Sad news - Columbo was essential family viewing in our house

From the BBC:

Actress Margaret Tyzack has died after a brief illness, her agent has said.

The 79-year-old made her name in the Forsyte Saga and recently appeared in BBC One soap opera EastEnders, but had to withdraw after a short stint.

Her agent said Tyzack, who is thought to have had cancer, "died peacefully at home" on Saturday with her family by her side.

Although best known on television and stage, she did appear in some films including 2001 and A Clockwork Orange.

From the BBC:

Actress Anna Massey, who starred in a string of screen dramas, has died at the age of 73, her agent has confirmed.

Massey won many awards during her acting career, including a Bafta for her portrayal of a lonely spinster in a 1986 TV adaptation of Hotel du Lac.

The star also appeared in the film adaptation of AS Byatt's Possession, opposite Gwyneth Paltrow and was in Alfred Hitchcock's 1972 movie Frenzy.

She was awarded a CBE for services to acting in 2004.

The child of Canadian actor Raymond Massey - best known for his role as Dr Gillespie in the TV series Dr Kildare and West End actress Adrienne Allen - Massey was brought up in London but saw little of her father after her parents divorced when she was a year old.

Her film debut was in 1958 in Gideon's Day, directed by her godfather John Ford.

Her film credits include 1960's Peeping Tom, comedy The Tall Guy in 1989 and The Importance of Being Earnest in 2002.

The BBC article didn't mention that her brother Daniel was also a film actor.

She appeared often in television dramas. I saw her in Agatha Christie: A Life in Pictures where she played the part of the older Agatha Christie. This proved to me what I have always felt - that she would have been the perfect actress to play Miss Marple, better than Joan Hickson and certainly better than the other actresses who have played her over the years.

From the BBC:

Actress Googie Withers, best known for starring in Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes and TV series Within These Walls, has died in Australia aged 94.

She was born Georgette Lizette Withers in what was then British India. She died at her home on Friday.

She was the first non-Australian to be awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia and was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Her last role was in the 1996 Australian movie Shine.

Withers's family moved back to Britain from India and she began acting at age 12.

She had been given her nickname Googie by her Indian nanny.

She was working as a dancer in a West End production in London when she was offered work in 1935 as a film extra in The Girl in the Crowd.

Withers, who had three children, appeared in dozens of films in the 1930s and 40s.

She played Blanche in 1938's The Lady Vanishes, opposite Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave.

Later in her career she appeared in several television productions, including prison drama Within These Walls on ITV and the BBC's Hotel du Lac and Northanger Abbey.

In 1958, Withers moved to Australia with her husband, Australian actor John McCallum - he helped create the classic television series, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

The couple co-starred in 10 films, and they lived together in Sydney until McCallum died last year at the age of 91.

From the BBC:

Aborigine actor David Ngoombujarra dies

David Ngoombujarra, one of Australia's best-known Aborigine actors, has died aged 44.

The Australia and Rabbit Proof Fence actor was found dead in a park on Sunday in Fremantle, near Perth. Police said his death was not suspicious.

The three-time Australian Film Institute winner was also in movies including Blackfellas and Ned Kelly.

Australia co-star Hugh Jackman paid tribute to "an extraordinary man, actor and friend".

"So saddened to hear about the passing of David Ngoombujarra. His laugh, warmth and humanity will live on with all who knew him," Jackman wrote on Twitter.

Born in Meekatharra, West Australia, Ngoombujarra was one of thousands of Aboriginal children handed over to white families under Australian government assimilation policies.

He was adopted by a white family in Perth, as David Bernard Starr, before becoming one of the country's best-known indigenous actors.

He won his first AFI award in 1993 for his role in the gritty urban drama Blackfellas.

He was awarded a second in 2003 for Black and White in which he played an Aborigine convicted of killing a young white girl.

And, in 2007, he won a third for a guest role in Australian TV legal drama The Circuit.

His other films included Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles and Kangaroo Jack.

He was only 44.

There have been studies which suggest that the life expectancy for Aborigines can be as much as 25 years less than for other Australians

From the BBC site:

Oscar-winning Hollywood actor Cliff Robertson has died at the age of 88.

He played a young John F Kennedy in the biographical 1963 film PT-109 and won an Academy Award in 1968 for his performance in Charly as a mentally disabled man.

Robertson remained a popular TV and film actor from the mid-1950s onwards. He later found a new generation of fans as Uncle Ben in the Spider-Man movies.

His secretary said he had died in New York state of natural causes.

"My father was a loving father, devoted friend, dedicated professional and honourable man," his daughter Stephanie Saunders said in a statement quoted by Associated Press news agency.

"He stood by his family, friends, and colleagues through good times and bad. We will all miss him terribly."

Based on the award-winning book Flowers for Algernon, 1968's Charly saw Robertson play mentally disabled bakery worker Charlie Gordon - the subject of an experiment to increase human intelligence.

He starred in the film opposite the English actress Claire Bloom.

In 1972, Robertson made his debut as a director on J.W Coop, a film he co-wrote and starred in as an ageing rodeo cowboy.

Robertson was blacklisted by Hollywood for several years after blowing the whistle on a studio chief who was subsequently accused of embezzlement.

Columbia Pictures head David Begelman pleaded no contest to charges of grand theft and was fined and sentenced to three years' probation, though he was hired to run MGM three years later.

In 2002, Robertson was cast as Peter Parker's kindly uncle Ben in Sam Raimi's adaptation of Spider-Man. Despite being killed in the first film, he appeared in flashback in the following two movies.

From the BBC:

Tough guy actor Charles Napier dies aged 75

US actor Charles Napier, who portrayed a succession of movie tough guys, has died at the age of 75.

The square-jawed former paratrooper made his film debut in sexploitation director Russ Meyer's Cherry, Harry and Raquel! in 1971.

He went on to play a country singer in The Blues Brothers and acted opposite Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs.

Napier died at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital and leaves three children.

Born in Scottsville, Kentucky, in 1936, Napier served in the the US Army before becoming an actor.

His first major role came in 1980, when he played Tucker McElroy, lead singer of The Good Ol' Boys in The Blues Brothers.

In 1991, Napier's character Lt Boyle met a sticky end opposite Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs.

Two years later, he worked with Silence director Jonathan Demme again in the Oscar-winning Philadelphia - where he played a judge.

A friend of US journalist Hunter S Thompson, Napier named one of his sons after the late writer.

He also worked as a voice artist, providing the Hulk's roars in the 1978 TV series and between 1997 and 2000 he played General Hardcastle on Superman: The Animated Series.

His last film role was in the 2009 comedy The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard opposite Entourage star Jeremy Piven and James Brolin.

Napier was married twice and is survived by two sons and a daughter

From the BBC:

Australian actress Diane Cilento dies aged 78

Oscar-nominated Australian actress Diane Cilento, who was once married to Sean Connery, has died aged 78.

The star, who passed away at the Cairns Base Hospital, close by her Queensland home, rose to fame in the early 1960s opposite stars such as Charlton Heston.

She was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for her role as Molly in the 1963 movie Tom Jones.

Close friend and playwright Michael Gow paid tribute to the star, calling her "a performer to the end".

"She kept us all hugely entertained until the day before yesterday, when she just couldn't manage anymore and we took her to hospital."

No cause of death was given.

Cilento married Connery in 1962, and divorced in 1973. The couple's only son, Jason Connery, went on to star in TV series Robin of Sherwood in the mid-1980s.

Rainforest theatre

A versatile performer of stage and screen, Cilento's leading men included Charlton Heston in the 1965 classic The Agony and the Ecstasy and Paul Newman in the 1967 western film Hombre.

She was nominated for a Tony Award playing Helen of Troy in the 1956 Broadway production of Tiger at the Gates.

Cilento married playwright Anthony Shaffer, who wrote Sleuth and The Wicker Man, in 1985. She subsequently played Miss Rose in the 1973 film adaptation of The Wicker Man.

However, she largely dropped out of screen work in the 1980s, following her decision to set up the Karnak Playhouse open-air theatre in northern Queensland, where she settled with Shaffer.

John Kotzas from the Queensland Performing Arts Centre said she "achieved all sorts of artistic heights".

Cilento was awarded a Queensland Greats Award in 2001 in recognition of her status as a National Treasure. Her autobiography, My Nine Lives, was published in 2006.

"While she was originally known as a glamorous international film star, her work in later years in the far north showed her commitment to the arts," said Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh, in a statement.

"I know that Ms. Cilento will be sorely missed by many in the industry."

From the BBC:

Chief Inspector Wexford star George Baker dies aged 80

Actor George Baker, who starred as Chief Inspector Wexford in TV's The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, has died.

The 80-year-old, from West Lavington, Wiltshire, died of pneumonia on Friday after a recent stroke.

