Brian Dennehy

Brian Manion Dennehy (born July 9, 1938) is an American actor of film, stage, and television. After gaining recognition for portraying the corrupt Sheriff Will Teasle in First Blood (1982), Dennehy went on to win one Golden Globe, two Tony Awards and six Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

Early life

Dennehy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Hannah (Manion) and Edward Dennehy, a wire service editor for the Associated Press. He has two brothers, Michael and Edward. He is of Irish ancestry and was raised Roman Catholic. The family relocated to Long Island, New York, where Dennehy attended Chaminade High School in the town of Mineola.

Dennehy enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1959, serving active duty on Okinawa until 1963. In numerous interviews, Dennehy has claimed to be a Vietnam veteran who served a 5-year tour in Vietnam and recounted harrowing tales of his combat there, but according to the book Stolen Valor, Dennehy never served in Vietnam at all and never saw active combat. Stolen Valor and other books surmised that fabrications of PTSD and traumatic events in general were intended to gain honor or recognition. The author of Stolen Valor wrote to Dennehy regarding the discrepancy, but received no reply from the actor, although Dennehy later admitted in an interview that he had lied about his service and apologized for it. Nonetheless, he later repeated the same story about serving in Vietnam in an interview with Joanne Kaufmann of the Wall Street Journal.

Assault on Precinct 13

Assault on Precinct 13 may refer to:

Assault on Precinct 13 (2005 film)

Assault on Precinct 13 is a 2005 action thriller film directed by Jean-François Richet, starring Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne. The cast also includes John Leguizamo, Maria Bello, Ja Rule and Drea de Matteo. It is a loose remake of John Carpenter's 1976 film of the same name, with an updated plot.

Plot

Sergeant Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke), veteran officer Jasper O'Shea (Brian Dennehy) and secretary Iris Ferry (Drea de Matteo) are the only people remaining in a soon to be shut down Detroit police precinct on New Year's Eve. Roenick is deskbound and abusing alcohol and prescription drugs. He is haunted by a botched undercover operation eight months prior that resulted in the deaths of two members of his team. Psychiatrist Alex Sabian (Maria Bello) is treating Roenick at the station.

Meanwhile, crime lord Marion Bishop (Laurence Fishburne) is in custody and accused of killing a police officer. He is being transported to another location by bus with three other criminals: addict Beck (John Leguizamo), petty crook Anna (Aisha Hinds), and counterfeiter Smiley (Ja Rule), but a raging snowstorm forces the two guards to hunker down at Precinct 13 until the storm is over.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976 film)

Assault on Precinct 13 is a 1976 American action thriller film written, directed, scored and edited by John Carpenter. It stars Austin Stoker as a police officer who defends a defunct precinct against an attack by a relentless criminal gang, along with Darwin Joston as a convicted murderer who helps him. Laurie Zimmer and Tony Burton co-star as other defenders of the precinct.

Writer/director Carpenter was approached by J. Stein Kaplan to make a low-budget exploitation film for under $100,000 but with total creative control. Carpenter wrote The Anderson Alamo, inspired by the Howard Hawks Western film Rio Bravo and the George A. Romero horror film Night of the Living Dead. Despite controversy with the MPAA over the explicitly violent and infamous "ice cream" gunshot scene, the film received an R rating and opened in the United States on November 10, 1976.

Assault was initially met with mixed reviews and unimpressive box-office returns in the United States. However when the film premiered in the 1977 London Film Festival, it received an ecstatic review by festival director Ken Wlaschin that led to critical acclaim first in Britain and then throughout Europe. It gained a considerable cult following, reappraisal from critics, and was later re-evaluated in America as one of the best action films of its era and of Carpenter's career. A remake appeared in 2005, directed by Jean-François Richet and starring Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne.