported Barack Obama in the 2008 US Presidential election. Hopper confirmed this in an election day appearance on the ABC daytime show The View. He said his reason for not voting Republican was the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate.

Divorce from Victoria Duffy

On January 14, 2010, he filed for divorce from his fifth wife, Victoria Duffy. After citing her "outrageous conduct" and stating Duffy was "insane", "inhuman" and "volatile", Hopper was granted a restraining order against her on February 11, 2010, and as a result, she was forbidden to come within of him or contact him. On March 9, 2010, Duffy refused to move out of the Hopper home, despite the court's order that she do so by March 15.

On March 23, 2010, Hopper filed papers in court alleging Duffy had absconded with $1.5 million of his art, refused his requests to return it, and then had "left town". In March 2010, a judge ruled that Duffy must stay at least away from Hopper.

On April 5, 2010, a court ruled that Duffy could continue living on Hopper's property, and that he must pay $12,000 per month spousal and child support for their daughter Galen. Hopper did not attend the hearing. On May 12, 2010, a hearing was held before Judge Amy Pellman in downtown Los Angeles Superior Court. Though Hopper died two weeks later, Duffy insisted at the hearing that he was well enough to be deposed. The hearing also addressed who to designate on Hopper's life insurance policy; it currently lists his wife as a beneficiary. A very ill Hopper did not appear in court though his estranged wife did – case BD518046. Despite Duffy's bid to be named the sole designee of Hopper's million-dollar life insurance policy, the judge ruled against her and limited her claim to one-quarter of the policy. The remaining $750,000 was designated to go to his estate.

On November 14, 2010, it was revealed that, despite Duffy's earlier assertion in her court papers of February 2010 that Hopper was mentally incompetent, and that his children had rewritten his estate plan in order to leave Duffy and her daughter, Hopper's youngest child Galen, destitute, that in fact Galen would be receiving the proceeds of 40% of his estate.

Illness and death

On September 30, 2009, news media reported that Hopper had been rushed to a New York hospital for an unspecified condition. Hopper, 73, was reportedly brought into an unidentified Manhattan hospital by an ambulance on September 28 wearing an oxygen mask and “with numerous tubes visible.” On October 2, he was discharged, after receiving treatment for dehydration.

On October 29, Hopper's manager reported that Hopper had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. In January 2010, it was reported that Hopper's cancer had metastasized to his bones.

On March 18, 2010, it was announced that Hopper would be honored with the 2,403rd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Surrounded by friends including Jack Nicholson, Viggo Mortensen, David Lynch, Michael Madsen, family and fans, he attended its addition to the sidewalk on March 26, 2010.

As of March 23, 2010, Hopper reportedly weighed only and was unable to carry on long conversations. According to papers filed in his divorce court case, Hopper was terminally ill and was unable to undergo chemotherapy to treat his prostate cancer. His lawyer reported on March 25 that he was dying from cancer.

Hopper died at his home in the coastal Los Angeles district of Venice on the morning of May 29, 2010 at the age of 74, due to complications from prostate cancer.

Hopper's funeral took place on June 3, 2010 at San Francisco de Asis Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico. He was buried in Jesus Nazareno Cemetery, Ranchos de Taos.

The film Alpha and Omega, which was his last movie role, was dedicated in his memory.

Filmography

Hopper's film career began in 1955 and continued over the next 55 years. In his career, Hopper appeared in over 150 films, including six which have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Hopper's filmography includes feature films, television films, short films, documentary films, television series, miniseries, and video games. Hopper directed nine films and wrote (or co-wrote) four.

Awards

Academy Awards

(1970) Nominated – Best Original Screenplay / Easy Rider (shared with Peter Fonda and Terry Southern)

(1987) Nominated – Best Supporting Actor / Hoosiers

Golden Globe Awards

(1987) Nominated – Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture / Hoosiers

(1987) Nominated – Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture / Blue Velvet

Primetime Emmy Awards

(1991) Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries or a Movie / Paris Trout

Cannes Film Festival Awards

(1969) Won – Best First Work Award / Easy Rider

(1969) Nominated – Palme d'Or / Easy Rider

(1980) Nominated – Palme d'Or / Out of the Blue

Directors Guild of America Award

(1970) Nominated - Outstanding Directing - Feature Film / Easy Rider

Independent Spirit Awards

(1987) Nominated - Best Male Lead / Blue Velvet

Boston Society of Film Critics Awards

(1987) Won - Best Supporting Actor / Blue Velvet

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards

(1987) Won - Best Supporting Actor / Blue Velvet & Hoosiers

MTV Movie Awards

(1995) Won - Best Villain / Speed

National Society of Film Critics Awards

(1970) Won - Special Award ("For the director, co-writer and co-star") / Easy Rider

(1987) Won - Best Supporting Actor / Blue Velvet

Writers Guild of America Award

(1970) Nominated - Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen / Easy Rider (shared with Peter Fonda and Terry Southern)

References

Further reading

;Books

Biskind, Peter. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, Simon and Schuster (1999)

Hoberman, J. Dennis Hopper: From Method to Madness, Walker Art Center (1988)

Hopper, Dennis. Dennis Hopper: Out of the Sixties, Twelvetrees Press (1986)

Krull, Craig. “Photographing the LA Art Scene: 1955-1975”, Craig Krull Gallery (1996)

Rodriguez, Elean. Dennis Hopper: A Madness to his Method, St. Martin's Press (1988)