Although Wexford was probably his most famous role, Baker's repertoire included comedy, drama, soap operas and science fiction over six decades.

He appeared in The Dam Busters and the TV series I, Claudius, and was once suggested for the role of James Bond.

Baker was married three times and leaves five daughters and a number of grandchildren.

Speaking to the BBC, his daughter Ellie Baker said of her father: "He absolutely loved Wexford and he loved being Wexford... and he loved the whole thing. It was a joy to him."

She went on to say even though Ian Fleming had said he wanted her father to play James Bond, it was "probably a very good thing" he was tied into a contract and unable to do so.

"He enjoyed being a character actor, being broad and having the chance to do so many different roles, and perhaps if he'd done that one he would have got typecast," she said.

His third wife, who died earlier this year, was Louie Ramsey, who played his wife Dora in the Ruth Rendell Mysteries.

As well as acting, Baker was also a talented writer for radio and television and a cookery author. His award-winning play, The Fatal Spring, was shown on BBC Two in 1980.

He was born in Bulgaria in 1931, where his English father was working as a diplomat.

When World War II broke out, his Irish mother took him to England, and after a brief spell at public school he became an actor in repertory while still in his teens.

In the 1950s he toured with the Old Vic, and made the first of 30 films, which included The Spy Who Loved Me, The Ship That Died of Shame and The 39 Steps.

He formed his own theatre company and toured the country, acting in and directing plays.

Baker became a familiar face on television, appearing in Minder and Bergerac, before, in 1987, he was cast as the steady, kindly Chief Inspector Wexford in ITV's adaptation of the Ruth Rendell Mysteries.

The show, which lasted for 13 years, drew huge audiences on Sunday evenings.

Baker was awarded an MBE in 2007 for his fundraising activities for his local youth club in West Lavington.

The above doesn't mention one film George Baker appeared in "The Moonraker" where he was the lead actor. This film is quite often shown on Channel 4.

From the BBC yesterday:

Baron Munchausen actor John Neville dies aged 86

Shakespearean actor John Neville, who also starred in The X Files and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, has died from Alzheimer's at the age of 86.

The British-born actor died at Toronto's Wellesley Central Place on Saturday.

Neville emigrated to Canada in 1972 and directed its Stratford Shakespeare Festival between 1986 and 1989.

In 1956, he alternated the roles of Othello and Iago with friend Richard Burton at London's Old Vic theatre.

The following year, he was cast as Hamlet opposite Dame Judi Dench in her first major stage role.

He took over the helm at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival when it was under financial and artistic pressure.

"John Neville's brave programming and careful stewardship helped save the festival at a time of extreme financial hardship," said Antoni Cimolino, the festival's current director.

Public memorial

Its artistic director, Des McAnuff, said: "His charisma and charm were matched by the generosity of his spirit."

Neville also had more than 100 film and television credits, including the title role in Terry Gilliam's cult hit, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

He had a recurring role as the Well-Manicured Man in The X Files in the 1990s. He also starred in the film based on the TV series.

Latterly, he appeared alongside Vanessa Redgrave and John Hurt in Crime and Punishment, and in David Cronenburg thriller, Spider.

Neville was an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and the Order of Canada.

He was born in London in 1925 and served in the Royal Navy in World War II.

After the war, he attended Rada and made his professional acting debut in an outdoor production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Regent's Park in London.

A private funeral will be held, followed by a public memorial in the New Year.

Neville is survived by his wife of 62 years, Caroline, six children and six grandchildren.

John Neville as The Well Manicured Man in The X-Files

and as Baron Munchausen (the Terry Gilliam version)

From the BBC:

Mash star Harry Morgan dies aged 96

Actor Harry Morgan, best known for playing Colonel Sherman Potter in US TV show Mash, has died aged 96.

The star died at his Los Angeles home after suffering from pneumonia, his family confirmed.

Mike Farrell, who played BJ Hunnicutt in the military series, said of Morgan: "There was not an unadorable bone in the man's body."

Morgan also appeared as Officer Bill Gannon opposite Jack Webb in TV crime serial Dragnet from 1967 to 1970.

He appeared in more than 100 movies in mostly supporting roles from the early 1940s, playing opposite stars including Henry Fonda, John Wayne, James Garner, Elvis Presley and Dan Aykroyd.

Morgan began his TV career in the 1950s when the medium was in its infancy in the US, which he said allowed him "to kick the Hollywood habit of typing an actor in certain roles".

But it was his role as fatherly Col Potter in Mash, which he played from 1975 to 1983, that remains his best-remembered performance.

In 1980 he won an Emmy award for his portrayal, which was set during the Korean War.

During a news conference in 1983, after taping the final episode of Mash, the actor broke down in front of reporters.

"I'm feeling very sad and sentimental. I don't know if Mash made me a better actor but I know it made me a better human being," he said.

His co-star Mike Farrell added that Morgan was "an imp".

"He was full of fun and he was smart as a whip," added the actor.

Morgan's daughter-in-law, Beth Morgan, said he was "side-splittingly funny" and "very humble about having such a successful career".

He is survived by three sons, eight grandchildren and his second wife, Barbara Bushman.

From the BBC on the 28th:

'Tarzan's chimpanzee' Cheetah dies aged 80 in Florida

A chimpanzee who apparently starred in Tarzan films in the 1930s has died at the age of 80, according to the sanctuary where he lived.

The Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor said he died on Saturday of kidney failure.

He had acted alongside Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan in Tarzan films from 1932-34, it claimed.

The animal loved fingerpainting and watching football, and was "soothed by Christian music".

Sanctuary spokeswoman Debbie Cobb told the Tampa Tribune that Cheetah came to live at Palm Harbor from Johnny Weissmuller's estate in about 1960.

Chimpanzees in zoos typically live 35 to 45 years, she said.

It is not clear what lay behind Cheetah's longevity, or what evidence there is for it.

A sanctuary volunteer told the paper that fingerpainting was not Cheetah's only talent.

"When he didn't like somebody or something that was going on, he would pick up some poop and throw it at them," Ron Priest said. "He could get you at 30 feet [9m] with bars in between."

The Florida "Cheetah" is not the only chimpanzee who has been described as Tarzan's companion.

A chimp known as "Cheeta" who lives in California was for a long time claimed to be the chimp in the films, but, following research for a biography, that claim has been withdrawn.

It is possible that several different animals were used while filming the Tarzan movies.

From the BBC:

British cartoonist Ronald Searle, best known for creating the fictional girls' school St Trinian's, has died aged 91.

His daughter Kate Searle told Reuters news agency that he "passed away peacefully in his sleep" in a hospital in France.

Searle's spindly cartoons of the naughty schoolgirls first appeared in 1941, before the idea was adapted for film.

The first movie version, The Belles of St Trinian's, was released in 1954.

Joyce Grenfell and George Cole starred in the film, along with Alastair Sim, who appeared in drag as headmistress Millicent Fritton.

Searle also co-created the Molesworth series along with Geoffrey Willans.

His work regularly appeared in magazines and newspapers, including Britain's Punch and The New Yorker.

The artist won a number of awards for his work, including prizes from America's National Cartoonists Society and he was awarded France's prestigious Legion d'Honneur in 2007.

But St Trinian's was his most enduring work - spawning five films between 1954 and 1980.

After a 27-year hiatus, the series was revived in 2007, with Rupert Everett in the headmistress role.

The movie also starred Talulah Riley, Jodie Whittaker and Gemma Arterton, making her film debut.

A sequel, St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold, was released two years later.

A full statement from Searle's family read as follows: "Ronald William Fordham Searle, born 3 March 1920, passed away peacefully in his sleep, after a short illness, with his children, Kate and John, and his grandson, Daniel, beside him, on 30 December 2011 in Draguignan, France.

"He requested a private cremation with no fuss and no flowers."

And a suitable clip on Youtube:

From the BBC:

An award-winning Greek film director, Theodoros Angelopoulos, has died after being hit by a motorcycle.

Angelopoulos was 76. He died in hospital from head injuries after being knocked down near the port of Piraeus.

He was famous for a style of film that involved long, carefully choreographed sequences, as he examined political and historical themes from modern Greece.

He won the top prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival - the Palme d'Or - for his film Eternity and a Day.

Many of his other films - including Ulysses's Gaze and The Travelling Players - also received awards and high critical praise.

The Nazi occupation of Greece in World War II and ensuing civil war were big themes in his early films.

He had started shooting a new film about the effect of the current economic crisis on Greeks. He was crossing a road when the motorcycle hit him.

From the BBC:

Scottish actor Nicol Williamson, best known for his role as the wizard Merlin in the 1981 film Excalibur, has died aged 75, his family has announced.

The actor passed away of oesophageal cancer shortly before Christmas in Amsterdam, where he lived.