;Articles by Hopper

"Dennis Hopper, Riding High," Playboy (Chicago), Dec. 1969

Interview with G. O'Brien and M. Netter, in Inter/View (New York), Feb. 1972

Interview in ''Cahiers du Cinema (Paris), July–August 1980

"How Far to the Last Movie?," ''Monthly Film Bulleting (London) Oct. 1982

"Citizen Hopper," interview with C. Hodenfield, in Film Comment (New York) Nov/Dec. 1986

Interview with B. Kelly, in American Film (Los Angeles) March 1988

Interview with David Denicolo, in Interview (New York), Feb. 1990

"Sean Penn," interview with Julian Schnabel and Dennis Hopper, Interview (New York) Sept. 1991

"Gary Oldman," in Interview (New York), Jan. 1992

;Articles about Hopper

Macklin, F. A., "Easy Rider: The Initiation of Dennis Hopper," in Film Heritage (Dayton, Ohio), Fall 1969

Burke, Tom, "Dennis Hopper Saves the Movies," in ''Esquire (New York), Dec. 1970

Burns, Dan E., "Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie: Beginning of the End,", in ''Literature/Film Quarterly, 1979

Algar, N., "Hopper at Birmingham," in Sight and Sound (London), Summer 1982

Herring, H. D., "Out of the Dream and into the Nightmare: Dennis Hopper's Apocalyptic Vision of America," in Journal of Popular Film (Washington, D.C.), Winter 1983

Scharres, B., "From Out of the Blue: The Return of Dennis Hopper," in ''Journal of the University Film and Video Assoc. (Carbondale, IL), Spring 1983

Current Biography 1987, New York, 1987

Martin, A., "Dennis Hopper: Out of the Blue and into the Black," in ''Cinema Papers (Melbourne), July 1987

Weber, Bruce, "A Wild Man is Mellowing, Albeit Not on Screen," in ''New York Times, Sept. 8, 1994

External links

Dennis Hopper Exhibition History

Dennis Hopper: Life & Times - slideshow by Life magazine

Category:1936 births Category:2010 deaths Category:20th-century actors Category:21st-century actors Category:20th-century writers Category:Actors from Kansas Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American screenwriters Category:American television actors Category:California Republicans Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Deaths from prostate cancer Category:Kansas City Art Institute alumni Category:Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute alumni Category:People from Dodge City, Kansas Category:People from the Kansas City metropolitan area Category:People from San Diego, California Category:People from Taos County, New Mexico

Name	Andrea Marcovicci
Birthname	Andrea Louisa Marcovicci
Birthdate	November 18, 1948
Birthplace	New York City, New York, USA
Occupation	Actress, singer
Website	http://www.marcovicci.com/

Andrea Louisa Marcovicci (born November 18, 1948) is an American actress and singer.

Biography

Marcovicci was born in New York City, the daughter of Helen (née Stuart), a singer, and Eugene Marcovicci, a physician and internist. In her teens, she decided that she wanted to be a singer, but instead majored in drama. In a 1972 interview, she looked back at this period without enthusiasm: :"I found that people interested in theater were very serious and heavy. It was a very inbred group. I could not be a part of that. So, if I was going to be an actress, I would have to sing my way into it. I guess what I didn't like about theater on the academic level was the feeling of always being defeated. How could any 18-year-old girl be expected to play Amanda in The Glass Menagerie? You just couldn't be successful at what you were doing. And although I might not have then been able to articulate this, I must have sensed it at the time."

Marcovicci left school and started making her way into show business as a singer, appearing on The Mike Douglas Show and The Merv Griffin Show. As an actress, she debuted in commercials and first became known in the television soap opera Love is a Many Splendored Thing, as Dr. Betsy Chernak Taylor from 1970–1973. She was nominated for a Golden Globe award for the New Star of the Year in 1977 for the film, The Front (1976).

Marcovicci had a recurring role on Hill Street Blues. She has appeared on Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Kojak, The Incredible Hulk, Magnum, P.I., Cybill, Arli$$, Taxi, Voyagers! (as Cleopatra), Baretta and Mannix. She starred on both Trapper John, M.D. as well as Berrenger's.

Marcovicci appeared onstage on Broadway in Ambassador. Her film roles include The Concorde ... Airport '79 (1979), (1983) and Jack the Bear (1993).

In 2008, Andrea celebrated her 22nd season at the legendary Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel with Marcovicci Sings Movies II. A very special 60th Birthday concert followed in May 2009 at Town Hall in NYC, celebrating Andrea’s contribution to the American Songbook. To commemorate this event, Andreasong Recordings, Inc. released a compilation CD: As Time Goes By: The Best of Andrea Marcovicci, her 17th album/CD.

Awards

She is the recipient of several awards and honors including the Mabel Mercer Foundation’s 2007 Mabel Award and three Lifetime Achievement Awards - honored by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs, the Licia Albanese - Puccini Foundation, and by a Bob Harrington Backstage Bistro Award. In recognition of her accomplishments in the arts, Andrea has received honorary degrees from Trinity College in Hartford, CT and the Memphis College of Art. In addition, “The Andrea Marcovicci Suite” at the Algonquin Hotel, dedicated in 2006 on her twentieth anniversary at the Oak Room, contains memorabilia of her work in theatre, film, television, and on the concert stage.

Personal life

She is married to Daniel Reichert, an actor; they have a daughter, Alice Wolf Reichert.

Partial filmography

The Front (1976)

The Concorde ... Airport '79 (1979)

The Hand (1981)

(1983)

The Stuff (1985)

The Canterville Ghost (1986)

Someone to Love (1987)

The Water Engine (1992) (TV)

Jack the Bear (1993)

Irene in Time (2008)

References

External links

42nd Street Moon's COCO with Andrea Marcovicci

Category:1948 births Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American television actors Category:Living people Category:People from New York City Category:Traditional pop music singers