A much respected stage actor, he was nominated for his first Tony Award in 1966 for Inadmissible Evidence.

Playwright John Osborne once called him "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando."

Williamson was nominated for his second Tony Award in 1974, for his role in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. He won a Drama Desk award the same year for the role.

Born in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, he attended the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama.

He made his professional stage debut at the Dundee Repertory Theatre in 1960, before appearing in Tony Richardson's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Royal Court Theatre.

He later teamed up with Richardson again, to star his Hamlet production at the Roundhouse.

It was so successful, it transferred to Broadway and was adapted into a film, which co-starred Anthony Hopkins and Marianne Faithfull.

In a statement on the actor's website, his son Luke Williamson said: "It's with great sadness, and yet with a heart full of pride and love for a man who was a tremendous father, friend, actor, poet, writer and singer, that I must bring news of Nicol's passing."

He went on to say that his father passed away "peacefully".

"He gave it all he had: never gave up, never complained, maintained his wicked sense of humour to the end. His last words were 'I love you'. I was with him, he was not alone, he was not in pain."

The actor's son Luke Williamson, said his father was also survived by his wife, Jill Townsend.

From World Entertainment Network:

I have just stumbled across this thread by accident .... So many names I recognise Thanks El Loro

Thanks Baz. It was Brisket who started this thread. I would contribute to it from time to time and am carrying it on, partially as a small tribute to him. Generally, if I notice that someone connected with the world of film has died I make a posting here. If one of the major people has died, I would be more likely to create a thread for that person.

Zalman King has died from cancer at the age of 70. BBC article. Known for such films as Nine and a Half Weeks and Wild Orchid.

On the BBC website:

Bill Hinzman, star of cult zombie movie Night of the Living Dead, has died at the age of 75.

His big break came when he was working as an assistant cameraman on the film and director George Romero asked him to play a zombie in the opening sequence.

The actor died of cancer at his home in Pennsylvania on Sunday, his daughter Heidi Hinzman said.

She added that her father had asked to be cremated. "He always joked if he got buried he would come back," she said.

Fans called Hinzman "number one zombie" said producer Russ Streiner, who starred in a fight scene opposite Hinzman in Night of the Living Dead.

He also described how the actor had come to be cast in his famous role.

"We'd like to tell the story that it was a hard audition session but Bill was there and old enough and thin enough and he had an old suit," he said.

At the start of the 1968 movie, Hinzman is seen appearing at a Pennsylvania cemetery and attacking two young siblings by knocking the man's head against a tombstone and chasing his sister.

Hinzman went on to direct and star in the 1980s horror films The Majorettes and Flesheater.

A post on horror fan site Dreadcentral said: "We've lost another icon of the industry and, more importantly, one of the nicest and most genuine people we've ever had the chance of knowing."

On the BBC website:

Cinematographer Bruce Surtees, who worked on films including Dirty Harry and Beverly Hills Cop, has died aged 74, Variety has reported.

Surtees was best known for his work with Clint Eastwood. The pair made 14 films together, including The Outlaw Josey Wales and Escape from Alcatraz.

He was nominated for an Oscar for Lenny, the 1974 biopic of comedian Lenny Bruce starring Dustin Hoffman.

He also helped shoot such stars as John Wayne, Laurence Olivier and Tom Cruise.

Born in Los Angeles, Surtees followed in the footsteps of his father Robert, who worked on Ben-Hur and The Graduate and was nominated for cinematography Oscars 16 times.

His last screen credit came on the 2002 film Joshua, starring F Murray Abraham of Amadeus fame.

Posted yesterday on the BBC website:

British actress Patricia Medina, who made her name starring in Orson Welles' Mr Arkadin, has died aged 92.

The Liverpool-born star appeared in more than 50 films, including Botany Bay, with Alan Ladd, and Plunder of the Sun, opposite Glenn Ford.

She was married to US actor Joseph Cotten, who made his film debut in Welles' 1941 classic Citizen Kane. Cotten died in 1994.

She died of natural causes, a close friend told the Los Angeles Times.

The daughter of a Spanish father, Medina was famous for her dark, exotic looks. She began her career in England as a teenager, before moving to Hollywood after World War II.

At the time, she was married to British actor Richard Greene, who became famous playing the title role in the TV series, The Adventures of Robin of Hood.

They divorced in 1951 and the actress married Cotten in 1960.

Medina initially signed with MGM studios and went on to have leading roles in a string of films in the 1950s - sometimes up to seven movies a year.

Her film credits include Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion, Sangaree, with Fernando Lamas, and Phantom of the Rue Morgue, with Karl Malden.

In the 1960s she also appeared on television, featuring in Rawhide, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and The Man From Uncle.

Her autobiography, Laid Back in Hollywood, was published in 1998.

The Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes has died at the age of 83.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...tin-america-18081034

Most of the films he was connected with either from his books or his screenplay were Mexican. The film which he will be best remembered for outside Mexico was  Old Gringo (1989) which starred Jane Fonda and Jimmy Smits (from the LA Law television series). It also starred Gregory Peck as the writer Ambrose Bierce.

US actor Richard Lynch, a horror movie staple who employed his scarred face to play villainous characters, has died in Palm Springs, California aged 76.

The ex-Marine's films included 1973's Scarecrow, 1988's Little Nikita and Rob Zombie's 2007 remake of Halloween.

"Richard was great to work with and really gave it his all," the director wrote on his Facebook page.

Lynch's face was permanently scarred in 1967 when he took LSD and set himself on fire in New York's Central Park.

Born in New York in 1936, Lynch was a member of the famous Actors Studio and worked extensively on the stage.

He also appeared in numerous sci-fi TV series, among them Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Lynch's last role was in Zombie's upcoming film The Lords of Salem, due to be released later this year.

His body was discovered by a friend on Tuesday who had stopped by his house after not hearing from him in days.

NEW YORK — Andrew Sarris, a leading movie critic during a golden age for reviewers who popularized the French reverence for directors and inspired debate about countless films and filmmakers, died Wednesday. He was 83.

Sarris died at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan after complications developed from a stomach virus, according to his wife, film critic Molly Haskell.

Sarris was best known for his work with the Village Voice, his opinions especially vital during the 1960s and 1970s, when movies became films, or even cinema, and critics and fans argued about them the way they once might have contended over paintings or novels.

No longer was the big screen just entertainment. Thanks to film studies courses and revival houses, movies were analyzed in classrooms and cafes. Audiences discovered such foreign directors as Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman, rediscovered older works by Howard Hawks, John Ford and others from Hollywood, and welcomed new favorites such as Robert Altman and Martin Scorsese.

Filmmakers were heroes and critics were sages, including Sarris, Pauline Kael, Stanley Kauffmann and Manny Farber.

"Andrew Sarris was a vital figure in teaching America to respond to foreign films as well as American movies," fellow critic David Thomson said Wednesday. "As writer, teacher, friend and husband he was an essential. History has gone."

Sarris started with the Voice in 1960 and established himself as a major reviewer in 1962 with the essay "Notes on the Auteur Theory." Acknowledging the influence of French critics and even previous American writers, Sarris argued for the primacy of directors and called the "ultimate glory" of movies "the tension between a director's personality and his material."

He not only helped draw up the rules, but he filled in the names. He was a pioneer of the annual "Top 10" film lists that remain fixtures in the media. In 1968, he published "The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968," what Sarris described as "a collection of facts, a reminder of movies to be resurrected, of genres to be redeemed, of directors to be rediscovered." Among his favorites: Ford, Hawks, Orson Welles and Fritz Lang. Categorized as "Less Than Meets the Eye": John Huston, David Lean, Elia Kazan and Fred Zinnemann.

The critic himself would be criticized, especially by his enduring rival, Kael, a West Coast-based reviewer who in 1967 was hired by The New Yorker. In the 1963 essay "Circles and Squares," Kael mocked Sarris' ideas as vague and derivative, trivial and immature. She later wrote off the auteur theory as "an attempt by adult males to justify staying inside the small range of experience of their boyhood and adolescence."

Athough Kael herself went on to celebrate such directors as Altman and Brian De Palma, the two never reconciled and friends divided into "Sarristes" and "Paulettes." When Kael died, in 2001, Sarris acknowledged that they "never much liked each other" and added that he found her passing less upsetting than the demise days earlier of actress Jane Greer.

"The terms of the battles he fought for the films he loved have receded into the past – the rivalry with Pauline Kael that we saw as epic at the time, the campaigns on behalf of the auteur theory," Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern said Wednesday. "Yet Andrew's passion for films – and for his beloved Molly – remained undiminished, despite declining health. Indeed, in recent years his film love seemed to intensify as it grew ever more inclusive."

Kael aside, Sarris was greatly admired by his peers and even some directors. "Citizen Sarris," a collection of essays about the critic published in 2001, included contributions from critics Roger Ebert and Thomson, and from filmmakers Scorsese, John Sayles and Budd Boetticher. Scorsese, with whom Sarris briefly shared an office at New York University, praised him as "a fundamental teacher" and credited him for helping Scorsese "see the genius in American movies." A former student, "Superbad" director Greg Mottola, tweeted Wednesday that Sarris was an "inspirational film writer and teacher."

Sarris was a heavyset and sad-eyed man, a deeply knowledgeable, elegiac critic with a notable willingness to admit error. He dismissed Billy Wilder in 1968 as being "too cynical to believe even his own cynicism," then years later (with a nudge from Francois Truffaut) said he was wrong. After initially panning Stanley Kubrick's "2001: Space Odyssey," he gave the 1968 film another try – under different circumstances – in 1970.

"I must report that I recently paid another visit to Stanley Kubrick's `2001' while under the influence of a smoked substance that I was assured by my contact was somewhat stronger and more authentic than oregano on a King Sano (cigarette) base," he confided.

"Anyway, I prepared to watch `2001' under what I have always been assured were optimum conditions, and surprisingly (for me) I find myself reversing my original opinion. `2001' is indeed a major work by a major artist."

Sarris was born in Brooklyn in 1928, the son of a real estate investor who lost much of his fortune during the Great Depression. (Always broke but never poor, was how Sarris remembered his childhood.)

According to a family story, young Andrew was being pushed in a standing stroller when he dashed into a nearby movie house and had to be dragged out, screaming. "Womblike," was how Sarris later described his bond to the screen. As an undergraduate at Columbia University, he found himself edging away from campus and "ever deeper into the darkness of movie houses, not so much in search of a vocation as in flight from the laborious realities of careerism."

He called himself a "middle-class cultural guerrilla," an arsenal of ideas and emotions. "Novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poems slithered off my typewriter in haphazard spasms of abortive creation," he later wrote.

By the mid-1950s, he was absorbing the writings of the influential French journal Cahiers du Cinema, where contributors included such future directors as Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer. In 1960, he became the Village Voice's film critic, starting with a review of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," which he praised for "making previous horror films look like variations of `Pollyanna.'"

Sarris left the Voice in 1989 to write for the New York Observer, where he remained until he was laid off in 2009. In 2000, Sarris was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for criticism and in 2012 received a $10,000 prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for "progressive, original, and experimental" criticism. He was also a founding member of the National Society of Film Critics, wrote screenplays for the films "A Promise at Dawn" and "Justine" and worked as a story consultant for 20th Century Fox from 1955-65.

He was a longtime professor of film at Columbia University, and also taught at New York University and Yale University. His other books included "Politics and Cinema" and "The Primal Screen."

In 1969, Sarris married Haskell, a union Kael predicted wouldn't last. Haskell, who hopes to arrange a public memorial in the fall, said Wednesday that "he had a wonderful life" and that it was fitting he died near Columbia.

"He was never unhappy," she said. "He wanted to go on living as long as he could – watching movies and talking about movies and being with me."

I have a copy of Andrew Sarris's book "American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968". One of the great books on American directors and famed for his put down comments on directors such as Stanley Kubrick and Billy Wilder. Over the years he had changed his mind on these and regarded them more favourably than he did then.

On the news today:

Hollywood screenwriter and director Nora Ephron, who penned such films as When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle, has died at the age of 71.

Alfred P Knopf, Ephron's publisher, confirmed her death on Tuesday night in a statement.

Her son told the New York Times she died in Manhattan of complications relating to acute myeloid leukaemia.

The writer grew up in California, and started her career reporting for the New York Post.

"She brought an awful lot of people a tremendous amount of joy," her publisher said in a statement. "She will be sorely missed."

'Take notes'

Her 15 film credits also include You've Got Mail, Silkwood and Julie and Julia, which was her final film, in 2009.

She was nominated for an Oscar three times, but never won the award.

Ephron was born on 19 May 1941 in New York, to a Broadway playwright and a Hollywood screenwriter.

She put her mother's advice - "take notes, everything is copy" - to good effect, turning wry personal observations on relationships into hugely successful romantic comedies.

Ephron wrote essays for major US magazines from the late 1960s, as well as several non-fiction books, including two recent memoirs.

She was married three times, once to Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporter who helped uncover the Watergate scandal.

The marriage ended publicly when he began an affair with the wife of the then-British ambassador, Margaret Jay, who was also the daughter of former British Prime Minister James Callaghan.

Ephron's divorce from Bernstein resulted in a novel, Heartburn, which she turned into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

Her first marriage to writer Dan Greenburg ended in 1976.

Ephron's third marriage to Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote the screenplays for the Martin Scorsese films Goodfellas and Casino, lasted more than 20 years.

Rumours of her death circulated on Tuesday evening after her friend, celebrity columnist Liz Smith, published an online memorial.

Smith said the writer's son had informed her a funeral had been scheduled for his mother.

Ephron is survived by her husband and two sons.

She was the oldest of four sisters, all of whom became writers.

Reported on the BBC today:

Oscar-winning actor Ernest Borgnine, whose career spanned more than 60 years, has died, his spokesman has said.

He died of renal failure in a Los Angeles hospital with his family by his side, his spokesman, Harry Flynn, told the Associated Press.

Mr Borgnine, who was 95 years old, continued acting until recently with a role in the hospital drama ER in 2009.

He won an Oscar in 1955 for his role in the film Marty.

HIs family released a statement saying Borgnine "had been in excellent health until a recent illness".

Borgnine was also known for his roles in western The Wild Bunch and disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure.

His TV series McHale's Navy was also a major success in the United States. He is also remembered for his role as the jovial Dominic Santini in the 1980s series Airwolf.

The son of Italian immigrants, he was born Ermes Effron Borgnino on 24 January 1917 in Hamden, Connecticut. His parents later changed the family name to Borgnine.

He initially never considered a career in acting, serving in the US Navy after leaving high school in 1935.

It was only on the prompting of his mother than he enrolled in a drama school after the end of World War II.

After making his acting breakthrough in a Tennessee Williams' stageplay, The Glass Menagerie, Borgnine gained his first major film role in From Here to Eternity in 1953, playing a sadistic sergeant who beats up Frank Sinatra's character, Private Angelo Maggio.

Oscar

His trademark stocky build, gruff voice and leering grin led him to be frequently cast as the villain.

But he escaped the stereotype in 1955, landing an Oscar-winning lead role as a romantic New York butcher in the low-budget film Marty.

He went on to play character-acting roles in more than 60 films, including The Vikings (1958), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) and "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972).

Borgnine's work in later life included playing the voice of Mermaid Man on children's TV series SpongeBob SquarePants, as well as that of Carface on the animated film All Dogs Go to Heaven 2.

His personal life was turbulent at times, and included four failed marriages. One, to singer Ethel Merman, lasted barely a month.

"The Oscar made me a star, and I'm grateful," Borgnine said in 1966. "But I feel had I not won the Oscar, I wouldn't have gotten into the messes I did in my personal life."

However, his fifth marriage, to Norwegian-born businesswoman Tova Traesnaes in 1972, endured. He is survived by three children from two earlier marriages.

From the BBC:

Oscar-winning American actress Celeste Holm has died at the age of 95.

She made her name in the original Broadway production of the musical Oklahoma!, before moving on to Hollywood where she won an Oscar for her role in Gentlemen's Agreement.

Her other well-known films included The Tender Trap and High Society.

The actress's later years were marked by financial troubles and legal battles with her son over her fifth marriage, to a man 45 year her junior.

Relatives said she died at home in New York surrounded by friends and family.

TV series

Holm was born in New York and spent much of her life in her apartment on Central Park West, where she passed away on Sunday.

Her first major role Broadway role came in a 1940 revival of The Time of Your Life, co-starring fellow newcomer Gene Kelly, and in 1943 she earned wide recognition portraying Ado Annie in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma!

She moved on to Hollywood, winning the Academy Award in 1947 for best supporting actress for her performance in Gentlemen's Agreement. There were also Oscar nominations for Come to the Stable (1949) and All About Eve (1950).

But Holm's heart lay on the East Coast, and she returned to New York and the theatre after a few years in Hollywood.

She also appeared in numerous television series in the 1970s and 1980s, including Fantasy Island and Falcon Crest.

Later in life she was caught up in a bitter family legal battle that pitted her two sons against her and her much younger fifth husband, former waiter Frank Basile.

The court case over investments and inheritance wiped out much of Holm's savings and left her dependent on social security in her final years.

Sylvia Kristel has died - she was only 60 and had suffered from cancer for some years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19990457

She will be remembered for one film from 1974 which cost $500k and took about $100 million gross at the box office around the world.